Favorite Box Car

Living near the Burlington has a lot to do with it:

Rusty

My Milwaukee ribbed side box car . The prototype, were built In the Milwaukee Road  Car erecting shops in the Menomonee valley, and several hundred were built. The Model is brass and currently in primer waiting for, paint decals and Kadee's, I wish I hade a couple of dozen of them!

I am torn between two boxcars as my favorite. Though I don't have a pic of them as the focus of the pic, I have two Atlas Trainman NC&StL boxcars:

My other favorite is the box car pulled by AWVR #1206 that was destroyed by AWVR #777 in the movie Unstoppable:

My Lehigh Valley boxcar that I bought with my daughter (many years ago now) we washed it and put it against the electric base board heater to dry and forgot about it.  It melted so I put a hobo in the car and has been on the rails for over 20yrs. First car on the rails and last to come off during moves or new layouts.

God Speed, Thank a Vet.

My favorite is Jade Green New York Central....you can see a few in this picture....PennCentral count, too....

Here's the real thing, which I photographed in May 1984 in Rochester< NY.

Peter

Railbox, by a mile:

The Lionel #6468 B&O Auto Boxcar has always been my favorite, and came with my 1954 set 2227W. Still looks great, and I always liked the color.

Peter, I think I agree with you or possibly the NYC Pacemaker Car

I have always liked this Great Northern.

A have a favorite car, a Lionel Stroh's reefer, but no single boxcar that has any sentimental value for me.

So, if by favorite boxcar you mean the car most represented on my layout it would be the Atlas O X-29.  Really nicely detailed, heavy, tracks well, and just a great car.

@Arnold D. Cribari - I agree with you.  I love the cars that make noise.  At first, I was like who would want more noise?  Aren't the engines "loud" enough?  I started with the NYC Vision line passenger cars.  Those were on blow-out.  I then got a set of 3 UP/SP cars, and those are great.  The squeaks are fantastic.  Yesterday FedEx delivered the Armour stockyard 3 pack to me.  I unpacked them last night but didn't run them yet.  Today will be a good day for that since it snowed here in Chicago.

To answer the question - My favorite, Lionel Southern 6565 wave boxcar.  It's just a pretty car.   I am also a big big fan of the Atlas 40' billboard reefers.  All of them.  No one of them in particular stands out as THE car, but I have about 30 that I love to pull in a long steam led freight.

Nice topic.

John

Greg

www.youtube.com/trainbros89

All great contributions so far. All the other box cars shown in them have a lot of charm IMO.

I agree with Jay Jay that B & O boxcars are particularly attractive. Will post a photo of my favorite one shortly.

Arnold

Here it is:

Great topic Arnold, you've gotten some good answers for it too.  as for me, I have two favorites and probably more but I can't think of them right now but these two come to mind.  The first one is an Atlas Steam Era Classics, which if I'm not mistaken and someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this, are the old InterMountain or Red Caboose molds, Southern Pacific Outside Braced 40' cars.  The 2nd is also an Atlas Steam Era Classics, SP/UP PFE Steel Reefer.  To me, Atlas has the best tooling in the hobby.  Thanks for starting this topic.

You're very welcome, JEM.

Regarding the Lionel box car with Real Sounds, it's the orange box car in this train with a quiet running Williams F3 on the point. You can hear the squeaky brakes sounds with other sounds coming from this orange boxcar as the train comes around the bend in this video:

Well, there are lots of box cars. But my favorite is this one, because it reminds me of my childhood years growing up in eastern Idaho in the 1950s. My house was within a block of the Union Pacific mainline, with a few sidings off it. So a next-door neighbor friend and I would climb up the ladders of parked and braked box cars like this one when no one was looking. We didn't make it all the way to the top though, because we'd chicken out about halfway up, then come back down. 😳

I like the special run Atlas cars...this one commemorates the  Narraganset Brewing Co. in Cranston, RI from the '50's and 60's.  As a kid growing up not to far away, I could smell the "hops" on warm summer nights...

Not sure I can narrow it down to just one.  Here are my favorite Flyer tinplate boxcars

One more, a shorter version, made with 2 different numbers, 1112 and 1115

NWL

I have a couple:

I like Weaver boxcars (and their other cars).  Good mix of detail and affordability, at least for the more common runs.

