Con-Cor - Limited Edition Set #16 / 8406 - Passenger Train, Diesel, North American, Transition Era - Missouri-Kansas-Texas - 8-Unit

Specific Item Information: Limited Edition Set #16 Katy Wabash "Texas Special": 2 diesel locomotives with 6 corrugated cars.
The set in incorrectly label "Wabash", where it should be "Frisco" (SLSF). The locomotives are wearing heralds for MKT & Frisco, and cars reporting marks from either Katy or Frisco.

- 2 Diesel Locomotive E8 (no #), one powered, one dummy, "The Texas Special"
- Combine car MKT (no #)
- Dome car SLSF (no #)
- Coach car SLSF "Olivette"
- Coach car MKT "David G. Burnett"
- Coach car MKT "J. Pinckney Henderson"
- Observation car MKT "Stephen F. Austin"

Set also contains:
- 2 side MKT "Katy" map and timeable

Series Information: Con-Cor "Limited Edition Sets" or "Limited Edition Collector's Sets" were started after requests to 'custom paint' replicas of great passenger trains of the past. As these sets were very limited in quantity, many were sold out before they got to the retailer. While the quality of painting varied from time to time, they are a handsome addition to any collection and impressive on a layout.
With the exception of the first set, all were furnished in a wood-grained cardboard box with colored foam storage insert. For some sets, the manufacturer furnished additional cars or add-on sets.
The number of the set in the series is not printed on the box, but a listing was kept by Con-Cor and available as print-out in the most recent sets or on the (former) Con-Cor website.
Sets #1 to #13 were without stock number; stock numbers have been assigned and printed on the side label starting with set #14.

The wood-grained cardboard box has been used for other sets called "Special Edition Set" by Con-Cor, that only received a regular stock number, but were not accounted in the "Limited Edition Set" collection.

Prototype History: The transition era (1939 - 1957) was the heyday for passenger rail. The industrial boom triggered by the second world war created tremendous capacity for production which was no longer needed for war production. The North American factories turned to consumer goods and services and the rail system was a major recipient of this ouput.

The interstate highways system as we know it now was still a thing of the future and long distance travel by highway was simply not practical and aircraft travel was still a luxury for the well-to-do. People traveled the country by rail and there was a huge variety of railroads and services available to the traveler. Innovation was constant, and the materials and machinery employed by the railroads was evolving as fast as the engineers could think of new things to entice the fickle consumer to ride a particular route or particular service.

This all came to an end when the automobile and airplane replaced the passenger train as the preferred vehicles of transportation in the 1960s.

Road Name History: The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (reporting mark MKT) is a former Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railway, Southern Branch, it came to serve an extensive rail network in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. In 1988, it merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad and is now part of Union Pacific Railroad.

In its earliest days the MKT was commonly referred to as "the K-T", which was its stock exchange symbol; this common designation soon evolved into "the Katy".

The Katy was the first railroad to enter Texas from the north through Denison, Texas. Eventually the Katy's core system would grow to link Parsons, Fort Scott, Junction City, Olathe, and Kansas City, Kansas; Kansas City, Joplin, Jefferson City, and St. Louis, Missouri; Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Temple, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Galveston, Texas. An additional mainline between Fort Worth and Salina, Kansas, was added in the 1980s after the collapse of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad; this line was operated as the Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas Railroad (OKKT).

At the end of 1970, MKT operated 2623 miles of road and 3765 miles of track.

From 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.