N Scale Hi Rail - Retro Hollow Core Door Layout

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ooh! I think I recognize that B&O hopper!

[wm3798]

Yes, you should.  I'm going to have to do some catching up with my weathering on the rest of my fleet...

[wm3798]

More handiwork from the Back Shops Boys. 


An old Arnold bobber to bring up the rear.
Lee

[nkalanaga]

Who made that GN boxcar?  The body is much too low, but the paint and lettering is probably the most accurate GN boxcar released in the very early years of N scale.  Not only is the lettering correct for the road number, but they even got the red road name right.

I have an early ConCor car, with the 3-color herald and goat, that is much closer body-wise, but they used white lettering.  As far as I know, the 40 ft boxcars with the standing goat all had red roadnames.  To their credit, CC also used an unused road number, so nobody can claim they got it wrong!

[wm3798]

I think it's a ConCor.   I had the same car when I was a kid, and I remember it being in there box with the red foam.  This was loose in a collection I bought, but it had those crappy warpy trucks ConCor was infamous for.
It also has ice hatches.

[peteski]

I think it's a ConCor.   I had the same car when I was a kid, and I remember it being in there box with the red foam.  This was loose in a collection I bought, but it had those crappy warpy trucks ConCor was infamous for.
It also has ice hatches.

Does it have a diecast metal underframe (like MTL cars) and it there is "Sekisui" name embossed on it?  That would be an early Kato/Con-Cor car.

[nkalanaga]

I doubt that that's a ConCor car, although they may have sold it at some time.  The early ConCor cars were taller, a good match to a 10 ft IH AAR boxcar, and still look pretty good by today's standards.  Also, they have a tabbed side sill, and single vertical rivet rows.

It looks more like the Rivarossi car, once sold by Atlas and probably others.  But I don't remember them having such nicely done lettering, much less coming in GN.  I would have bought one if I'd seen it!  Spookshow says it was sold by Arnold/Rivarossi long after Atlas ended their relationship with Rivarossi, so it may be newer than I suspected, accounting for the nice paint.

http://www.spookshow.net/freight/atlasriv1dbox.html

[wm3798]

Here's another look at it.

I think it is a Rivarossi shell, akin to the old Morrell reefer I have.  The later release would explain the truck/coupler change.
Although when I went to install Atlas 1G trucks, I had to add MT washers to get the trcks to swing freely...

Lee

[peteski]

Lee, can you turn the car upside down, and tell us if there is anything written on the floor that would hint as to the car's origin? Or at least at the origin of the floor? Or will that just spoil the fun of trygin to guess?    Maybe it is an old Life-Like, or Model Power car?

[nickelplate759]

Pretty sure the frankenbox (with roof hatches) is a Model Power attempt at a clone of the old Atlas/Rivarossi car, made by Mehano.          They were common as dirt at train shows for a while.

[wm3798]

Made in Yugoslavia,  so likely a later Mehano release

[peteski]

Well, that mystery is solved then. Like George, I believe that some Mehano stuff was sold under Model Power brand.
How prototypical are roof hatches on a standard (non reefer) boxcar?

[wm3798]

I hereby invoke Ed's Law

[nkalanaga]

Thank you, everybody.  I remember these cars, but the nice GN paint must be newer than the ones I remember.

Yes, I've seen those roof-hatch boxcars.  As far as I know, they are totally unprototypical.  There were a lot of boxcars with roof hatches, but most used covered hopper style hatches, and not at the ends of the roof.

I bought a number of Mehano reefers with the opposite problem - they had the boxcar roof with no hatches!  Most iced reefers I saw in the Northwest had four hatches, where the Mehano reefer roof had only two, with the side roofwalks on the other corners.  I changed the roofwalks, and built my own hatches, to get hatches on all four corners.

[learmoia]

Did you know...
GN 27024 was used several times in early N scale production.. (and mid-70s HO Production)..
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~Ian