I’ve devoted a considerable amount of ink to my recent HO purchases lately, but not so much with the N scale. It’s not that I’ve stopped buying N scale rolling stock—I haven’t. To me, the novelty of HO hasn’t worn off yet. Patience, please!

My N scale purchases have tapered off, but I’m still making strategic acquisitions in certain areas, such as mail and express trains. My interest in them probably stretches all the way back to Dad’s American Flyer 718 Mail Pick-up Car. Scooping up and launching little plastic mail bags under the Christmas tree with that thing was one of my favorite holiday pastimes.

Interesting animals, mail and express trains. Technically, they’re passenger trains. They ran on passenger schedules, with passenger-rated equipment, and even carried a few actual passengers. But they were also freight trains. They made the money on cargo, not people. They weren’t promoted to the public, or washed. Because they lack the inherent sexiness of a colorful postwar streamliner, they tend to be underrepresented on model railroads. They tended to be a chaotic mix of older equipment with no regard for asthetics, which might explain why I’m so fascinated by them.

It’s easy to overlook the sheer variety of rolling stock that went into these trains. In addition to Railway Post Office cars, there were various types of baggage-car derivatives (mail-storage cars, express baggages, horse transports), express refrigerators, and specially-equipped boxcars for express use. Until recently, most of this nuance has been out of reach for N scalers, but that’s changing. We now have products from Micro-Trains, Atlas, Wheels of Time, and other manufacturers to assemble a credible train with. I’ve been picking up appropriate items at shows over the past few years.

At last January’s big Amherst show, I lucked out: a vendor had the new Micro-Trains Express Mail Train runner pack. This set had been announced almost two years before, and I’d assumed that it had already come and gone, but it appears that some supply-chain issues pushed back the release date. I hastily thanked the train gods as I reached for my wallet. The pack has a heavyweight RPO, five express baggage cars, a coach, and a passenger-equipped X29 boxcar. Except for the boxcar, I don’t think these are Pennsy-specific cars, but at the very least they’re very good (and convenient) stand-ins.

I do have some Pennsy-specific items—or I will, once they’re made ready. My brass R50b express reefer now has paint, but still needs the decals. I scored an unassembled resin B60b baggage car kit at Altoona last year, which is currently hidden behind a stack of blue Athearn boxes. With its porthole windows and monitor roof, it’s the quintessential Pennsy head-end car. I’m still on the lookout for a B70a theatrical scenery car. The Pennsy had a number of them, all named for plays, playwrights, and operas. One of them was the only piece of rolling stock in America that said “Faust” on the side.