Micro-Trains - 451 47 320 - Trailer, 45 Foot, Box - Conrail - 235354

Specific Item Information: Conrail Clean Trailer 4-pk: The Conrail Trailvan service was Conrail’s North American intermodal brand, and in the 1980s and 1990s, these trailers could be found in intermodal service nationwide. New York Central merged with its rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad, in 1968 to form Penn Central, which went bankrupt two years later and was merged into Conrail in 1976.

Model Information: The trailers come with two styles of landing gear. The short landing gear is in elevated position when being hauled by tractors or carried on a flat car (supplied as separate part in the box). The longer extended landing gear is used when the trailer is standing alone (installed by default).
Rolling wheels.
The model can be super-detailed by painting the inside of the wheels, brake and running lights, as well as the mud flats in order to bring out the Fruehauf name and star.

Prototype History: A box trailer is one of the most common trailers in the road transport industry. These trailers are used for transporting all kinds of cargo on the nation's highways.

A 45 foot trailer can typically haul more than 70,000 pounds of cargo and weighs (unladen) about 12,000 pounds. The volume allows for about60 retail sized (48" x 20") pallets. Alternatively, it can hail about 30 Military ISO containers at (35" x 45.5"). This sized trailer is often used for international shipping in North America (Canada and Mexico).

Road Name History: The Consolidated Rail Corporation, commonly known as Conrail (reporting mark CR), was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeast U.S. between 1976 and 1999. Conrail is a portmanteau of "consolidated" and "rail" from the name of the company.

The U.S. federal government created Conrail to take over the potentially profitable lines of multiple bankrupt carriers, including the Penn Central Transportation Company and Erie Lackawanna Railway. With the benefit of industry-wide regulatory requirements being reduced (via the 4R Act and the Staggers Act), Conrail began to turn a profit in the 1980s and was turned over to private investors in 1987. The two remaining Class I railroads in the East, CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), agreed in 1997 to split the system approximately equally, returning rail freight competition to the Northeast by essentially undoing the 1968 merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central Railroad that created Penn Central. Following Surface Transportation Board approval, CSX and NS took control in August 1998, and on June 1, 1999, began operating their portions of Conrail.

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