Micro-trains has announced a 5 car set of their N-scale heavyweight passenger cars lettered for Frisco. Pre-orders close June 30. Delivery is November 2024. The image below is from their monthly release e-mail. The website was undergoing maintenance last I checked. The set is a baggage car, three paired window coaches, and a business car with a balloon roof. I cannot tell car numbers from this image. Hopefully it will be better on the website. I wish Micro-Trains had decided to make some of the sleepers turned coaches or even some of the Frisco owned Pullmans acquired in 1948. An example of one of a sleeper turned coach is like my model of coach SLSF 1809. But, I will not complain too much about having additional Frisco cars to run. Paul
Paul, You beat me again! haha The car numbers are: Clerestory roof baggage car - SLSF 348 Clerestory roof paired-window coaches - SLSF 1060, 1063, 1097 Balloon roof business car - SLSF 8 Business car SLSF 8 ran from 1948-1954, then became business car “Arkansas” before retirement in May 1959.
Micro Trains based their model on a Great Northern (GN) heavyweight baggage car. As for the image itself, it always looks off because they keep the truck placement the same as the coaches, etc. rather than center them over the bolsters on the baggage cars. This is only in promotional artwork - the final model is proportionate.
Since we do not have the dimensions for the Great Northern baggage car, we are limited to the Micro-Trains’ number, 348, for our prototype discussion; this is the result. Full-baggage car 348 was one of twenty-five cars built by Pullman, Lot 3540, during 1908. Cars 337-361 were 60’-9.5” over the end sills, and they weighed 104,700 lbs. As was typical of Frisco baggage cars, they had different sized doors, i.e., two, 8’-0" doors, and two, 4’-6” doors. They had “monitor”, Frisco-speak for clerestory, roofs. During 1938, the Frisco rebuilt some of the cars into two subclasses. During October of that year, the folks at the West Shops rebuilt car 341 by increasing the length to 70'-9.5”, increasing the 4'-6" door to 5"-0", and by adding a round roof. During November, the shop forces rebuilt five more of the class. Cars 337, 342, 353, 355, and 360 were lengthened to 70’-0", the door 4'-6" opening was increased to 5'-0", and the monitor roof was replaced with a round roof. During April 1951, the five cars were back in the shops for “modification", i.e., the addition of messenger facilities. Car 341 followed suit during June 1951. Car 348 remained a 60-foot car with a monitor roof.
