Boxcar Sunday, Let's see your boxcars.

I bought this Northern Refrigerator Car Co reffer last April at York.  I'll try to get a better photo for next week.   This past April I swore that I would not purchase anymore rolling stock items, however, I'm a sucker for billboard reffers and could not resist this one purchase and the price was spot on too!

My entry in the Suzie Q contest.

Wow, here we are on page 74, with lots of beautiful box cars. We just opened the new Lionel Frisco Hobo box car with sounds. It works fine. This will be on my MKT freight train. My other box car Erie hobo car will be on a siding…. Happy Railroading Everyone

Today's Boxcar Sunday is also Soo Line Sunday! These first two custom cars are by our good friend Tom @Krieglok:

This Soo Locks Centennial car by Crown Model Decorators our host @Dave Ripp. graciously allowed me to acquire from him after he worked to find it:

And here they are playing together happily with my Soo Legacy RS-27 and MTH extended vision caboose:

I spent my adolescence in River Forest, IL one house away from the Soo mainline from Chicago to Schiller Park and that was what got me into railroading. With the various M&A's the Soo has undergone, that mainline has since been largely abandoned, but the fond memories still burn brightly for me.

@Krieglok posted:

A few new repaints for this week…

Tom

Tom, beautiful cars, as always. Your "Big 4" is of special interest to me as that former mainline in southern Illinois has been converted into a rail-trail named "Tunnel Hill State Trail" that goes 50 miles from Karnak, IL to the outskirts of Eldorado, IL. The trail gets its name from the quarter-mile tunnel just south of the tiny town of Tunnel Hill, IL. It's a "blast" to ride through, but you'd better have a light. I've ridden the trail several times and the scenery is beautiful in addition to the tunnel.

Great work as always, Tom!

Thanks for all the kind words, Bill, Don M. and Don S. !

Bill, I really enjoyed painting those cars for you. The Soo line is a interesting railroad with the many paint schemes!

Just an aside, one of the parents of a teammate on my son’s hockey team, grew up in Soo territory. She mentioned when they were kids, they would wave to the guys in the caboose (with the big “SOO” on the side) and yell for chalk. The crew would toss them the big chalk sticks from the caboose. They used them to draw on the sidewalks by their homes!

Railroad chalk is still sold! We get it like this on our railroad…

Tom

It's Sunday again for boxcar fans. For this week I'll show a Chicago North Western hatch top grain boxcar. This unit was made by Lionel here is what they had to say. Beginning in the 1960s, several railroads began converting 40' boxcars for bulk loading use by adding loading hatches to the roof similar to a covered hopper. Unloading was more challenging than a covered hopper, but it accommodated shippers who were not set up to receive bottom-outlet cars. And it allowed the boxcar to be used in other services when not needed for bulk loading for better year-round utility on seasonal goods. Typical products included clay and grain and these cars could be found in many areas of the country.

My September kitchen calendar page has a beautiful shot of a Big Sky Blue GN passenger train so this influenced today’s submission.  This is an Atlas boxcar (3003503-1) from Caboose Stop in Cedar Falls, IA.

I've posted New York Central #161523 before, but I have only two NYC boxcars so it gets run (and photographed) whenever I have a New York Central locomotive and freight train on my layout. I recently ran it behind NYC Fairbanks-Morse H10-44 #9110 by MTH.

MELGAR

Here are my boxcars for his fine Sunday!

Northern Refrigerator Car Co.   I showed this car last week, however that photo was taken while the car was on a truss bridge.  The bridge stringers caused an obstructed view of the car ... so here it is shown without obstructions.  This is a K line car.  I think K line did an exceptional job with their billboard reffers.  

This is a Lionel sound car.  It produces various sounds ... such as flanges squealing, other sounds made by prototypical freight cars as they roll along within a consist,  and loud booms as when a boxcar is shoved hard against another freight car when a train is being made up in the yard.  

