Micro-Trains - 125 53 081 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay Ortner Rapid Discharge - Amtrak - 11508

Specific Item Information: Only available as part of 4-pack. Used to maintain Amtrak’s right of way, these cars are painted bright orange denoting Maintenance of Way service, and often carries ballasts used during track upgrades and maintenance or railroad ties replaced during track upgrades and maintenance.

Prototype History: Ortner's team of engineers created the rapid-discharge door system in the early 1960s.. Ortner rapid discharge cars are designed primarily for handling aggregates. They are the best car on the market for this type of commodity. The 60 degree slopes sheets provide for a fast clean unloading of commodities like sand and gravel without using a car shaker. Unfortunately the ARR the gravel season only lasts 4-5 months due to the weather. These cars have a cubic capacity of only about 2,000 cubic feet (plus or minus 10%). So they only can handle 60-65 tons of coal when used in coal service in the winter as much of the ARR fleet started doing when the Seward coal move started. But they weigh nearly as much as a standard hopper so they are not very efficient cars for coal handling.

These cars have long platforms on the ends and a relatively short car body. This is a major pain for loading in motion like is done with the Usibelli tipple and the current gravel terminals in Anchorage. It is really easy to start the loading early or end late in trying to fill the car as full as possible and spilling material on the end platforms. Unloading a train of rapid discharge cars takes 30 minutes to an hour as opposed to four hours or longer for other unloading systems.

Road Name History: The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak, is a passenger railroad service that provides medium- and long-distance intercity service in the contiguous United States. Founded in 1971 through the government-sponsored consolidation of most of the remaining U.S. passenger rail companies, it is partially government-funded yet operated and managed as a for-profit corporation.

Amtrak operates more than 300 trains each day on 21,300 miles (34,000 km) of track with select segments having civil operating speeds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and connecting more than 500 destinations in 46 states in addition to three Canadian provinces. In fiscal year 2015, Amtrak served 30.8 million passengers and had $2.185 billion in revenue, while employing more than 20,000 people. Nearly two-thirds of passengers come from the 10 largest metropolitan areas; 83% of passengers travel on routes shorter than 400 miles. Its headquarters is at Union Station in Washington, D.C.

The name "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "trak", the latter itself a sensational spelling of "track".

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Micro-Trains is the brand name used by both Kadee Quality Products and Micro-Trains Line. For a history of the relationship between the brand and the two companies, please consult our Micro-Trains Collector's Guide.

Manufacturer Information: Micro-Trains Line split off from Kadee Quality Products in 1990. Kadee Quality Products originally got involved in N-Scale by producing a scaled-down version of their successful HO Magne-Matic knuckle coupler system. This coupler was superior to the ubiquitous 'Rapido' style coupler due to two primary factors: superior realistic appearance and the ability to automatically uncouple when stopped over a magnet embedded in a section of track. The success of these couplers in N-Scale quickly translated to the production of trucks, wheels and in 1972 a release of ready-to-run box cars.

Micro-Trains Line Co. split off from Kadee in 1990 to form a completely independent company. For this reason, products from this company can appear with labels from both enterprises. Due to the nature of production idiosyncrasies and various random factors, the rolling stock from Micro-Trains can have all sorts of interesting variations in both their packaging as well as the products themselves. When acquiring an MTL product it is very important to understand these important production variations that can greatly enhance (or decrease) the value of your purchase.

Please consult our Micro-Trains Collector's Guide