Micro-Trains - 994 01 060 - Gondola, 50 Foot, Steel - White City Terminal - 17010

Prototype History: In US railroad terminology, a gondola is an open-topped rail vehicle used for transporting loose bulk materials. Because of their low side walls, gondolas are also suitable for the carriage of such high-density cargoes as steel plates, steel coils, and bulky items such as prefabricated sections of rail track. For weather-sensitive loads, these gondolas are often equipped with covers.

All-steel gondolas date back to the early part of the 20th century. However, most of the early ones were shorter and used 40' designs. The ubiquitous 50' steel gondola we see modeled so often today are typical of railcars produced since the end of the second world war. In the late 1940s, steel became once again readily available and new, longer gondolas were produced to transport material for America's booming economy. Generally, these 50 foot cars have a capacity of 70 tons and were actually 52'6" long. The first models of this design were produced by the Erie Railroad and the Greenville Steel Car Co, but nearly identical cars were produced by Pullman, ACF and Bethlehem.

Road Name History: This 13 mile shortline was built in 1954 to run from White City, Oregon to a connection with Southern Pacific just north of Medford. For the first 20 years, they operated under the name White City Terminal & Utility. In 1974, the line was bought by Union Tank Car Line (UTLX) who changed the name to WCTU Railway (with WCTR reporting marks.) UTLX used the WCTR as a home road for leasing thousands of (non-tank) cars. WCTR parent UTLX had been acquired by Berkshire Hathaway who then purchased an energy company in Iowa that had its own common carrier shortline. When Berkshire Hathaway then purchased BNSF, it dawned on them that they now owned three common carriers without first obtaining federal approval. To prevent this development from collapsing their BNSF deal, BH quickly accepted an offer from CN engineer Scott DeVries to buy the WCTR. DeVries then reorganized the company as the Rogue Valley Terminal Railroad in 2013.

Brand/Importer 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.