Several messages back, some one mentioned the "Dollar Car" series by Eric Stevens that were in Model Railroader magazine of the 1950's.
Hers is the O scale B&O wagon top box car I built from one of those articles in 1956. At the time, Walthers had the correct milled wood roof for this car, and I made use of their doors as well. As a teen just out of high school., my first job was operating an offset press for a naval architecture firm in NY City. So instead of using a Life magazine cover to wrap the body and hide the side-to-roof seam, I used a worn out sheet metal offset press master. It also allowed me to impress rivet detail in the metal master for the car ends, after sketching the pattern from cars at the St. George Yard on Staten Island.
This model is rugged and had a long life. It was my entry into the year 2000 "O Ship" project, where several modelers would send a freight car out for a 6 month round robin tour on other layouts. This box car went to roll on model pikes from New Hampshire to northern Virginia and back. In the mean time, I hosted a different car from those layouts each month, from January to June. I sold it shortly after Weaver introduced their B&O wagon top box cars, for which I was one of their resources conerning them.
S. Islander
