Con-Cor - 0001-602008 - Maintenance of Way, Wrecking Crane, North America - Burlington Northern - X-202A, X-202B

Model Information: This model was first introduced by Roco in the 1970s and imported by AHM, Con-Cor and Model Power. The model can be packaged as just the crane, or the crane with a supplementary car. The supplementary car can be an ersatz caboose, boom car (modified flat) or basic flat car.

Prototype History: A complete wreck train consisted of a locomotive, a wreck crane, tool cars, and enough bunk and cook cars for personnel required for a particular wreck. Wreck cranes and tool cars were often stationed at strategic points along the railway line. Division terminals were considered strategic points because locomotives and engine, train, and wreck car crews were always available on call. Wreck train equipment had to be prepared for immediate movement. Ties, rails, spikes, and other repair materials are stockpiled at various points. An emergency supply of such items were also loaded in suitable cars and held with each wrecker as part of the wreck train.

A wreck train, or “relief train” as the railroads preferred to call them used a huge piece of equipment built by companies such as Brownhoist. A typical wrecking crane was powered by twin diesel engines with a 500,000 pound capacity. This crane could easily lift an entire Reading T-1 steam locomotive. At 191-tons, it is a very heavy piece of equipment. It easily outweighs an Alco C630!

Road Name History: The Burlington Northern Railroad (reporting mark BN) was a United States railroad. It was a product of a March 2, 1970, merger of four major railroads - the Great Northern Railway, Northern Pacific Railway, Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad - as well as a few small jointly owned subsidiaries owned by the four.

Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1996.

Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroading with the chartering in 1848 of the Chicago and Aurora Railroad, a direct ancestor line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, which lends Burlington to the names of various merger-produced successors.

Burlington Northern purchased the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway on December 31, 1996 to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (later renamed BNSF Railway), which was owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation.*

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Con-Cor has been in business since 1962. Many things have changed over time as originally they were a complete manufacturing operation in the USA and at one time had upwards of 45 employees. They not only designed the models,but they also built their own molds, did injection molding, painting, printing and packaging on their models.

Currently, most of their manufacturing has been moved overseas and now they import 90% of their products as totally finished goods, or in finished components. They only do some incidental manufacturing today within the USA.

Important Note: The Con-Cor product numbering can be very confusing. Please see here in the article how to properly enter Con-Cor stock numbers in the TroveStar database.

Manufacturer Information: The company was founded in 1960 by Ing. Heinz Rössler and started with a plastic Minitanks series of military vehicles. After export to the USA became successful, the model line was expanded with model trains in HO scale and the smaller N scale. TT scale was also subsequently added to the product line. The model rail product line covers many European countries including Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands, and also the USA.

On July 15, 2005 ROCO Modellspielwaren GmbH was declared bankrupt. From July 25 the company continues as Modelleisenbahn GmbH, but still uses the Roco brand and associated logo. On October 1, 2007, distribution of the 'Minitank' product series was assigned to the German model car manufacturer Herpa.

Since February 2008 Modelleisenbahn also owns Fleischmann, which like Roco had gone bankrupt. The two companies continue as separate brands under Modelleisenbahn GmbH, while benefiting from economies of scale through joined development projects, marketing and procurement.

From Wikipedia