Boxcar Sunday, Let's see your boxcars.

Happy 6464 Father's Day!

Happy Boxcar Father’s Day Sunday all you dads out there. This is a old AHM I Custom painted and decaled and redone the under frame.

Well Hi everyone!  We seem to have not posted last week (me included) so here we are back to 6/20 and its 7/04.  Wow   4th of July, Independence Day!!  So I guess I am going to be independent and open up our thread here.  Leapinlarry - I am sorry, I missed your comment from 6/20 and missed the comment about your son.  I hope he finds Savannah as nice as I do, its a beautiful city, laid out around a number of beautiful city squares.  

Well, here is my input for today.   All us Lionel fans remember the pivotal year 1969 when we heard that Lionel was going out of the train business but selling the license to use their name on trains to General Mills Inc.  The story was that General Mills would manufacture trains under their subsidiary the Mills Product Company or "MPC".  Everyone wondered what would likely happen, well candidly in the next few years MPC didn't do a bad job making some really nice trains...yes they made some losers but their box cars, certainly the early 9200 series, turned out to be a reasonable follow on to the 6464's at least from an operating point of view.

So here is one of the early MPC cars, the 1971-72 MPC Northern Pacific boxcar # 9214.  I can tell you folks, if you are a non-scale operator like me, these MPC cars are really neat.  The "fast angle" wheels make a string of them easy to pull, the graphics are great and except for some very rare variants they can be purchased new in the box for just over $20 !  Even though they are now over 50 years old, you can still find them essentially unused with their box.

Well HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY to everyone!  Have a great holiday weekend.  Wife and I just came back from the beach and the water was wonderful!  Larry - you need to go visit your son and take along a beach chair!!

Best wishes

Don

Nice work on the AHM boxcar, Lee! My favorite road.

Artie

"A prize in every box" !

@Artie-DL&W posted:

Nice work on the AHM boxcar, Lee! My favorite road.

Artie

Thanks Artie it was a lot of fun glad you like it.

Happy 4th everyone

Just happened to be unpacking my modest collection of plug door boxcars to try and get a handle on them. All pretty common and available except the one 6034 with the outlined lettering. I have not seen another of these. Just received the Swift one yesterday.

Boxcar for this fine Sunday!   Some potentially shocking cargo.  

Since this is the 4th of July.  Sticking with just pics with boxcars.

A  GREAT LCCA SPECIAL CAR HONORING OUR FIRST RESPONDERS  GG1GUYY

Well folks, here it is another Sunday...and what great boxcars you all pictured last week.  CAPPIlot - super "USA" red, white, and blue themed cars for the 4th!  beardog49 - you have shown me that I may not be the only person in the universe who likes the Lionel "plug door" boxcars.  Here is a view of my partial collection, including a number of special runs for various stores like "Toys R Us" .  I really like these guys.

For today, I thought I might take us back to that very uncertain time,1969,  when Lionel announced it was selling its train business  to General Mills Inc, who would be taking over the production of Lionel trains under license and would market them under their Mills Product Company or MPC brand.  It was certainly a very nervous time for all of us Lionel fans, wondering what was going to happen. Well it becomes 1970 and the first year of MPC out of the box and what comes forth but some pretty neat boxcars .  This one, from 1970, was one of the first.  Really pretty nice, at least for operators like me, it has automatic couplers on both ends, fast angle wheels that make pulling it easy, great graphics AND for the first time we see that the word Lionel is underscored with a new symbol, the "MPC" logo

Here he is with his "new" type box.  No more of the orange and red at least at this point (it would come back).  MPC Lionel introduces the red, white and blue "banner" box with the large window.

However perhaps in a nod to reducing production cost, the box is not really printed for each car.  The product name is just stamped on the end allowing the basic box to be used for any similar sized product.

Well Happy BxCarSun to everyone...enjoy the rest of your weekend.  Best wishes

Don

Don if you go on youtube and look up lance boil trains, he has several videos of them.

John

                                                                  V T R  #1994...

                                                Lionel PS-1 with K-4 decals

3 Weaver Milwaukee Roads with different road #s. I got them really cheep due to broken stirups. I tried matching the brown after replacing and failed.  I then went with safety yellow, added diecast sprung strucks and changed doors on 1 for interest.

Pennsy REA boxcar being unloaded.  Travis Varney manuevers his forklift with utmost skill.   Ned and Jud look on.  

It is late 1949 and an X-41b is being moved to the express warehouse by a BS10 (Baldwin VO-1000).  300 X-41b 50', 100 X-40b 60', and a handful of rebuilt X-29 40' boxcars were painted in what became known as the Phase 1 Merchandise Service scheme.  Starting in 1950, the much simpler Phase II scheme was used.

Both the X-41b and BS10 are MTH.

Happy Boxcar Sunday Everyone. The heat isn’t stopping you guys from posting some great pics. Nothing from me this Sunday been very busy this weekend. Maybe I can’t join in the fun next weekend you guys be safe this week.

It’s hot in Tennessee to, but for those out west, our prayers are with you, Don McErlean, I understand being busy, and everyone else, beautiful box cars. Have a great rest of the weekend. Happy Railroading Everyone

Weaver Rock Island 40 footer.

This fellow lost all his money at the Casino, all he had left was his guitar.  But he found 1st class seating with a view on the next freight out of town.

Boxcar for this fine Sunday.   CB&Q end door automobile boxcar.  In this case it hauls farm equipment.  

Stripped and repainted a few boxcars 3  NYC,  2 Lackawanna,  Milwaukee Rd,  Burlington, 2 Wabash, and a P.R.R. all former C.P. Lionel Op. cars .

