Boxcar Sunday, Let's see your boxcars.

Here is a lionel christmas boxcar!!!

@chessie1971, that’s a beautiful Christmas box car, brings back memories of times past. Today I’m showing the new US Army Cadence sounds box car ordered long ago. Happy Railroading Everyone

Thanks Larry!!!

@Jeff B. Haertlein posted:

Is that MTH boxcar for the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley a stock item? If so do you have a catalog number? I would like to watch for one!! Thanks,  Jeff

I think I spotted my answer. You said they were modified. So you did the re-lettering. Oh well.

@Jeff B. Haertlein posted:

Is that MTH boxcar for the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley a stock item? If so do you have a catalog number? I would like to watch for one!! Thanks,  Jeff

Hi Jeff.

The FE&MV car is an MTH car, but it was repainted by me. It’s been a while, but I believe the decals were either LaBelle or Mullet River.

Tom

Yes, OK, you did a great job with the decals!!! Thanks for confirming.

jeff

@leapinlarry Today I’m showing the new US Army Cadence sounds box car ordered long ago. Happy Railroading Everyone

Great movement on that video Larry.    A good looking boxcar .

All of my Union Pacific boxcars are waiting for service today as passenger trains took over main line tracks today!

@leapinlarry - Hey Larry, who locked the band in the boxcar!   Great looking and sounding car Larry

Best Wishes

Don

Happy Boxcar Sunday, I'll start us off with a Lionel Wabash.

A selection of Arcade and Attica box cars…

Top three painted by me, Weaver cars. Bottom car painted by Crown…

Tom

Happy Boxcar Sunday that Wabash is a nice start for today. I just received this car yesterday, it’s in time to add to my Nativity.  Train.
The car is a Lionel custom run for the Knights of Columbus #1089 in Glendale NY.

Here is a boxcar at the Silver Spur & Western store off Route 73, west of Waynesville.  Not much info on it, but I pass by it 1-2 times a year.

Another special MTH run from a few years ago.  For those not familiar, this is more than an amusement park - it is actually part of the Kennywood empire.

- walt

@walt rapp - Hey Walt, when I first saw your boxcar I thought it was advertising the former name of the airport on Long Island, Idlewild now JFK.

For my post today, here is a Marx "Deluxe" boxcar.  Note that the term "Deluxe" was invented by us collectors and never used by Marx.  However these boxcars with sliding doors and slightly longer length were Marx's top of the line box car (he made 3 levels of cars: 4 wheel, 8 wheel, and what we refer to as deluxe). This car is the Marx # 148715 Rock Island in red.  This specific version with the plastic overlay side frame trucks dates from 1952.  In this picture it is being pulled by the Marx GE 70 Ton Rock Island #799 switcher from 1959-1965.

Best Wishes and hope your upcoming week goes well

Happy Holidays

Don

Here is one I didn't even know I had! LOL

I run this Atlas O boxcar frequently. My Mom used to shop at Waldbaum’s in New York. I certainly didn’t realize that our eggs may have come from Seattle, Washington…

MELGAR

Wonderful blight as seen on the Redwood Empire Route in Northern California.   Have a great and safe weekend, everyone.

@Sitka spurred me to get this, an Industrial Rail PRR REA boxcar.  It has good details, and the painting is done very well.  I just got it today and am looking forward to running it.

My latest purchase that came yesterday. It’s Lionel’s latest release double sheathed NYC. Well detailed like a MTH premier. I’ve been looking to add a couple of NYC boxcars to my small collection.

Gene

@Genemed posted:

My latest purchase that came yesterday. It’s Lionel’s latest release double sheathed NYC. Well detailed like a MTH premier. I’ve been looking to add a couple of NYC boxcars to my small collection.

Gene

Very nice boxcar, Gene, but there ain’t no such thing as “a couple of NYC boxcars” - don’t ask how I know

@Apples55 posted:

Very nice boxcar, Gene, but there ain’t no such thing as “a couple of NYC boxcars” - don’t ask how I know

Okay Paul, I guess I wasn’t convincing. Maybe a couple more……😉

Gene

Just picked up two more Lionel Friendship Train boxcars from Grzyboski’s. The Lackawanna is a Freightsounds car. This brings my train up to 8 boxcars and 2 passenger cars

One of my two separately numbered Atlas CNJ outside braced sheathed boxcars. Playing with "portrait" mode on my phone to blur the background instead of using my DSLR.  Still don't have the technique down as the right side of the image is a little out of focus.

*Thank you to @CAPPilot for correcting me on the type of boxcar this is!

And I almost forgot… since yesterday was National Lionel Train Day…

I don’t really collect “fantasy” cars like this, but I went to the first train day and purchased the car… and then went to the second and purchased the car… and now I really don’t want to break the streak!!! But I will not purchase a Lionel Lines engine - did get a Lionel Anniversary caboose though.

