recently purchased a bachmann plus union pacific diner, item no; 13054, n scale, would like to know if still on general sale. regards, challenger
I haven't seen new "shorty" heavyweights for some time. They may be about 10years old. You have a real find.
IIRC the cars are lighted with a truck mounted tab over the axles. You may find the tabs create too much drag. Bending the tabs can help some.
Currently, those cars are out of production. You can still find them at shows, on FeePay and some dealers do have them as NOS. Originally,
B-mann issued them in PRR and ATSF. Later, when
B-personn did the PLUS series, they appeared in B&O, NYC, UP, GN and maybe one or two others.
Bachpersonn issued three car types: combine, coach and open deck observation. The prototypes for these cars are C&NW commuter cars. The coach and combine actually existed. The observation is simply a coach with one vestibule cut out and replaced with a deck. Funny, Bachmann never sold these in Northwestern. The 'diner' is actually a coach with 'diner' printed on it.
There has been much clamour for B-mann to re-issue these, especially since the appearance of the MDC/Athearn 2-8-0 and 2-6-0 and Model Power 4-4-0 and 2-6-0. As the aforementioned power has appeared in numerous roads, perhaps B-mann will issue some cars in those roads.