MTH Premier Shay W/ Whistle Steam and Skeleton Log Cars Review

The MTH Premier Line Skeleton Log cars were announced along with the Premier Line Shays; as Shays were often used in logging service. The log cars came in several road names, and were offered in 6 car sets; The details on these cars are not bad, but certainly showing the age of their tooling. Now, the reason I have for discussing these cars: The couplers. On several of my cars, the couples do not open, or only open with such force it derails the truck before you have the coupler open, while others open smoothly with a light tap on the release button. Normally MTH rolling stock has superb coupler quality in all of my experience, so this is very odd, and worth noting in my opinion, as it can make using these cars a bit of a troublesome experience.

Now, moving on to the main attraction, the Shay. First off, these are expensive pieces, with these 3-truck versions retailing at $1350, and the 4-truck versions retailing for $1400.

You’ll notice that I have my shay pushing a string of coal hoppers; as I said, often times shays were used in logging service; But not all. The model we have here is Western Maryland Shay No. 6, the last Shay built, and used by the Western Maryland Railway for moving coal, not logs.

(Re-upload with corrected color space settings)