Doug Wagner:: One of my club members told me that you are going to start marketing traction car bodies. And I noted this unpainted car body here and your sign. What's the story behind this?

George: Custom Traxx entered the decal market in 1997 with the production of the Philadelphia PCC car set, CN-2001, for the MTS Imports pre-war PCC car that had just been released. They were so well received that we decided to make decals for all of those brass models imported by firms such as Model Tramway System, Fairfield Traction Models and S. Soho. We examined the list of models made by these companies, considered how many were made, and the popularity of the prototype cars themselves and started to make decals. We limited ourselves to United States prototypes as we had many of these models and could use them to obtain those measurements so critical to a successful decal application. So our main aim was to make decals for models that already existed. Making decals is a double-edged sword. You want to make decals with the prototype dimensions but they have to fit the model, whether the model is prototypically correct or not. Items like incorrectly sized destination sign openings, smaller than prototype letterboards, oversize headlights, door windows in the wrong location, trolley catchers / retrievers that are too large or located in the wrong position, drive us crazy because no matter how right you are, the decals must fit the model or the customer is upset with your product. A couple of years ago, we started noting quality car bodies cast from resin and we started making some decals for these car bodies. We had just about exhausted the list of brass models when we started to see some quality resin castings. Eventually, we ran into supplier who made some resin castings of the Milan Peter Witt cars. We approached them about making the version of the Milan peter Witt now running in San Francisco.

George is shown in the above photo explaining the San Francisco ex-Milan Peter Witt car body to Doug Wagner!

Doug Wagner: So what led you to consider marketing a line of resin car bodies.

George: It is a long story. We saw a promising HO scale car body of an ex-Kansas City (KCPS) All-electric PCC at the 2005 East Penn Traction Club Meet. The Kansas City Cars were unusual and some believe that they were among the handsomest PCC cars ever produced. So we started work on the set of decals for that car. We were not able to get all the data for this set until 2007. So that decal set, CN-750, Kansas City PCC cars, was finally released in early March 2008. In 2005-06 we had purchased two of those ex-Kansas City PCC bodies, which mate to the Bowser 125141 PCC mechanism with floor, and started work on the KCPS decal set. About 75% through the development process, we ran into two problems: The first is that the front destination signs were very unique, using both white and red markings and were slightly different for each route. The short turn routes, while they used the red slash through the number similar to Philadelphia, placed the red slash behind the numbers instead of over them. Second, the side destination signs were located just forward of the center door and there were few photos which detailed them well enough for the decal set. For all these reasons, we had to stop the development until we could get photos of an actual roll sign. We could not locate and obtain these photos until November 2007. Meanwhile, our two car bodies had been painted and finished in the colors of the Philadelphia Transportation Company and the Toronto Transportation Company, both of which obtained ex-Kansas City All-Electric PCC cars. Meanwhile the reintroduction of San Francisco PCC 1056, dressed in the colors of the Kansas City Public Service (KCPS) and the release of the Corgi US55031 Kansas City Public Service 1:50 scale PCC model, made the KCPS PCC paint scheme popular again.

Then two problems emerged. The car ex-Kansas City car bodies advertised by their supplier as "Available" were not currently available and no one could state with any certainty when they would be available. And on top of this, we had good reason to believe that even if those bodies became available, they may not be easily available to Custom Traxx. After expending considerable effort and resources over three years on development of a new decal set and finally reaching the production phase, we found themselves in the untenable position of having made a set of great decals with no models or car bodies on which to apply them. This was never our intention and worse yet, we had no control over when there could be, unless we had some car body shells made for ourselves. During our search for an HO scale ex-Kansas City PCC car body, several model railroad vendors, including some excellent resin casters contacted us and asked if we were interested in a joint venture for the development and production of new HO scale resin traction bodies. At this point we discussed some of our desires and some of those projects were ones that they mentioned. After some talks, it was decided that by using Custom Traxx resources and the Trolleyville library, a very accurate model could be developed. We also wanted to produce models that could use the Bowser traction drive, since it is available, a good performer and relatively inexpensive. On top of this, Custom Traxx has an excellent supply of spare parts for the Bowser drives.

The resultant decision was practically a slam dunk. We formed an agreement with a very positive supplier that encourages mutual exchange of information and understands our concerns. It was also a "no-brainer" to plan more than one project. Right now at least four different conventional and PCC carbodies are in the development stage. If you have desires, this is the time to let Custom Traxx know. These will be streetcar car bodies that are unique and most will use the Bowser mechanism with Bowser fabricated floors for power. Some will be available in very small numbers but at very reasonable prices. We will have authentic decals available for all of them. Keep a watchful eye on the Custom Traxx catalog. They will be offered as soon as development is complete. The first will be the ex-Milan Peter Witt cars operated currently by San Francisco Municipal Railway. The next one will be a real surprise, so stay tuned!