Model Railroading > Walthers VTTX G85 Rebuilds

Walthers did a wonderful job on these VTTX G85 flatcar rebuild models. They have a lot of extra detail, and come with working flip up pedestals allow for the loading of either 40' or 20' containers. These will be a welcome addition to my BN intermodal trains, particularly trains 1 & 2 to and from Portland, OR
The General American built G85 85' flatcars were produced in the early 1960's for handling pairs of 35' trailers initially. But in the mid-60's when 40' trailer lengths were allowed, 89' flatcars superseded the 85' design. The nearly new G85 flatcars were modified to handle pairs of 40' trailers and continued in service. Again, when 45' trailers were approved of in the early 1980's, the G85 flatcars became surplus as trailer haulers. The container boom was just getting underway, and there was a real need for container cars. So the surplus G85 flatcars were quickly rebuilt by Trailer Train Corp to handle pairs of 40' containers or up to four 20' containers. The cars were common on intermodal trains throughout the 1980's and 1990's. But by the early 2000's TTX double stack car purchases were finally catching up with demand. The VTTX cars continued in dwindling numbers until retired by the 40 year rule.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Those VTTX are very nice.  I was tempted but my cut-off is about 1983 and IIRC, those were converted after that.  Those are sold out but If Walthers re-runs them, I may pick up a couple for a one-off late 80's intermodal trains since I still have several sets of the IMRC Twin Stacks and some Walthers Gunderson 5 car sets.

I think these are the first actual models of the VTTX cars I've seen. Everybody I know (including the four I ordered) were shorted to their dealers by Walthers. The other 85' cars are great, but I wonder what happened with the container cars.
steeplecab



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/20 23:32 by steeplecab.

steeplecab Wrote:
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> I think these are the first actual models of the
> VTTX cars I've seen. Everybody I know (including
> the four I ordered) were shorted to their dealers
> by Walthers. The other 85' cars are great, but I
> wonder what happened with the container cars.
> steeplecab

I wonder if it will be like the 60' VTTX cars, a few showed up with the majority of the 60' PS flatcars released, and everyone felt shorted, then the rest of the VTTX cars showed up a month or two later.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

From what I'm seeing, the only way you can not get shorted is to pre-order direct from Walthers before they "sell out" on their website.  AFAIK, nobody who did that got shorted.