N Scale Kits - NS145 Kit - PRR FD2 'Queen Mary' - Pennsylvania

Specific Item Information: When it was built in April 1951, the Pennsylvania Railroad's single class FD2 flatcar was the largest freight car in the world, and although it never bore the name officially, it was known universally as the 'Queen Mary'. The use of such a giant freightcar was to haul heavy power generating equipment, specifically fully assembled turbo-generators from the General Electric/Westinghouse plants to power plants across the US and into Canada too. Most of the manufacturers of such heavy equipment in the United States at that time resided in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, on PRR tracks, and the railroad intended to capture such lucrative traffic. The FD2 'Queen Mary' was repainted in green and renumbered to 766196 after the creation of the Penn Central, and then transferred to Conrail, where it was active for some years. It was taken out of service in 1996 and presented to the Railroad City Museum, Altoona, where it is still extant. The trucks for this car [four in total] were taken from the PRR T1 loco tenders and are an important feature of this car. We strongly suggest using the Shapeways 3D printed trucks to run this car.

Road Name History: The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR) was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy," the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The PRR was the largest railroad by traffic and revenue in the U.S. for the first half of the twentieth century. Over the years, it acquired, merged with or owned part of at least 800 other rail lines and companies. At the end of 1925, it operated 10,515 miles of rail line; in the 1920s, it carried nearly three times the traffic as other railroads of comparable length, such as the Union Pacific or Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads. Its only formidable rival was the New York Central (NYC), which carried around three-quarters of PRR's ton-miles.

At one time, the PRR was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world, with a budget larger than that of the U.S. government and a workforce of about 250,000 people. The corporation still holds the record for the longest continuous dividend history: it paid out annual dividends to shareholders for more than 100 years in a row.

In 1968, PRR merged with rival NYC to form the Penn Central Transportation Company, which filed for bankruptcy within two years. The viable parts were transferred in 1976 to Conrail, which was itself broken up in 1999, with 58 percent of the system going to the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), including nearly all of the former PRR. Amtrak received the electrified segment east of Harrisburg.

Brand/Importer Information: N Scale Kits manufacture and sell the widely admired Alan Curtis model range [AC Models and Andersley Models]. Their focus is the intermodal and flatcar kits originally produced by Alan Curtis and AC Models. All cars are manufactured in lead free pewter.

N Scale Kits is located at Minster Chambers, Church Street, Southwell Nottinghamshire, England NG25 0HD.