Athearn O scale box car kits were produced by Irving Athearn in Los Angeles, beginning in the early 1940's. The 40' box car kit made by Athearn was accurate, understanding that a "40 box car" was actually 40' 6' long inside, and nearly 42' long outside. The competing General Models / All Nation box car kits built very much like an Athearn kit, was shorter, with a scale 40' exterior length. Irv Athearn, like his contemporaries Wm. K. Walthers and Gordon Varney, were O scale modelers and producers. Varney was the one who introduced the O scale B&O 4-6-0 kit and the O scale Pullman 6 wheel trucks later made by All Nation.
Athearn's kits were made of wood and stamped tin plated steel scrap from can and bottle cap manufacturers. Sometimes small parts carried the paint and markings of Coca Cola or other products. Athearn produced accurately done painted, silk screen lettered metal sides, and included a bottle of matching paint with the kit, along with trucks and usually Monarch couplers. Early Athearn kits included stand offs for the side and end grab irons, a part that was no longer made after WW II. When Athearn produced a kit to model B&O's blue and silver "Sentinel" box cars, he had new dies made to press accurate ends for it. Those ends are rare, and only made for the first run of those kits.
Later, Athearn added a 50' double door box car kit to the line and by 1949, took over production of the 40' steel side refrigerator car kit, first made by Model Master Car Works of Cedar Rapids IA in 1947. This model included eaves rivet detail, which the Athearn and General Models box car kits lacked.
The Athearn line of O scale kits, parts and trucks took a rambling trip over the decades. Some things, like Athearn's O scale steam loco drivers and their unique quartering set up were lost. All the car kits moved on to Reynolds, Geo. Menzies, Pacific HO, Locomotive Workshop, Old Pullman and Box Car Jim. The kits died out in the early 2000's. Athearn's sprung trucks took a similar but shorter route.
Below are some Athearn kits I've built. The New Haven box car is from an early 1940 kit, produced when New Haven bought its first steel box cars when replacing its fleet of aging 36' wood body cars. They were unique in having a 60 ton capacity rating when most other steel 40' boxcars were rated for 50 tons. Athearn sides carried accurate car numbers, date and data for them. Athearns kits and parts were also useful in creating other models as well, as seen below.
S. Islander
