I know it's a LONG shot, but here goes.....
Recently I scored two sets (4 cars) of HO scale subway/metro cars replicating the equipment on the San Juan Puerto Rico "Tren Urbano" operated by ATI, the transit authority for San Juan. These are beautiful models, in married pairs with one car powered. They have full interiors, sharp and attractive (and 100% accurate) pad-printed graphics, and are made by the German firm Halling. For those not familiar with "Tren Urbano", it is a 10.6 mile heavy-rail metro system with 16 stations that opened in 2004. It is a "turnkey build/operate" system (i.e. one firm bids on all aspects of the system, supplies their own sub-contractors and operates the system for a given period of time - in this case 5 years) that was completed by Seimens Transportation Systems. The cars are very attractive 75 foot long stainless-steel units, 3 sets of double pocket doors per side, with AC propulsion and ATO. They are configured similar to LA's Red Line Metro cars in design and appearance.
I stumbled across them completely by accident at a German hobby site, and arranged to buy them and have them shipped here. I was told that the models were made strictly as presentation sets for Seimens employees who worked on the project and were not made available to the general public. I was also told that it was a complete fluke that the two sets I bought were even available. I have no idea when the models were produced (sometime between 1999, when the project began, and now). The boxes they came in, while well illustrated and extremely attractive, with pictures, line drawings ans specs of the actual cars, give no manufacture dates, serial numbers, etc. for the models.
After exhaustive searches of the internet, including numerous world-wide hobby sites and even the German eBay site, it's beginning to look like this may be the case. I cannot find any reference to these models anywhere. The manufacturer, Halling, makes no reference to these models on their site. I was told by the people I bought them from that my only/best hope to locate more sets was to scour the internet and see if perhaps any of the Seimens employees who were given these models were looking to divest themselves of them.
Has anyone ever seen these models besides me, and know of a source of them? I would really like to build a layout based upon this system and at the very least, a module featuring the yard and shops where the trains are serviced/stored.
Any leads/help would be appreciated. Like I said, I know it's a long shot, but I figure that if anyone knows about these models, it would be the patrons of Railroad.Net!
Many Thanks!
Mike S.
Recently I scored two sets (4 cars) of HO scale subway/metro cars replicating the equipment on the San Juan Puerto Rico "Tren Urbano" operated by ATI, the transit authority for San Juan. These are beautiful models, in married pairs with one car powered. They have full interiors, sharp and attractive (and 100% accurate) pad-printed graphics, and are made by the German firm Halling. For those not familiar with "Tren Urbano", it is a 10.6 mile heavy-rail metro system with 16 stations that opened in 2004. It is a "turnkey build/operate" system (i.e. one firm bids on all aspects of the system, supplies their own sub-contractors and operates the system for a given period of time - in this case 5 years) that was completed by Seimens Transportation Systems. The cars are very attractive 75 foot long stainless-steel units, 3 sets of double pocket doors per side, with AC propulsion and ATO. They are configured similar to LA's Red Line Metro cars in design and appearance.
I stumbled across them completely by accident at a German hobby site, and arranged to buy them and have them shipped here. I was told that the models were made strictly as presentation sets for Seimens employees who worked on the project and were not made available to the general public. I was also told that it was a complete fluke that the two sets I bought were even available. I have no idea when the models were produced (sometime between 1999, when the project began, and now). The boxes they came in, while well illustrated and extremely attractive, with pictures, line drawings ans specs of the actual cars, give no manufacture dates, serial numbers, etc. for the models.
After exhaustive searches of the internet, including numerous world-wide hobby sites and even the German eBay site, it's beginning to look like this may be the case. I cannot find any reference to these models anywhere. The manufacturer, Halling, makes no reference to these models on their site. I was told by the people I bought them from that my only/best hope to locate more sets was to scour the internet and see if perhaps any of the Seimens employees who were given these models were looking to divest themselves of them.
Has anyone ever seen these models besides me, and know of a source of them? I would really like to build a layout based upon this system and at the very least, a module featuring the yard and shops where the trains are serviced/stored.
Any leads/help would be appreciated. Like I said, I know it's a long shot, but I figure that if anyone knows about these models, it would be the patrons of Railroad.Net!
Many Thanks!
Mike S.
Last edited by fl9m2026 on Sun Jul 13, 2008 11:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"You're so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece! Did your parents have any children that lived?" R. Lee Ermey
