Did American Flyer sell a 54 foot gondola?

That is not a gondola manufactured by Gilbert. If it is stamped American Flyer in the plastic it could be that someone has cobbled together 2 standard Gilbert gondolas into a custom longer model. Nice job!

Rich

Gilbert made one basic Gondola, it is 8" long. The Gilbert gondola has three vertical ribs on the inside of the body. Looking closely at the picture, that gondola has four vertical ribs and the space between the center two ribs appears slightly narrower than the space to the outer ribs. Someone did a great job of stretching it 2" using a donor body to make a 54' gondola.

nice looking gon.

Plus Railgon didn't exist when Gilbert was in business

Rusty

Nicely done model and a great example of kitbashing.  I did something similar years ago in a series of items I called "phantoms", they being things Gilbert could have made, but didn't.  I even gave them a plausible number and paint scheme.  In this case a Southern gon numbered 949.  Just for a laugh, here it is:

The railgon looks better....