@Apples55 posted:

And I almost forgot… since yesterday was National Lionel Train Day…

I don’t really collect “fantasy” cars like this, but I went to the first train day and purchased the car… and then went to the second and purchased the car… and now I really don’t want to break the streak!!! But I will not purchase a Lionel Lines engine - did get a Lionel Anniversary caboose though.

This train collecting business is a slippery slope Paul!

My recent visit and ride on the Woodstown Central Railroad excursion, I captured this 40'Lackawanna box car

@GG1 4877 posted:

This train collecting business is a slippery slope Paul!

Slippery slope??? I’ve been in free fall so long I can’t remember the last time my feet touched the proverbial inclined plane

@Genemed posted:

My latest purchase that came yesterday. It’s Lionel’s latest release double sheathed NYC. Well detailed like a MTH premier. I’ve been looking to add a couple of NYC boxcars to my small collection.

Gene

I couldn’t resist a comparison between Lionel New York Central boxcar #161525 and MTH New York Central boxcar #161523. Were they made from the same tooling?

MELGAR

@MELGAR posted:

I couldn’t resist a comparison between Lionel New York Central boxcar #161525 and MTH New York Central boxcar #161523. Were they made from the same tooling?

MELGAR

Good thought Mel. I was looking at a similar MTH DOUBLE SHEATHED BOX CAR CB&Q Burlington Road #120699 20-93385 and wondered if it was missing a grab iron on the left. With your comparison pictures of the NYC, I can buy with confidence. Other than that, I can't answer the tooling question, but they are certainly similar.

@MELGAR posted:

I couldn’t resist a comparison between Lionel New York Central boxcar #161525 and MTH New York Central boxcar #161523. Were they made from the same tooling?

MELGAR

As Dave mentioned it’s missing a left grab iron and the wood grain/slats looks narrower on the MTH, would this make it a different tooling?

Gene

There were double-sheathed clones that varied in design, but with 25,000 built using the USRA design I think MTH and Lionel would have gone with that one.

So, if both MTH’s and Lionel’s boxcars are based on the USRA double-sheathed design, and MTH and Lionel copied the design correctly with their separate molds, then they should look alike.

Based on the sheathing differences alone, I would say the MTH and Lionel tooling is different. Atlas made a double sheathed boxcar as well that is also just a little different than these two.

@Genemed posted:

As Dave mentioned it’s missing a left grab iron and the wood grain/slats looks narrower on the MTH, would this make it a different tooling?

Gene

@GG1 4877 posted:

Based on the sheathing differences alone, I would say the MTH and Lionel tooling is different. Atlas made a double sheathed boxcar as well that is also just a little different than these two.

I agree. On closer inspection of the photos, the sheathing is slightly different. But, to me, it's also remarkable that Lionel and MTH made models of two very similar cars with only a single digit difference in road numbers.

MELGAR

Got Orange Juice?

@MELGAR posted:

I agree. On closer inspection of the photos, the sheathing is slightly different. But, to me, it's also remarkable that Lionel and MTH made models of two very similar cars with only a single digit difference in road numbers.

MELGAR

It is nice that MTH and Lionel made different numbers for the cars.  I am wondering if Atlas did theirs in the same paint scheme and if so, what road numbers.  While there is a little difference between the cars, wood cars often got re-sheathed over their lifetime, so it is entirely plausible that there would be the same style car with different plank sizes.  The variety could lead to an interesting discussion with someone who takes the time to notice the difference.

In an extreme example, CNJs early wood cabooses were T&G sheathed, but were later rebuilt with sheet plywood and battens in the 1950's.  Those ran into the early 1970's.

@GG1 4877 posted:

It is nice that MTH and Lionel made different numbers for the cars.  I am wondering if Atlas did theirs in the same paint scheme and if so, what road numbers.  While there is a little difference between the cars, wood cars often got re-sheathed over their lifetime, so it is entirely plausible that there would be the same style car with different plank sizes.  The variety could lead to an interesting discussion with someone who takes the time to notice the difference.

In an extreme example, CNJs early wood cabooses were T&G sheathed, but were later rebuilt with sheet plywood and battens in the 1950's.  Those ran into the early 1970's.

It also may be that a range of sheathing widths were specified or acceptable for use. That would have simplified the task of procuring sheathing locally by railroads throughout the USA, especially during wartime (WW 1).

MELGAR

Dave there isn’t any image in your post. Here are two smaller cars. The first another animal boxcar for my bobbing animal train. The second one a friend gave to me because he knows that o collect these cars.

Maine Central #35099.

My very first, this Lionel A.T.&S.F. Operating box car, which was a Christmas gift that I got in the late 1950s:

As you can see, this train car is beat up a little. I was sometimes rough with my toys when I was a boy.

Wasn’t  it great to see an orange and blue box when tearing the pretty wrapping paper off a Christmas or birthday gift when we were kids?

Arnold