Boxcar Sunday, Let's see your boxcars.

Finally found a Frisco Fast Freight. I remember seeing these in my youth.

Dallas Joseph,

Those cars were made by Weaver.

Don Winslow in your post above you used the term..." 6565 Lionel Wellspring era" to address the UP boxcar that you posted.  Back on 11/21 I posted a CP boxcar which also was listed in my guide book as "6565 series" but the book did not use the term "Wellspring"  however the characteristics of the car were very similar to your UP.  Superb quality, die cast frame and fully sprung trucks, heavy weight body etc...far in excess of the MPC 9700 series cars.  I was curious where you found the term "Wellspring" and what it refers to???  I had not found any other 6565 cars until you posted your UP car.

Best wishes

Don

Williams New Haven along with my dad's AC Gilbert HO boxcar

EMD Power pulling “boxcars.”

@shasta posted:

I just ordered three of these couple days ago lol.

That was a Christmas present to myself, I have been wanting to build a train of these for a while now. I had 4 of the Lionel cars, three of which are the last go round of the Freight sounds cars. I had wrote off MTH when they had the six packs because I thought they were traditional size as I had never seen any in person. About  6 weeks ago I found a used MTH Premier Car at a LHS . I thought it didn't look too bad and bought it because it was a good price. Got it home and set it next to the Lionel and saw it was a good match. Started looking around on all the auction sites and hobby shops, no luck. Thought I had exhausted all possibilities and got an ad from Trainworld that had it premiere overnight car listed. Turns out they had 11, bought them all. Thank you Trainworld . Want to give a shout out to Trainworld nice people to deal with, gave me a call to let me know there would be extra shipping to get it all the way out here to California. They ship the order right out and I had it fast.

Delivering New Years Cheer.  Happy New Year everyone!!

@PRRronbh posted:

I know, I know, not exactly a "box" car.  But, even so, what is wrong in this image?  This is a Lionel 6-17311 Standard O reefer from the early 1990's.

ok checked ebay to match the car, so what is wrong, got me lol

Well here we are , the first Sunday of 2022!  Here is hoping everyone has a wonderful and HEALTHY New Year!  Today, since it is a "unique" Sunday I have a somewhat unique boxcar.  It is a "limited edition" issued by Lionel in 1993 celebrating the famous (now bankrupt) toy store..."Toys R Us".  Lionel made a number of Toys R Us boxcars but they were mostly the 0-27 plug door variety and this one is more the full size standard Lionel boxcar.  This was an uncatalogued car and likely only available at Toys R Us outlets, although I can't confirm that at this time.

Here is the full side of the car, with Lionel announcing itself that the car was a "limited edition" and the year, 1993 both things somewhat unusual for Lionel standard practice.

Closer look at that "limited edition" logo

Finally the full color rendition of the famous "Toys R Us" logo

Well the famous "World's Biggest Toy Store" is gone (sort of), bankrupt around 2017 and closing 735 stores in 2018, but this 28 year old uncatalogued tribute soldiers on.  However they were resurrected just this year , Dec 2021for last minute holiday shopping so maybe there may be future Lionel cars - who knows?

Best wishes for a wonderful year

Don

                                                        New arrivals... 

@Sitka posted:

ok checked ebay to match the car, so what is wrong, got me lol

I post only boxcars on Box car Sunday, but over the years every type of car has been seen in this topic.  Maybe rename to Freight car Sunday?  There are so many reefers, they should have their own topic.  And no, I am not going to start anything, just thinking (and typing) out loud.

Louisville & Nashville.

Box cars Montgomery Illinois.

A couple Weaver strip down and repaint jobs. Used Scalecoat II and K4 decals…

Peoria and Eastern…

Monon…

Tom

@SIRT posted:

                                                        New arrivals...

Good look sir.          What would have been the material in the REAL boxcar that made the residue on the hatches...........and what did you make YOUR residue with ?🤔

Some hauled bulk GA clay, others carried grain for brewery's. RR's converted box cars like these when there was a shortage of covered hoppers saving in the costs of building new hoppers. The B&O used them for diesel sand storage.

Spillage was diluted by rain as it ran down the sides from the hatches as they did on cement powder hopper cars.

