I really like the Lionel 48 ft containers with 1990’s paint schemes, because they are so detailed and prototypical with separately applied details, etc. However, the drawbacks are (1) they come in single-well cars that are attractive but I find depressing when a bunch are strung together and (2) they are non-scale (traditional sized) and won’t line up in any of my scale well cars.
So I decided to build articulated thrall cars from styrene, custom-designed to only fit the 48 ft lionel cars. Setting my target period as 1991, I picked the old “Trailer Train” 5-car scheme of 48ft cars. This is before DTTX changed their name from Trailer Train to TTX and repatched all their cars in the early 1990’s.
Here’s a prototype photo.
To build these, I used Plastruct and Evergreen styrene pieces from my LHS, MTH Premier roller bearing trucks, Rustoleum Ultra Cover “Warm Yellow” spray paint, and decals I printed on clear decal paper. Then I loaded them up with BN and ATSF containers.
Here’s the result.
Once they were built and admired in their static state, it was time to run them in a train. I chose this old photo as my inspiration.
Looking at my diesel roster, I chose a Santa Fe 8-40cw and Santa Fe SD40-2 (both part of my inspiration photo). To augment the train, I included my MTH scale-sized Maxi-III (created and custom painted by Jeff Sohn) with similar scale-sized containers.
Here’s the action video:
Original Post
. About 20 years ago I attempted that exact same model. It was my very first scratch building project. Yours look awesome. Mine looked like a pile of puke. 