A view of some of the electronics.  I couldn't get a shot of the speaker but the sound produced is excellent IMHO.

Here is a 6464-400 B&O Time Saver from 56,57, and 69 Type 2B on this fine Boxcar Sunday, God Speed All!

A couple K-Line repaints by me…

Tom

Couple customs l had done.

Here's my only eastern roads boxcar. I like it, because it's good to have some Yankee blue among the western roads boxcars, which all seem to be either orange, red, or tuscan brown. 😉

Well this one I found at the NMRA National Convention last week, which was unusual in and of itself since the show was 99.99% HO but I managed to grab a couple of cars.  This #9467 Lionel box car from 1982 I wanted in order to commemorate my visit with @leapinlarry at the TCA convention in Nashville, Tenn last year.  This box celebrates the Tennessee World's Fair in Knoxville (180 +/- miles E of Nashville) in 1982 with a great slogan..."Follow me to Tennessee"

Best Wishes Everyone!  Happy Labor Day!!

Don

A K-line collector’s club Golden State 027 express box car.

K-Line

Rollin' out the "heavy metal" this Boxcar Sunday! Four RK diecast woodside reefers, two you've seen before, two new to the forum:

Callin' up the MTH PS1 repro of Lionel's PW CNJ FM H-24-66 or "Trainmaster" to haul the 10-pound consist around the oval:

Happy Labor Day Boxcar Sunday to all!

@Former Member posted:

Couple customs l had done.

Thom, I can certainly appreciate the Tionesta Valley car.  I spent a lot of time along Tionesta Creek growing up.  Once while fishing probably in my late teens, Dad and I followed the old roadbed with well rotted ties.  That was 50 years ago, so my guess is there isn't anything left of the ties now.

Interesting Thoroughbred Penn Central car.  Both nicely done.

Happy Boxcar Sunday. Here's my newest boxcar purchased from forum sponsor Trainz. It was made by Weaver.

Selecto Ham & Bacon - ETPX 314 - is an Atlas O model of a 36-foot refrigerated wooden boxcar owned by East Tennessee Packing Company of Knoxville, TN. According to data on the model, the car was rebuilt in 1924. Atlas O did an outstanding job of modeling the truss rods that prevent the car floor from sagging. I usually run freight trains with cars from local railroads on my layouts but this car always is parked beneath the unused coal tower on my 12'-by-8' layout.

MELGAR

Nice cars Dave and Melgar.

I like the later 40 footers with the relatively modern lettering. Weaver did a great job on that GT boxcar.

Atlas makes a nice reefer. What is the length of that car?

Here are some cars I painted. Atlas, Weaver and MTH. It seems when I paint and decal a car, I find a commercially produced version in the same scheme. So much for being unique…lol

Tom

@Krieglok posted:

Nice cars Dave and Melgar.

Atlas makes a nice reefer. What is the length of that car?

Tom

The body of the Atlas model is 9 inches in length - 36 feet full scale. The car may have been built before 1900, when 36-foot wooden boxcars with truss rods were still common.

MELGAR

I don't have many box cars, but here is one from one of my favorite railroads, the NC&StL.

@MELGAR, @Dave Ripp.,@Krieglok :  Great cars everyone.  I am going to take a page from MELGAR and feature a refr this morning.  This one I just picked up last week on e-bay and while its not prototypical in any way its a fun car for me as a collector.  Its a Lionel 75th Anniversary Car the it features all the various logo's that Lionel used from 1900-1975.  So here it is:

Here is the full spread of logo's from 1900 to 1975

Here are the "older" ones including "Lennie the Lion".

Here are the newer logo's, of course in this case "newer" just means up until 1975...and you can see the "fundimensions"  and the "big G" logos of MPC at various times.

Well happy BxCar Sunday everyone (even if mine is a refr!) Hope you have a happy and healthy upcoming week

Don

MTH Railking (top) vs. Lionel Std. O. The Lionel car is slightly taller, and wider. Both are exact same length.