A mix of Folk-art paints with some powders, linen, gray, clay sealed with clear flat Krylon.

Enjoyable cars to decorate.

@SIRT posted:

Some hauled bulk GA clay, others carried grain for brewery's. RR's converted box cars like these when there was a shortage of covered hoppers saving in the costs of building new hoppers. The B&O used them for diesel sand storage.

Spillage was diluted by rain as it ran down the sides from the hatches as they did on cement powder hopper cars.

A mix of Folk-art paints with some powders, linen, gray, clay sealed with clear flat Krylon.

Enjoyable cars to decorate.

Thanks for the history info.

As usual , you have made a very convincing representation of the look needed on these cars.

Thanks for the photos.

@Krieglok posted:

A couple Weaver strip down and repaint jobs. Used Scalecoat II and K4 decals…

Peoria and Eastern…

Monon…

Tom

Hey Tom. Your stripping down, repainting, and decaling projects produce results that are second to none. Those box cars look great! Nice work as usual. 👍

Happy Box car Sunday! Lionel Northern Pacific pulling a small string of N.P. box cars.

This one is a double-door.

Well hello everyone on BxCrSun !  I want to thank a forum member for responding to my question on the 6565 series cars and what the term "Wellspring" meant in another member's post.  Great info, cleared up my questions.  I won't use his name here in public but THANK YOU for great information and adding to my meager knowledge.  It turns out, as I was informed, that this question on the 6565 cars was discussed in the forum some time ago and if you search on the topic "Lionel 6565 Cars" you can find the thread and even a listing of the cars (it is a short run).

You may remember that back on 12/26 I posted that Santa Claus had brought me an "I Love NJ" boxcar and me and my wife were born, raised, and went to school (college/nursing school) in NJ so this had some real connections to us.  I then purused my collection inventory and found that I had accumulated (in the past) the I love PA and I love Mass boxcars at the time we were living in those states.  So I decided I would try and find the other I Love.... cars for the other states where we  have lived (8 in all).  You might think, why has this guy lived in so many states?  Well, when you work for your Uncle (Uncle Sam that is) you get to move around a bit (LOL).

So imagine my surprise, when I am looking over e-Bay just as I got back to Texas and I find TWO of the missing box cars, Virginia and Ohio.  So here they are:

We went from New Jersey to Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH in 1970 , then left for Massachusetts, then came back to WPAFB, OH and finally left for good in 1987.  I can tell you, the initial trip from NJ to OH in 1970, with everything we owned in the back of our Ford station wagon, by a young married couple who had never in their lives been west of the Delaware River was quite an experience!!  Here is the "I Love OH" boxcar from 1991.

In 1994 we went from Pennsylvania to Virginia (for work this was really Washington D.C but you don't live in the district).  Living there for 3 years from 94-97. So made  in 1987 here is the "I Love VA" boxcar.

So now I have 5 of the 8 and still need Texas, Georgia and Maryland.  As I research this series, Tx and Ga seem reasonably available although I have not cornered them as yet but Maryland seems either to not exist at all (after all Lionel changed ownership in '95) or for some reasons is very scarce.  Well what is the fun without some level of "mystery"

Best wishes, hoping you have a great upcoming week

Don

The inspiration and the inspired:

Rusty

Traffic backed up on the strip between North and South Main, as the camera catches two free-riders climbing aboard the Hills Bros coffee box...

Just happen to have two boxcar trains today  

HA!  Carpetrainman - you forgot to mention the number of the police car in the foreground...who can forget..."Car 54-where are you ?" from early TV.  Dennis, from looking at the roofs of all those box cars, several of them appear to be older O'gauge wooden kits that you assembled, painted, and decaled then bought trucks and couplers for.  These would have been popular (yes I built 1 or 2) in the 1950's.  Is that correct?  Did you build them?

Don

@Don McErlean posted:

HA!  Carpetrainman - you forgot to mention the number of the police car in the foreground...who can forget..."Car 54-where are you ?" from early TV.  Dennis, from looking at the roofs of all those box cars, several of them appear to be older O'gauge wooden kits that you assembled, painted, and decaled then bought trucks and couplers for.  These would have been popular (yes I built 1 or 2) in the 1950's.  Is that correct?  Did you build them?

