I picked up an O gauge autorack at the Amherst Railway train show over the weekend. As Brendan's and Banjoflyer's pictures show, the car looks pretty good for something made so inexpensively. The parts are colored plastic, not painted; the roof and side panels are a single piece pressed onto the frame with bottom tabs similar to American Models' heavyweight passenger car tabs; and the colored supports, end panels, ladders, and doors are press fit into slots. The only metal piece on the model is a large rivet that holds the plastic trucks to the frame bottom. It is very inexpensive construction with inexpensive parts but looks far better than the bill of materials would suggest.
I removed the Lionel trucks and looked for American Models, DPH, or SHS trucks that could replace the O scale trucks; but I found that the large circular bottom support molded in the frame did not allow those trucks to work without having to cut away some of the bottom to allow the wheels to move. The solution was simple: the large bolstered trucks removed from an AF cylindrical hopper to lower it fit with a simple nut/bolt/washer through the reused trucks and the hole left by removal of the Lionel trucks. The hopper trucks sit back from the autorack ends just as on the prototype and lower the car enough to look good. I still have to work out how to fit Kadee couplers that will work on the tighter curves, but the replacement was quick and simple--and got the hopper trucks out of the spare parts box onto the track.
The Lionel booth at Amherst showed the new American Flyer wooden billboard reefers. The paint jobs were as excellent as one would expect from Lionel. The grab irons looked to be molded into the product--it was a but hard to tell because the molding was crisp and sharp--and the bottom is a simple metal plate similar to Gilbert products of the past. The MTH reefers are far superior in their details top to bottom, and the suggested retail price is $5 less. I don't understand how this new, lesser, "me too" offering was a better investment in tooling than the mechanical reefer would have been.
There was also a Docksider on display with a notice that it was a prototype. The locomotive was primer gray with a separately applied black headlight housing, and there seemed to be far more detailing than I remember on previous versions. It may have been booth lighting that highlighted the relief of the Docksider, but it appeared to me to be a far more attractive version than what I have seen in hobby shops.