Some recent repaint projects. Two MTH cars and one Weaver car. Stripped, repainted with Scalecoat II and decaled with K4 decal sets…

Tom

Fellows, I admire those who have the ability to repaint their box cars to road names that fit their fancy. Great work and there’s a lot of beautiful box cars pictured above. I like Lionel’s new really long 86 foot 4 door box cars and there’s some new ones pictured in the recent 2021-2 catalog. (The B&O box car is Atlas O)  Wow, they are so long. Happy Railroading Everyone

Wow fellows, looks like we missed last week as the last post I have is leapinlarry on 7/18, so I will try to initiate this week.  Hope we don't lose this thread because its fun...collectors, operators, talented artists, etc all have a change to show us what they are doing and its GREAT!.  Looking back on the 18th ... Dave Ripp with a 40' Weaver RI boxcar, man I envy the end detail that Weaver added to their cars, looks great.  Boomer - a collection of Lackawanna cars, this is the RR that ran in my neighborhood when I was growing up...COOL!.  Trumptrain - another great picture and story, thanks.  Kitka and Krieglok what great repaints and work creating unique cars, great talent fellows.  Randy Harrison - Bowman's Dairy - I had never seen this car and wondered where Bowman's might have been located. Finally great operating scenes from leapinlarry in Tenn...Larry I would have to cut that 86 foot boxcar in 1/2 to even get it around my layout!! Those are neat cars and really LOOOOOONG!

Right now its a sunny and HOT day in Savannah...the young folks are at the beach but the old folks like my wife and I are sheltering in the air conditioning   So I have time to read our post and post my own.  So since I am starting today, I decided I would do a portfolio of miscellaneous manufacturers and time periods.  To our scale participants, I apologize, none of these are even close to scale in any form, but just think of the joy they must have brought to a 7-10 year old on Christmas morning.  That thought always makes me smile !!

Here is the first, an American Flyer (Chicago Flyer 0 gauge) automobile car from the 1920's

Next a slightly later American Flyer enameled box car #3012 with add on ladders and journal boxes in brass

Next a contemporary of the first red car, the same car #115 auto box American Flyer but in the yellow livery.

Now we leap ahead to the 1950's and the Hafner Streamliner Auto box car.

Same period, 1950's but moving internationally, the "Kole Vogn" or refrigerator car from Denmark

Finally a French baggage car and I admit that I am using an archive photo and am separated from my collection so I cannot recall who made this car.  However it is also likely postwar.

Well there you have it my friends, a mixed bag for sure for a Sunday afternoon.  Hope some others come up and support our Boxcar Sunday post.  Best wises for a great upcoming week.

Don

Three more cheapie 027 plugdoor boxcars. The two toys r us cars were on ebay, but not in he a train category. All three

were less than $12 each.

The other one is the 9447 pullman standard. First time I noticed, 9447 does not appear on the car, only on the box.

Boxcar for this fine Sunday .... Packard!  

Pola Maxi 40 footer with Weaver ladders, trucks and a little weathering. A little under scale but I like it.

Don McErlean, Wow, you’ve done it again, cars older than time itself, 1920’s, or The Roaring 20’s, and American Flyer tinplate and automobile carriers from Flyer and Hafner and looks like a railway express car? Wow, you’ve got a very interesting collection, History is fun… Trumptrain, Patrick, I remember those Packards, for real, and Studebakers to, great looking box car, Dave Ripp, that’s a beautifully weathered Erie box car, but what’s really cool is the shelving method you’ve used, possibly utilizing I-Beam, it’s very creative, I see trains under the ceiling…. Happy Railroading Everyone

Thanks for the weathering compliment. I allways liked the WP light as a feather cars I wonder how many colors were really made? I've seen 5 or 6 on modle railroad. My shelves are floating picture ledge shelves I found that tube track fits in it as if it were made for it. I got mine at IKEA.

Spotting a '48' box at Morrison Door...

This Sunday's boxcar.

Here is my contribution. Unfortunately all three of the plug doors are being returned. The conrail has a broken mounting tab,

the Van Camps a broken catwalk. None of which was mentioned. The Great Northern came with the conrail. The Great Northern

came packed in an unused priority express envelope. There is talk of the USPS starting to charge for this stuff because of this.

The conrail came wrapped in an old sheet of brown paper with grease stains on it.

The TPW was just another inexpensive but colorful 9400 series car. I have three 9400's now, does that make it a collection?

Everyone have a great day, John

Anyone remember these? Factory weathered woodside reefers from Lionel.

They still look great - I wish they would do some more!

One I like........................Paul 2

Ice Tea anyone ?

Hi everyone, well we traveled back to Texas over the end of last week, so here I am no longer in Savannah but back in Waco, Tx.  Great pictures everyone.  beardog49, sorry to hear of the damage to your plug doors, the "Van Camps" is a little tough to find but the Conrail is pretty common, although the brown is more scarce than the blue.  Hope you get your money refunded and can find some new ones.  However the 9400 series are really nice cars, great livery, fast angle wheels etc.  I like to run them as they are easy to pull, and they are usually modest in price.

Here is my contribution for today, the relatively common Marx 3280 Santa Fe boxcar in orange.  (it also comes in yellow and white but I don't have either).  I like the orange one because it seems to stand out so well against the background.  It is being followed by the #4587 ATSF work caboose with long tool boxes.  The motive power is the #1998 Santa Fe S3 switcher in black made between '55-62. The black color is about the most scarce color to find for this engine and it took me quite some time to acquire one.  

Here is a better picture of the entire short train.

Best wishes everyone. Happy BxCrSun!!

Don

At the ice platform