InterMountain - 68712-02 - Flatcar, 53 Foot AAR - Chesapeake & Ohio - 216630

Specific Item Information: Date: RPKD 5-59

Model Information: The AAR designed 53-foot flatcar was an extremely successful product as a prototype. Prior to the release of this tooling from InterMountain, the only model of this car was a few small runs of the GHQ/deLuxe Innovations with their 50 ton flatcar. The InterMountain model is the first large production model of this prototype. InterMountain offers three versions of the car: a 50-ton a 70-ton and a bulkhead car. The car features blackened metal wheels and body-mounted couplers. The couplers, however, are unfortunately not MTL models. The underframe is detailed and accurate and grab irons are separately applied detail parts (wire I suspect). The brake wheel is mounted on a wire pole for added durability (though on my sample car, the wheel had broken off the pole...) The stirrups are molded on, but nice and thin. The deck planks and rivet detail all show nicely. The print quality is high quality (as we have come to expect from most post-1990 models).

Prototype History: General Service 53'-6" flat cars were constructed with a welded fish-belly frame. The fish-belly frame provided an optimal distribution of tension and compression forces from the center of the car to the bolsters. In addition, fabricating a welded frame was less labor intensive than an equivalent riveted frame. The welded frame proved extremely durable holding up to really rugged service where the wood deck or the nail-able wood-steel deck would need to be replace couple of times during the life of most cars. These flats commonly found it's way into maintenance-of-way service because they were still in good shape beyond the AAR interchange car-age limit.

A number of builders constructed these flat cars such as the Pacific Car & Foundry (P.C. & F.), Marine Industries (Canada), Pullman-Standard, Bethelehem Steel, and including individual railroad car shops such as the Milwaukee Road and the Southern Pacific.

They were designated as FM by the AAR mechanical people. They carried anything bulky that can't be placed in box cars from tractors to finished lumber.

Road Name History: The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (reporting marks C&O, CO) was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town (and later city) of Huntington, West Virginia was named for him.

Tapping the coal reserves of West Virginia, the C&O's Peninsula Extension to new coal piers on the harbor of Hampton Roads resulted in the creation of the new City of Newport News. Coal revenues also led the forging of a rail link to the Midwest, eventually reaching Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo in Ohio and Chicago, Illinois.

By the early 1960s the C&O was headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. In 1972, under the leadership of Cyrus Eaton, it became part of the Chessie System, along with the Baltimore and Ohio and Western Maryland Railway. The Chessie System was later combined with the Seaboard Coast Line and Louisville and Nashville, both the primary components of the Family Lines System, to become a key portion of CSX Transportation (CSXT) in the 1980s. A substantial portion of Conrail was added in 1999.

C&O's passenger services ended in 1971 with the formation of Amtrak. Today Amtrak's tri-weekly Cardinal passenger train follows the historic and scenic route of the C&O through the New River Gorge in one of the more rugged sections of the Mountain State. The rails of the former C&O also continue to transport intermodal and freight traffic, as well as West Virginia bituminous coal east to Hampton Roads and west to the Great Lakes as part of CSXT, a Fortune 500 company which was one of seven Class I railroads operating in North America at the beginning of the 21st century.

At the end of 1970 C&O operated 5067 miles of road on 10219 miles of track, not including WM or B&O and its subsidiaries.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: InterMountain was founded in 1985 by Fred Brummet. They got started in the model railroad business by producing O-Scale model kits. They got started in the N Scale business almost a decade later when in 1994 they introduced the 40-23 reefer car in kit form. Later, in 1998, they started producing RTR (Ready-to-Run) models. By the early 2000s, InterMountain phased out kit production in favor of the RTR models.

The InterMountain Railway company is located at 1224 Boston Ave in Longmont, CO. They are a manufacturer of HO, N and Z scale model trains. They have produced kits as well as RTR (Ready-To-Run) models. Their N Scale products include locomotives as well as rolling stock. Their rolling stock lineup includes Boxcars, Hoppers, Tank Cars, Reefers, Gondolas, Stock Cars and Flatcars.

Their locomotive releases have primarily been diesel units, with the one major exception being their series of AC-12 Cab Forward steam locos. Their diesel lineup includes F3's, F7's, F9's, SD40's, SD45's and FT units. They are known for quality and detail. They also release their rolling stock in larger varieties of road numbers than most of the other manufacturers.