Hope all had a good Boxcar Sunday, Lionel ice car awaiting pickup. God Speed All!

Couple of MTH all-door boxcars

Well, this might be some duplication of pictures, but I love Box Car Sundays. Have a great rest of the weekend everyone….

Hello boxcar fans, I'll start this week with an Atlas Western Maryland 50-foot boxcar.

Another fine Boxcar Sunday! Here is mt latest find.

6464-425 New Haven from 69 with full white N Type 3.

Along with his brother 6464-425 from 56-57 with white half-serif N Type 2B

Just out of the paint shop…two MTH forty footers, CE&I and EJ&E. Tichy and K4 decals used on these two…

Tom

@Krieglok posted:

Just out of the paint shop…two MTH forty footers, CE&I and EJ&E. Tichy and K4 decals used on these two…

Tom

Those are gorgeous Tom.

I like Pittsburgh  items. Had this pained. Anything Local.

Built this Intermountain kit today. I still have a few and use them when I have a break in the action. The plastic has always been fragile and requires care when assembling and handling but I think it has gotten even more so with age. Just breathe on the fine pieces and they break. Anyway this will be yard art, doubt I will run these.

Pete

Well BxCrSun fans, lets take a moment and talk about the humble 0-27 pw boxcar fleet.  Today, the humble "Airex" boxcar that came under two numbers #6014 and #6044.  Now the #6014 was red and made as an uncatalogued car in 1960.  However the #6044 was made in 3 color variations in 1959 and 1960 and while the livery was the same as the 6014 the car body color was different.   Last weekend at a train show I spotted a 6044 with what seemed an unusual color, so I bought it (inexpensive) and discovered it was one of the more unusual colors of the three.  In effect the 6044 came in 1. medium blue (common) 2. Teal blue (middle variant far less common) and 3. purple blue (scarce).  Each color, IAW Greenberg's price guide, goes up a value of about 4 times the previous one, starting at about $20. So here is my new #6044 Airex uncatalogued and offered from 1959-1960.

AT first the Teal color is not immediately distinguishable from the common medium blue, especially when the car is alone among a lot of other pieces.  However it looked different enough to me to trigger my urge to take it home to compare.  Lucky Guess !!!

Here is the new Teal blue car compared to the much more common medium blue car.  When side by side the color variation is obvious.

Well best wishes box car fans.  Hope your upcoming week goes well.

Don

@Former Member,

I hadn't heard Otto's Dairy in 30 years or more.  They had a place near Harmony (I might be off by 20 miles), right?  Our dad would take us out to North Park for swimming, and we'd stop at the store to buy ice cream cones on the way home.

@Don McErlean posted:

Well, BxCrSun fans, let's take a moment and talk about the humble 0-27 pw boxcar fleet.  Today, the humble "Airex" boxcar that came under two numbers #6014 and #6044.  Now the #6014 was red and made as an uncatalogued car in 1960.  However, the #6044 was made in 3 color variations in 1959 and 1960 and while the livery was the same as the 6014 the car body color was different.   Last weekend at a train show I spotted a 6044 with what seemed an unusual color, so I bought it (inexpensive) and discovered it was one of the more unusual colors of the three.  In effect the 6044 came in 1. medium blue (common) 2. Teal blue (middle variant far less common) and 3. purple blue (scarce).  Each color, IAW Greenberg's price guide, goes up a value of about 4 times the previous one, starting at about $20. So here is my new #6044 Airex uncatalogued and offered from 1959-1960.

AT first the Teal color is not immediately distinguishable from the common medium blue, especially when the car is alone among a lot of other pieces.  However, it looked different enough to me to trigger my urge to take it home to compare.  Lucky Guess!!!

Here is the new Teal blue car compared to the much more common medium blue car.  When side by side the color variation is obvious.

Well best wishes box car fans.  Hope your upcoming week goes well.

Don

Great find Don & thanks for the history.