George Losse's Standard Boxcars Post

George Losse is modeling the Reading Railroad in P48 scale. We're going to dig into a post of his from October, 2012 a bit more.

Looking at steel boxcars through 1950, standard cars are well represented in plastic:

• USRA Design (NYC)(20,000ish) - Broadway Limited
• 1923 ARA (X29/M-26)(66,125) - Red Caboose (now Intermountain)
• 1932 ARA (11,854) - Atlas
• 1937 AAR (60,077) - Intermountain/Red Caboose
• Modified 1937 AAR (41,094) - Intermountain
• Postwar 1937 AAR (34,065)- Branchline (now Atlas), Intermountain for 10'0" IH cars
• PS-1 (46,271) - Intermountain/Kadee

Total: 279,486

In addition, a number of numerous cars, often of single roads, are also readily available:

• CP Minibox (7,000ish) - True Line Trains
• PRR X31 (14,000ish) - Bowser
• MILW Rib Side (15,000ish) - Exactrail/Intermountain/Rib Side Cars (now Accurail)
• B&O Wagontop (5,000ish) - Exactrail/Fox Valley

Total: 41,000ish

That accounts for about 320,500 of the 769,711 cars that the roads receiving standard cars had, or only about 40% of the boxcars that those roads owned. It also doesn't account for the roads that didn't receive standard cars, but it does tell us that the available plastic models only cover a portion of what is needed. It's not clear whether his numbers include Canadian cars.

So what comprises the other 60% of boxcars circa 1950? More to come.

Essential Freight Cars

Years ago, Ted Culotta had a series of articles in Railroad Model Craftsman called Essential Freight Cars. The (primarily) detailed cars that he felt should be represented on nearly every post-war/transition-era layout. The majority of the models in the articles were built from Sunshine Models resin kits. A few of the prototypes were available at the time in plastic, and a few others have been released since. While there were 45 articles, two of them were two-part. These are the subjects of the articles:

1. SL-SF Single Sheathed Boxcars 
2. GN Double Sheathed Boxcars 
3. MILW Single Sheathed Boxcars
4. Northern Pacific 10000-series Double Sheathed Boxcars
5. SSW Double Sheathed Boxcars
6. SP Single Sheathed Boxcars
7. CNW Single Sheathed Boxcars
8. CN Single Sheathed Boxcars
9. CP "Minibox" Boxcars
10. CB&Q XM-25/26 Single Sheathed Boxcars
11. SOU SU Double Sheathed Boxcars
12. UTLX X-3 Tank Cars
13. UP B-5-17 Boxcars
14. USRA Single Sheathed Boxcars
15. PFE Reefers
16. USRA Double Sheathed Boxcars
17. IC Single Sheathed Auto Cars
18. GSX, ATSF, Rutland, NOT&M Stock Cars
19. NYC 1916 Auto Cars
20. QA&P Boxcar, Carbon Black Car, Vinegar Tank Car
21. ARA Double Sheathed Boxcars
22. "Alternate ARA" Single Sheathed Boxcars
23. 1932 ARA Boxcars
24. Wagontop and Ribside Boxcars
25. PRR R50B Reefer
26. Gondolas
27. Gondola Loads
28. PRR X31 Boxcars
29. LV "Wrong Way" Boxcar
30. ACF Reefers
31. Dominion Fowler Patent Single Sheathed Boxcars
32. Soo "Sawtooth" Single Sheathed Boxcars
33. SFRD Rebuilt USRA Reefers
34. PRR X29 Boxcars
35. B&O M-26 Boxcars
36. MKT Single Sheathed Boxcars
37. Wabash Single Sheathed Boxcars
38. Early PS-1 Boxcars
39. 50-Foot Single Sheathed Boxcars
40. Spencer Kellogg Tank Car
41. Postwar AAR Boxcars
42. UP "Alternate Center Rivet" Boxcars
43. ACF Type 11 Tank Cars

Of those, these are the cars released in plastic:

1. NP 10000-series Double Sheathed Boxcars - Rapido
2. CP "Minibox" Boxcars - True Line Trains
3. USRA Single Sheathed Boxcars - Tichy, RTR from Intermountain
4. PFE Reefers - Intermountain
5. USRA Double Sheathed Boxcars - ERTL
6. ATSF Stock Cars - Intermountain
7. 1932 ARA Boxcars - Atlas
8. Wagontop Boxcars - Exactrail, Fox Valley
9. Ribside Boxcars - Exactrail, Intermountain, Rib Side Cars (tooling now owned by Accurail)
10. Gondolas (Various) - Accurail, Tangent
11. PRR X31 Boxcars - Bowser
12. Dominion Fowler Patent Single Sheathed Boxcars - Life Like of Canada Proto 1000 (aka True Line Trains)
13. SFRD Rebuilt Reefers - Intermountain
14. PRR X29 Boxcars - Red Caboose/Intermountain
15. B&O M-26 Boxcars - Red Caboose/Intermountain
16. Early PS-1 Boxcars - Kadee
17. Postwar AAR Boxcars - Branchline, others

You can see, that less than half of the cars are available in plastic. Of those, not all are available with separately applied detail parts and are often only the most common variations of the cars. So there are lots of opportunities here.

This is one of our key starting points in determining what cars we want to offer.

Welcome!

What is Prototype Junction?

We're a new manufacturer of prototypically accurate HO-scale freight cars.

Naturally, we want cars that we need for our layouts, and we are also looking to focus on areas that other manufacturers seem to be neglecting these days. So our first projects will focus on cars built in the '20s, which ran through the '60s and sometimes into the '70s.

We're not quite ready to announce our first project just yet, but over the next few posts we'll outline a bit more what we are doing and why, and what's coming in 2020.

And if you're going to be at the Chicagoland RPM this week, John and Randy will be wandering around. Hope to see you there!

Tell us what you'd like us (or somebody else) to make in our Facebook Group.