Don

Don, you are correct,  wood and metal kits from Walthers, Scale Craft, Lobaugh, Westbrook, All Nation, Athearn and a few others fromt he 1930's to the 50's.  I picked them all up over time, most of them in bad shape as basket cases etc.  I've spent some time matching up period correct and mfr correct parts for a lot of them, so more I am rebuilding or putting them back on the rails.  Trying to keep the better ones as original as I can if that makes sense.  That said, I do have a stach of kits and more projects as well lol. I love tank cars so I have a bunch of those in various stages of rebuilding. These I taken beaters completely apart and rebuilt the frames so far.  It's a lot easier on the early versions with bronze end platforms.  The later Walthers tankers had the famous Walthers lead/solder alloy stuff that is a pain to work with.  Much prefer these early Walthers Creestline style tank cars lol. This Walthers Texaco is a good example of the projects I like to find.

Dennis, we may have a "strange" common interest.  I too LOVE tank cars.  Over the last 50 or so years I have been collecting, I have just about every tank car both pre and post war that Lionel ever made (except the scale one that came with the scale 700, it remains too expensive ).  I also have tank cars from American Flyer (Chicago Flyer), Fandor, Hornby, Chad Valley, Unique Lines, Hafner, Bub and various Japanese makes etc.  Just love the colorful livery.  Building the old kits is really neat, I actually didn't recall that they made tank car kits.  I built a few box cars, a refer, and a hopper car back in the day but I am afraid those are all gone.  I am glad someone has decided to rescue those antiques, that was the way you got rolling stock in the 40's and 50's.

Best wishes

Don

A string of Pacemaker Box Cars pulling on to the mainline to deliver goods to New York City... I added the 3 cars from the Lionel set from 1998 to the new set with the VisionLine car. While the older cars are slightly shorter, the gray sections line up pretty well. If I can find the two Std. O cars I have, I’ll have to add them to the consist.

Lionel Challenger 3985 pulling “boxcars.”

@Krieglok posted:

A couple Weaver strip down and repaint jobs. Used Scalecoat II and K4 decals…

Peoria and Eastern…

Monon…

Tom

Very nice as always Tom you did great

Thank you Lee!

Tom

Well BCSun fans, here it is a sunny but quite cold Sunday morning in central Texas but no one has posted yet.  So I guess I will start this Sunday.  Today I have a "train show mystery"...I went to my first train show in nearly 2 years yesterday and it was GREAT!!  I came home with a bag of goodies, one of which I am posting here.  Why the mystery?  I cannot find this car in my Lionel listings, yet in very fine print it states..."built 1999 by Lionel" in very tiny letters under the car number.  I have looked up the number on the car but its not the product number hence no joy in any listing.  My 1999 catalog is not available so at the moment I am lost.  Perhaps someone out there on the forum can help.

I thought at first it was one of the 6565 cars we discussed back in early December but as far as I can tell this car was never listed in the series.  However, its construction details are very similar.  Very heavy car body casting, die cast trucks with full suspension springs, and die cast frame.  This guy is about 2x the weight of a normal modern Lionel box car.   He is 10.5 " long hence about a 40-45 foot prototype.  So anyway here is my Lionel (unknown number) Southern box car.

Best wishes for a good Holiday tomorrow

Don

I found this thread on the 9464 boxcars.  I have a few of the cars listed including the ones in the Pacemaker freight set.

Well, here it is Sunday again and its a very nice, sunny, and somewhat mild day in central Texas (64 deg).  So I hope I can scare up a few more "box car" fans to post to this thread this week.  Today I have another one of Lionel's (Lionel LLC) so called "mystery" cars, because they do not put the product number on the car.  This car, NYC "Helicopter Parts" box car is part of the "New York Central Flyer, ready to run, Train set" # 30156 (guide book #)  and 73-0156-250 (number on instruction book).  The set dates from April 2011.  Why "Helicopter Parts"...well the set contains a helicopter launching flatcar as part of the set make up. The only marking on the car is (small white letters to rt of door)..."Built 2011 by Lionel".  Note sprung trucks.

Well gang...let's see those boxcars !!

Best Regards

Don

A little Sunday morning exercise in the "Charles Street Yard..."

An old Walthers all cast metal kit.