Conrail X72 boxcars

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Walthers has just anounced a new run of their HO X72 in several early Conrail schemes for HO. Lets hope we get these in N as well.

[bbussey]

That's ancient Life Like tooling.  I guess if they upgrade the brakewheel and trucks, it might be passable with good paint and graphics.  But they already are getting hammered on the quality and price of the caboose.  It's probably less expensive in the long run to find old ones on the secondary market and repaint them.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I have 10 of them repainted.










It takes forever, and I'm running out of decals. All these would need is some minor retooling: finer ladders and weld lines, and a new underframe.

[bbussey]

I bet it still cost you less to do it yourself, plus you have the luxury of multiple numbers and schemes.  You should have a couple wearing a weathered PC paint job as well.
 

[ai5629]

I have to agree with Bryan about buying them cheap and decalling yourself.  I have done eight Conrail cars and five Penn Centrals over the last 15 years.  The PC cars are much easier since Micro Scale introduced the  60-1096 set.  The Conrail ones can be done with data from the 60-1094 or 60-1096 PC sets and numbers and logos from 60-862 CR set (discontinued).  I prefer to use the "Conrail" from the 60-627 diesel set.  It just looks more correct in size to me.  Large logo cars, use Oddballs 913 for logo and road name only, numbers are awful.  I would also suggest removing the stock stirrups and brake wheel and adding MT stock car stirrups and miner brake wheel.  The cars look great when you do these additional steps.  It would be nice to have Walthers do the cars for us, but I doubt that will happen.  They did a really nice job with the Conrail GSC paint scheme, so they could get the boxcars right if they wanted to.  Thanks.

Jeff   

[Dave Schneider]

Daniel,

Those x72s look really nice!  I have 4 or 5 of these that I picked up for $1 each for the MTL couplers and trucks. They are painted for odd bicentennial schemes like the Liberty Bell, etc...

I have been thinking about repainting these but was unsure of the proper scheme.  The Conrail cars are too new for me. Was the Penn Central the original owner or did they go back to the Pennsy? Any thoughts on correct road numbers for these?

Best wishes, Dave

[daniel_leavitt2000]

These were bought in the early 70's by PC. The PRR never owned any.

[asarge]

Don't know how much they might have "upgraded" it. But they did keep the price down a bit. That's been happening with several of their announcements over the last few months. Less "platinum" line freight cars at "platinum" line prices. No N scale announcements this month. BIG surprise there huh!

[unittrain]

Not to hi-jack the thread or anything but I'm looking forward to the ESM former Pennsy class boxcars that Brian is working on those are going to be awesome 

[Dave Schneider]

These were bought in the early 70's by PC. The PRR never owned any.

Thanks for the info. Does anyone have a more precise date for when the PC acquired these cars and the car number range.

Best wishes, Dave

[amato1969]

I have to agree with Bryan about buying them cheap and decalling yourself. 

+1, the original LL cars can still be had at resonable prices.  The PC and CR paint jobs are easy, and decals are readily available.  I have a few on my summer to-do list!

  Frank

[bbussey]

As an aside, Bev-Bel did offer limited run versions in PC and CR way back when LL first introduced the cars.  They aren't spectacular, but they were better than the stock LL cars at the time and will do in a pinch.  The CR had the large can-opener if I remember correctly.  You should search for those on the secondary market as well.

[ai5629]

X72A 229000-229499 Built  early 1973

X72 266820-266875 Built early 1972

X72 269150-269429 Built early 1972

X72 269430-269500 Built early 1972

X72 269840-269999 Built early 1972

Each series had different loading equipment.  Thanks.

Jeff

[Dave Schneider]

Thanks for the info Jeff. I appreciate it.

Best wishes, Dave

[bbussey]

I vaguely recall that BLW released a limited-run Conrail four-pack decades ago, possibly under the NHD line, so that is another scavenger hunt option.