Plain Modern Boxcars

[ljudice]

Admittedly, I haven't spent a lot of time railfanning the past few years - although I done more in recent months.

One thing I noticed - which I'm sure is pretty obvious to everyone except me - is the greatly dwindling number of the old shortline painted boxcars (most of them restenciled and ownership changed many times over the years).  A lot of these cars are owned by big finance firms anyway with the reporting marks leased - but most have been repainted into simple reds and browns with minimal lettering.

I know Atlas has done a couple and FVM may have done one or two as well, but it would be nice if there were more of them or some simple patch decalling products out there.

[Hyperion]

I think it really comes down to the fact that the vast majority of model railroaders don't particularly care if "plain" accounts for 95% of the stuff they see, they really want whatever looks coolest.  I can't imagine if Atlas released a "plain modern boxcar" it'd go over too well.

You see the same thing with the hoppers of varying sorts.  The plain white/brown/gray/whatever ones don't sell well at all and be add for half or better of the price of the more colorful variety on eBay (and about 1/3rd the price of anything Canadian -- those guys pay out the wazzoo for those pretty Canadian ones).  But, reality is that most hoppers are plain.  Even many of those ran by Class 1s are plain, often without even a logo on them.  At least BNSF slaps a logo on theirs after painting them baby-***** brown.  KCS, going the complete opposite direction, would be the obvious exception of course.

[inkaneer]

Admittedly, I haven't spent a lot of time railfanning the past few years - although I done more in recent months.

One thing I noticed - which I'm sure is pretty obvious to everyone except me - is the greatly dwindling number of the old shortline painted boxcars (most of them restenciled and ownership changed many times over the years).  A lot of these cars are owned by big finance firms anyway with the reporting marks leased - but most have been repainted into simple reds and browns with minimal lettering.

I know Atlas has done a couple and FVM may have done one or two as well, but it would be nice if there were more of them or some simple patch decalling products out there.

Two reasons may be the big finance companies are putting their money into short term risks or something more liquid than railroad cars.  Current market conditions do not favor long term durable goods.  Also wasn't there a rule change affecting the per diem charges?

[lock4244]

These are pretty boring. Not sure if any represent per diem cars, and none are big leasing company marks (well, EEC is), but they are boring. Not that boring is bad...











If you want others done... send them some images.

[ljudice]

I think most of them are finance companies - who in turn lease the reporting marks of shortlines or in some cases like EEC where the leasing company owns the shortline.

The leasing companies figured out that the car can earn them more money collecting per diem with a railroad reporting mark (with a private-company mark they only get car-hire on a mileage basis).

[lock4244]

Yes... I think the ATW and EEC have a few more cars than track to store them on 

Ironically, backdating allows me to run all those neat shortline cars from the 70's and 80's... nice and colorful.

[James Costello]

I know Atlas has done a couple and FVM may have done one or two as well, but it would be nice if there were more of them or some simple patch decalling products out there.

Stock up on some trimfilm and go nuts:
http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MD&Product_Code=60-1303&Product_Count=&Category_Code=
http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MD&Product_Code=60-1302&Product_Count=&Category_Code=
http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MD&Product_Code=60-1304&Product_Count=&Category_Code=
http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MD&Product_Code=60-1285&Product_Count=&Category_Code=
http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MD&Product_Code=60-1284&Product_Count=&Category_Code=

[wm3798]

Personally, I kind of like the dullards.  I like to think of them as cereal filler.  And when you're running an ops session and you have trains being dispatched to a dozen different places, it doesn't matter what the cars look like...

Lee

[GaryHinshaw]

Atlas has also done the double-plug in a number of dull schemes which suits me just fine.

[TiVoPrince]

Personally, I kind of like the dullards.  I like to think of them as cereal filler.

Like
'Lucky Charms' cereal, you can focus on the few colourful marsmallows, but most of the box is actually crunchy brown filler...

[ljudice]

Nice models, Gary...

Not many marshmellows around these days!

I need to pick up the Microscale Futura sets, since that seems to be the font/lettering style used on a lot of the GERSCO lease fleet.

[cv_acr]

Walthers has a bunch of their modern boxcars in plain schemes, of course those cars are in HO only at this point...