I am curious if the above companies ever produced the 1 1/2 door boxcar, do not know if this was a 40' or 50' and a GS 40' drop bottom gondola?
Recently looking through some old issue's of MR from the early 1970's, of coarse first run sent to me via U.S. Mail in the 1970's.
Remeber these cars were "future releases".
Seem to recall, in the new proudcts section of MR in one issue, have not found in the issues, which I have, that there was indeed a plastic HO Scale GS Drop Bottom shown, by TM?
Anybody?
I do not recall a Train Miniature door and a half boxcar, but they offered so many variations on their boxcar tooling between the various iterations of the Train Minuature firm itself that I cannot rule it out.
THe HO Seeker website is the place to do when researching older lines of equipment. Their Train Miniature price lists do show a drop bottom gon but I myself have no recollection of it and there is no photo or set of instructions for it on HO Seeker that I can find.
http://hoseeker.net/TrainMiniatureslist/tmlist1975pg1.jpg
Dave Nelson
I suspect they're vaporware. The old TM stuff went to Walthers years ago. I don't recall seeing anything like that along the way. I don't recall any 50' boxcars from TM???
It shouldn't be too hard to bash to get an extra 1/2 door on one of the TM boxcars, though.
Detail Associates produced plastic kits for GS gons in both all steel and composite versions back then, so might be what you're thinking of with that. They're a bit more advanced in skill level needed than the TM stuff.
The go-to GS gon in the HO market is the Red Caboose version, now made by InterMountain, donw the page at this link:
http://www.intermountain-railway.com/distrib/redcaboose/redcabooseho.html
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Take a look at Accurail, and Bowser, they may have 1-1/2 door cars
http://www.accurail.com/accurail/
http://www.bowser-trains.com/
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Plastic drop-bottom gondolas are available from Walthers (a composite car), Intermountain (composite-type, with the kit materials being wood where appropriate and styrene to represent the steel parts) and all-steel (plastic) ones from Red Caboose.
Here's one of the Walther's cars:
...and a look inside:
This is the Intermountain gondola:
...this is its interior:
Here's the Red Caboose car:
...and its interior:
As you can see from the interior shots, the first two cars are actually drop-door cars, while only the Red Caboose car is a true drop-bottom one.
To the best of my knowledge, neither Train Miniature, nor any of its successors ever made a gondola of any type.
As for door-and-a-half cars, resin kits like those from Westerfield or F&C are the only kits of which I'm aware.
Accurail's so-called 9-panel single sheathed boxcars can be made into door-and-a-half cars by using the doors offered by The Standard Car Company (part of New England Rail Service). You get four half-doors in each package, plus door track and hardware. One pair has the door bracing matching that of the Accurail cars, while the other has the correct bracing, and brace details if you wish to alter the Accurail door to be more prototypical:
This is one with the stock Accurail door and half-door to match...
...while this one has been modified...
...and you can use any suitable door to make their 7-panel car into a doubledoor type:
I made this Train Miniature plug door car into a door-and-a-half car by altering four stock doors to make them taller, re-working the door tracks suitably, then segmenting one pair to create the half-doors:
...when I back-dated my layout, the car was re-done, too:
Another former plug door car:
You can also make the TM cars into doubledoor ones, although the bottom door tracks, like Athearn's, should be lowered:
Here's a TM car under construction. I altered the original incorrect sidesills to become part of the sheathing, then added new sills. The doors are from Bowser:
Here's the car shown above in service:
This TM doublesheathed car was modified similar to the preceding one, but uses a standard Tichy door and the other half-door from the set meant to match Accurail doors:
The Train Miniature cars are among my favourites because they're so easily modified.
Wayne