There are four known boxcar molds. WBB, Lionel, MTH and the K-Line molds that were acquired by Sandra Kan (now Kader) when K-Line went under. Knowing that all of these molds exist; it would be strange if someone went through the large expense of retooling especially for Menards. Here is my educated guess. Does anyone remember MPC? Their 6464 type boxcar molds were smooth sided just like the Menards cars are. Later on Lionel Trains retooled to get back the original rivet detail. What happened to the MPC smooth sided molds that were supposed to have changed hands at least four times? I suspect that these early molds found their way to a small manufacturer in China or a plastic tooling house who supplies the major manufacturers who machined another set using the same CAM program data. . In China strange things can happen and try to figure that out 6,000 miles away?
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