I'm not a WP fan, but I bought a QSI Live Action Breaking Glass sound unit and needed an appropriately decorated boxcar for it

I also have a favorite "set" of box cars on display above my computer.

The display case has the first 6 MTH Premier box cars and the first 6 MTH Premier tank cars. None of them have ever seen the track, only the display case.

I have collected enough cars to simulate a 24 car length Santa Fe "fast freight" that features plenty of these types of insulated cars to go alongside TOFCs and auto parts boxcars.  In watching many videos of freight action from the past, the SFRCs always seemed to be near the headend of many priority freights.

This re-build is my favourite. New car ends, roof and doors and a ton of rivets! Very happy with the way it turned out so this is my favourite boxcar, for now.

@jbmccormick posted:

Yesterday FedEx delivered the Armour stockyard 3 pack to me.  I unpacked them last night but didn't run them yet.  Today will be a good day for that since it snowed here in Chicago.

John

I would love to hear the sounds of the new Lionel Vision Line 3 pack of Armour box cars. Arnold

First, an HO boxcar because I spent a morning with the owner on the WRWK back in 1972 as he and his wife (she ran the loco and he was the brakeman) while we switched the Ciby-Giegy chemical plant in Warwick, RI. While we were waiting at the PC interchange, one of the Amtrak turbos came through.

On to O scale; this Lykens Valley 86' Hi-Cube kit that I assembled sometime around 1976 or so. Ever try to put a four inch square decal on straight and smooth? I accomplished that; twice! There is one on each side. The SSC one was almost as bad!

These two Rat River cars are on the list just due to the name. I know nothing about them, they were gotten from two widely separated sources; one from Norm's O scale at a train show and the other from a west coast ebay seller. Note the weathering error on the first, the door was partly open when it was applied! On the other side the door was closed.

The State of Maine, simply because it was in my first set in '57.

When I was in undergrad, the Southern Pacific line through Tempe, AZ lay between my house and the campus. Many an hour I was held up watching long lines of these (and the less visually appealing Hydracushion variant) blocking traffic while undertaking painfully slow switching operations.

It took me 8 years to find this version in O. We should try to get MTH to do a special run of plain, early ‘90s SP boxcars. I think this may be Weaver but it didn’t come with a box. I also think it’s depicting a much older paint scheme but this is the closest I’ve come.

This is it.  Lionel Rock PS-1 from 2005-2006.  No rational explanation.  No nostalgic or emotional explanation.  Just like the color, graphics and details.

I'm with Peter - you just have to love NYC's jade green...

@midnightwrecking posted:

This re-build is my favourite. New car ends, roof and doors and a ton of rivets! Very happy with the way it turned out so this is my favourite boxcar, for now.

Dan, this car is truly a work of art. I can't imagine how you got the rivet detail on like that. Love the tuscan and wondering where you picked up original PGE decals. You must have owned a hobby shop at some point, "eh?".

@midnightwrecking posted:

This re-build is my favourite. New car ends, roof and doors and a ton of rivets! Very happy with the way it turned out so this is my favourite boxcar, for now.

I’ll add two more votes for jade green...

Make that three for jade green...

Those 86’ cars are really TOO big!!!

Few and far between.  John

@Virginian65 posted:

Dan, this car is truly a work of art. I can't imagine how you got the rivet detail on like that. Love the tuscan and wondering where you picked up original PGE decals. You must have owned a hobby shop at some point, "eh?".

Hah Hah! Yeah once upon a time. There are decal sheets available and a lot of the rivets are Archer decals and some were embossed and some rivets and bolt heads were placed from  Meng sets. The ends and doors were partially printed and then detailed up. The door slides were made from brass stock. The roof was built from styrene stock. Cheers.

Have to add this Utica Club box car to the list. I have many that I like but I bought this with my paper route money while in grammar school. And a history of family working at the Brewery.

another nice thread Arnold. God Speed!

A family Heirloom

My favorite boxcar is based purely on sentiment. My father had taken me to a school fair when I was about 6 years old and I never won a prize at all the games we played. He felt sorry for me and after we left the fair he surprised me when he drove to our local hobby shop where he bought me a 6464 Rutland box car as consolation.
This car enjoys pride of place in my collection as a reminder of my late father and how much he loved me.

He passed away in 2008 at the tender age of 91. Miss him every day….

Mack

Mine is the operating Merchandise car, followed by the Milk car - either 027 or 0.