New Haven Heavyweights - New Models Coming

This is one of the projects that has been taking up much of my modeling time...

For those who didn't make it to the New England/Northeast Prototype Modelers Meet, Chris Zygmunt and I were substituting for John Greene of Bethlehem Car Works who couldn't be there. Part of the reason we're involved is that we are working on several new kits with John, that we hope to have in stock by the NHRHTA Reunion on September 10.

The first group of cars are the Deluxe Coaches, Smokers, and Combine.

These are based around the Branchline Pullman core, so assembling the kits will be very similar to building a Branchline (now Atlas) car. 

Yep, many of these heavyweights received McGinnis colors.

This is 8113, one of the Deluxe (or De Luxe) coaches.

Some of them ran into the mid-'60s.

Smoker 6824 was converted from one of the Deluxe Coaches and utilizes the same plan.

Smoker 6813 is one of a second class of Deluxe smokers.

This is a different plan, with only a men's lavatory and saloon.

In addition, there is a Deluxe Baggage and Smoker based on the same design.

These have never been available in HO scale at all, plastic or brass, to the best of my knowledge, and the available kits will cover the life of the cars.

This includes new trucks that will be an upgrade over the Labelle white metal castings (formerly Bethlehem Car Works, formerly Cape Line). In addition, we are producing the trucks after they were modified starting c1948 with the removal of the top equalizers and the addition of drop equalizers. These have also never been available in any form.

The trucks will be available separately.

We also hope to have another run of the excellent 15' Apartment Baggage & Mail cars at Essex to supplement these cars.