Glen Uhl 6464-587

I am not too familiar with these cars. From what I found on the web, they were redecorated, probably outside the Lionel factory. IMHO they therefore are worth much less than the Lionel decorated 6464-500. Other opinions may vary.

 I remember that back when General Mills brought all the machinery back to Mount Clemins, Mi when they fired one up there was still orange plastic inside and that is where the orange cars came from. I thought it was about 100 made............Paul

quote:

 I remember that back when General Mills brought all the machinery back to Mount Clemins, Mi when they fired one up there was still orange plastic inside and that is where the orange cars came from. I thought it was about 100 made............Paul

I guess that would be the 6464-500 boxcars that Lionel made for Glenn. I never heard that story before.

Checking sites like liveauctioners.com shows the below photo. Found a few auctions and the cars usually seem to be made from the 1980 Sports boxcars (9623, 9624 etc).

I am pretty sure that orange cars came out of the extruder. But they may not of been glen's. I remember a part of this from the book All Aboard. But those cars may have been for the employees for getting Lionel up and running in Michigan...........sorry for that........Paul

paul 2 - Sounds like your thinking of the story behind the orange 9202 Santa Fe boxcars which was in TM Collectors Guide and History Volume 4. The story goes there was orange pellets leftover from Hillside NJ in the molding machine and out of the remaining orange

test shots 67 were made into 9202 boxcars.

I have a red 6464-587. According to the provinance I have with it, they were supposed to be factory repainted NHL cars that were done for Glen Uhl. One story I have heard was that he had the cars and sent them back for the paint job. Another version was that Lionel was stuck with the NHL cars and filled an order for Glen Uhl by repainting them. Mine came in a NHL Wales Conference box. There is definately an NHL logo and other graphics visible thru the paint if I look closely. These cars are rare:

Let me try to clear the air on a bunch of things in this thread.

There are essentially three groups of "Glen Uhl" Timken items that exist.

1) 6464-500 Lionel production from 1971. Fully produced by Lionel in Mt. Clemens, MI. I don't believe it's ever been discussed, but at least two one-off cars exist, and I've listed them below.

   A) Yellow with metal trucks (blank end plates)

   B) Orange with metal trucks (blank end plates)

   C) Orange with plastic trucks (blank end plates)

   D) Orange with plastic trucks (9200 end plates)

   E) White with gold lettering (likely a one-of-a-kind)

   F) White with orange lettering (likely a one-of-a-kind)

2) 6464-587 Repainted 9620-series Sports Cars. My first trip to Glen's was sometime during the summer of 1987. (I got my drivers license earlier in the year, and this was my first long-distance (60 miles or so) solo trip. ) At that time, the only cars remaining were the red ones, which Glen had a hard time giving away. I only saw the yellow and orange cars at local shows, as they were gone from the store by the time I came on the scene. I've seen these cars bring crazy prices at auction houses, which I don't totally understand as they're repaints. I've also heard the stories about these being repainted at Lionel, but I can state without question they were NOT done at the factory. Conversely, I don't know who did them -- usually PVP/NBT marked their work (on car bodies, frames and/or boxes). I've even heard that Owen Upp did these, but that makes no sense whatsoever.

   A) Yellow

   B) Orange

   C) Red

3) 6464-500 K-Line production in 1987. Sometime between my first and second trips (likely during the summer of 1988), the three K-Line boxcars showed-up. (The Timken cabooses were also there, but the Timken MP-15 Switcher came a year or so later.) I believe, but am not certain, that the red K-Line boxcar is the toughest to locate because Glen ordered fewer of those based on the poor sales of the repainted Lionel car. The red cars were gone first, followed by the orange ones. Glen's still had a few cases of the yellow cars when it became Aaron's City Trains a few years back.

   A) Yellow

   B) Orange

   C) Red

Ed H is correct that the "first boxcar" anecdote referred to earlier in the thread actually refers to the 9202 Santa Fe boxcar in orange instead of red. That story originated in TM's Volume 4 book covering 1970-1980. While it's a great story, not one word of it is true!

I hope this helps.

Todd Wagner

Maybe, Lionel should make another run of these box cars using their PS-1 bodies with their good die-cast trucks. If I was still in business, I would put them in the store.