Prototype for FMC plug doors?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I have some older MDC 50' FMC plug door boxes that are total foobs: several are in Conrail as a stand in for X58s. I would like to repaint these into prototypical schemes.

Who ran 50' FMC plug door cars in the late 90's?

[bbussey]

I would start with looking at the schemes that MTL has done on their version.  That model is height-compressed, but many if not most of the schemes probably are appropriate for the prototype.

[PGBowler2]

Railcarphotos.com is your friend.

http://railcarphotos.com/Search.php?SearchType=Box Car&SearchBuilder=FMC&SearchCapCuFt=5327&Search=Search

Added URL tags to link. -gfh

[ljudice]

I would start with looking at the schemes that MTL has done on their version.  That model is height-compressed, but many if not most of the schemes probably are appropriate for the prototype.

Hmmm...  I think the MTL car has a narrower door than the MDC and I know a lot of the MTL, Athearn and MDC schemes were foobs...

Some I am pretty sure of are Chattahoochie Industrial RR, East Camden & Highland, possibly Santa Fe, I believe...

[bbussey]

Paul's suggestion is a good one.

[Atlas Paul]

If you know what the cubic capacity of the car, do a search using FMC, box car and the capacity, and you will get a pretty narrowed down result.  I did a search by FMC box cars, and it came back with pages and pages of them, so I went through until I found a plug door car and used that capacity.

[ljudice]

Google works too:

https://www.google.com/search?q=fmc+5327+boxcar&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

And again, watch the doors as there are two sizes and the MTL and MDC models are different....

[cjm413]

Off the top of my head, FMC built these cars for MDW, EACH, NOPB, and CIRR.  ATSF had similar cars with flat roofs.

By the late 1990's, a good number of the EACH and NOPB cars ended up on CP subsidiary QC, some being sold to spinoff QGRY.

The MDC model is pretty close to some of CN's ex-RBOX FMC cars that were rebuilt with 12' plug doors in place of the original 10' sliding doors, some cars entered service without being repainted.

Carl Marsico

[Missaberoad]

Off the top of my head, FMC built these cars for MDW, EACH, NOPB, and CIRR.  ATSF had similar cars with flat roofs.

By the late 1990's, a good number of the EACH and NOPB cars ended up on CP subsidiary QC, some being sold to spinoff QGRY.

The MDC model is pretty close to some of CN's ex-RBOX FMC cars that were rebuilt with 12' plug doors in place of the original 10' sliding doors, some cars entered service without being repainted.

Carl Marsico

This is pretty accurate and pretty much it for this prototype...

[cjm413]

One more thing that I forgot to mention - the prototype cars are 100T cars rather than 70T cars.  Offhand, I don't know if CN's rebuilt ex-RBOX cars were left as 70T cars or modified to 100T cars.

Unless you plan to use a pair of Atlas 100T trucks with the original MDC underframe, the MDC body will accept a FVM underframe with BLMA trucks and frame-mounted MT couplers...

[nkalanaga]

If your car has the good MDC roller bearing trucks, you can also make acceptable 100-ton trucks from them.  Shave the raised ring off the top of the bolster, and install your choice of MT axle-length 36 inch wheels. 

[cjm413]

If your car has the good MDC roller bearing trucks, you can also make acceptable 100-ton trucks from them.  Shave the raised ring off the top of the bolster, and install your choice of MT axle-length 36 inch wheels.

Did MDC ever offer a 100T truck?   All of the cars I have came with MDC's 70T trucks.

[nkalanaga]

No, they didn't, only their 70-ton.  That's the one I trimmed to make 100-ton trucks, before the Atlas trucks were available.  It may not be exactly right, but with that ring trimmed off, and 36 inch wheels added, the bolster height is the same, and it looks like a 100-ton truck.  If you only need a few, it's easy to do, and new wheels are cheaper than buying a batch of new trucks.