Postwar Boxcar Trucks: Technical Question

Check this page out, has all the history.

https://www.tandem-associates....rucksandcouplers.htm

Looks like 1951 - 1957.

Ditto on what John said great source of information. 

Thank you. Does that mean in 1958 the trucks switched to the AAR type, with the round disc underneath?

Also--and forgive me for not knowing the terminology--shouldn't the rod at the very end of the coupler be 180º from where it is positioned, i.e; pointing outward?

AAR plastic trucks began showing up in ‘57 as Lionel was still using up supplies of the diecast metal bar end trucks like the ones on the boxcar you pictured. AAR trucks have the round disc you speak of used to release the coupler on these style of trucks.....not sure which rod your mentioning, best to post up a pic of what your talking about........  Pat

The rod underneath the coupler...

On the boxcar above, this small coupler rod appears to be facing inward. 

Desert Center CA posted:

The rod underneath the coupler...

On the boxcar above, this small coupler rod appears to be facing inward. 

That “tab” on the end of the coupler was the last style of bar end trucks, it was introduced in ‘55 and ran through the rest of bar end truck production. I’m not seeing this tab pictured on the box car in the above post. The tab was just an easier way to manually uncouple cars. However, sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason on what trucks were used up in available inventory at the time. Also, trucks are real simple to swap out if they became damaged. Sometimes it’s hard to date a car by the trucks because of the interchangeability of trucks and components of the trucks.....

Not all bar-end trucks had tabs.

Jon