Ztrack Goes Monon!

Ztrack and Full Throttle are excited to announce a special offer for Ztrack Subscribers! Uncle Will of Full Throttle has just completed a small and most wonderful run of hopper cars for Z scale hobbyists. The production has been sponsored by Ztrack Magazine and is a special offer to Ztrack subscribers only.

These 33 foot MONON Open, 2-Bay offset-side hopper models were manufactured with great details by Bowser Manufacturing and painted to a slight sheen inside and out and filled with custom Hay Bros. Garage coal loads. The printing, in several sized fonts, is immaculate, tiny and clean and features the neat, "Hoosier Line" logo. This MONON issue comes equipped with the new AZL Bettendorf trucks with blackened metal wheels and AutoLatch couplers.

The MONON Railroad (CIL, MON), known as the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railway from 1897-1956, operated almost entirely within the state of Indiana earning its name due to the convergence of its four main routes in Monon, Indiana. It derived its official paint schemes... red/white ,and black/gold from the six colleges and universities served by MONON's main line. The MONON was merged into the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N) in 1971 and much of the former MONON right of way is operated today by CSX Transportation.

Ztrack is offering these cars in sets of two cars or a four pack at a special price! Each set contains one black and one dark red Monon car. The sets and road numbers are:

Set I: Road numbers: CIL 4102, MON 41563
Set II: Road numbers: CIL 4124, MON 41566
Set III: All 4 cars from Sets I & II: 4 unique Road numbers

The offer is valid for Ztrack subscribers in good standing. To order your Ztrack exclusive Monon sets, please visit:

www.ztrack.com/special/monon/

This is a limited time offer. Supplies are limited.

Rob

First, thank you to everyone that has ordered the Ztrack subscriber Monon offset-side, two-bay hopper sets! Uncle Will has informed me that they should be arriving Monday. We will begin shipping as soon as they sets are here.

So why Monon? This is an interesting story. First, as you know, I like giving the mid sized roads some promotion. Though not as popular as the big names, these small roads make up our frieghts and add interest to our layouts. With this thought, we have offered DT&I and P&LE sets from Micro-Trains. We have been wanting to do a special run with Full Throttle but had not decided on a prototype.



About two months ago, I was doing research on Rail Pictures.net. I absolutely love this site (www.railpictures.net/). I found the above photo of a pair of Erie Lackawanna GP35s pulling a Monon two-bay offset side hopper. The photo was taken in Akron Ohio in 1976. Technically, the locos are actually Conrail but have not been painted over yet. For more information on this photo, please see: www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=263297&nseq=13

I immediately thought of Full Throttle and sent a copy of the photo to Uncle Will. I thought this may be a good car for a future release. Of course, Will was already ahead of me! Will had the cars in planning stage with both the black Monon and a red Monon. Wow! Well have a flurry of emails, we agreed to make this run a Ztrack subscriber special!

In doing subsequent research, Uncle Will and I found that the black Monon cars may have been repainted red CIL cars. We even found this photo from the Monon historical society (www.monon.org) showing a black two bay offset with the original CIL reporting marks still on red.



So put all of this information and inspired images together and we have a special run! I think you will agree that Full Throttle has done an excellent job at matching the prototype.

Rob Kluz

THE MONONs HAVE ARRIVED!



Full Throttle's Monon 2-bay, off-set hoppers have arrived in the Ztrack offices. For those Ztrack subscirber who pre-ordered their sets, we will begin shipping this week. If yo haven't your Exclusive Monon sets, sets are still available! To order, please visit:

www.ztrack.com/special/monon/index.html

I would also like to give a big thanks for Uncle Will. These cars are wonderful! Will has really captured the prototype beautifully! Thank you Full Throttle!

Rob

Rob, I know this hopper is from the 1930's, but when was this particular MONON logo used? Cheers, Jim CCRR:)

Jim,

Yes, the car dates from the 1930s, but as you see from the photos above, they ran will into the 1970s!

Here is an interesting graphic from the Monon.org historical site. It explains what the logo means:



Though I am not sure, they is some indication that the modern Monon look was developed in 1946 by the new president at that time, John Barriger.

You can find the history of the Monon at this link. The part about the Limestone is very interesting!

www.monon.org/history.html

Rob

Ztrack Subscribers... look inside your January/February issue of Ztrack for your Monon order forms! We are very excited over the response to these sets. Supplies are limited and over half or our allotted sets have been sent out.

As a reminder, these sets are only available to Ztrack Magazine subscribers. Not a Ztrack subscriber? Subscriber online, and order your sets all at the same time!

www.ztrack.com

Rob

The Monon two-bay hopper runs from Full Throttle have been extremely popular. Ztrack does have a few of these exclusive sets still available. These sets are nearly sold out, and once they are gone, they are gone! We have moved the remaining sets to Ztrack Center. To order, please visit:

www.ztrackcenter.com/special/

Rob