Boxcar Sunday, Let's see your boxcars.

Happy Boxcar Sunday. For this week a Weaver Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad boxcar.

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New Haven Railroad steel boxcar #33406 was one of a 6-car set of AAR 40-foot New Haven boxcars (20-90786) made by MTH in 2014. The car is a standardized design created by the American Association of Railroads in 1937. I added the "passengers" to give the car some character...

MELGAR

Here are LCCA Boxcars from the convention in Concord NC.  The Banquet, Volunteer, and Officer Director cars. What a beautiful train there.

GG1GUYY

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A few new repaints for this week…

Tom

Well good morning BxCrSun fans...today I have a "New" (to me) boxcar that I know has been posted before by others.  However, although its neither rare nor unusual I really love the logo with the 1970's dressed "Susie Q".  So here is the Lionel (MPC) #9402 Susquehanna (New York, Susquehanna, & Western)  RR boxcar from 1978.

Here is the logo I really love.  "Susie-Q with her mini-dress, big hair, and boots...so 1970's"  What a great logo!

Hope your weekend is going well and the upcoming week is happy and healthy

Regards

Don

@Krieglok posted:

A few new repaints for this week…

Tom

Tom, you come up with I need one every week. Most that haven't been produced.

A Weaver Great Northern boxcar.  Shown here after I weathered it and placed the car in its' natural habitat.

@Bill Swatos posted:

I'm not sure, Mark. I have a total of fourteen, but I think there are more. Elsewhere on the forum I've seen seen a '53 Corvette-themed Weaver car from the 1993 "Das Awkscht Fescht" antique and classic car show in Macungie, PA (Heaven!) AND a really neat "baby-blue" Ford parts car with that fantastic "8" inscribed in "V" logo.

Das Awkscht Fescht '53 Corvette

Ford Parts Boxcar

With the exception of the "Das Awkscht Fescht" car, I think they were all custom runs by Weaver for Eastwood Automobilia Transportation Collectables in the mid-nineties.

Thank you, Bill!  Those two look great as well!  I thought maybe they were custom runs for some group.  😊👍🏻

@Don McErlean posted:

Well good morning BxCrSun fans...today I have a "New" (to me) boxcar that I know has been posted before by others.  However, although its neither rare nor unusual I really love the logo with the 1970's dressed "Susie Q".  So here is the Lionel (MPC) #9402 Susquehanna (New York, Susquehanna, & Western)  RR boxcar from 1978.

Don

I bought the Atlas version of this car many years ago becuase it is a neat car.  I recently transferred it to my train-show-cars box because this paint scheme was too new for my late 40s layout era.  It first came out in the early 60s.

Hope all had a fine Boxcar Sunday, a PW Lionel 3424 Wabash Action car from 56-58 God Speed all!

@CAPPilot-Ron, thanks for the additional info and your "Susie-Q" is in color!  @Brad J - neat plug door boxcar, I collect these and had never seen this one before.

Best Wishes

Don

OK, since we’re showing Susie-Q boxcars today, here’s the MTH version.  Also shown is my latest boxcar acquisition, a yellow K-line, scale, D&H model.

I expected the D&H car to be a standard 40’ car until I took it out of the box.  It’s 40 scale feet, but about 4’ lower and 1’ narrower.  Lack of a roof walk leads me to believe it’s a newer design.

Having never seen a car like this, I would appreciate some feedback from you boxcar experts out there.  I was also wondering if the black ladders are prototypical; it seems like they should be yellow.  Thanks!

John

@Don McErlean - Don, you are welcome.  Another neat fact: the design was the winner of an internal company design contest (may have included just their children).  Applied to just a few cars ranging (depending on source) to as high as 40.  I found this on another forum many years ago and nobody disputed it then.

@Dave Ripp. posted:

Tom, you come up with I need one every week. Most that haven't been produced.

Let me know if you like certain cars. I can do some for you if I can get the decal sets…

Tom

@Don McErlean posted:

@CAPPilot-Ron, thanks for the additional info and your "Susie-Q" is in color!  @Brad J - neat plug door boxcar, I collect these and had never seen this one before.

Best Wishes

Don

I tracked the person down that did this car and had him sign the box. He said he used ho scale decals.

@Brad J- Signed the box, now that's cool!   @Steam Crazy- Hey both you and CAPPilot got full color "Susie-Q's" I can see I found the wrong boxcar !!  Well guess that means more lookin'. Ron - thanks for the info on the Susie Q box car IRL, that was a neat piece of information about the contest.  Thanks for adding that in.

Well hope your week goes well everyone

Don

Since it is Susie-Q day, here is Menards rendition.  I agree it doesn’t fit my 1950 era layout, so it is on the display shelf.

Mark, it doesn’t fit my 1956 era layout either, but I like it, so I run it.  “Close enough”, is “good enough” for me!

John

@Steam Crazy posted:

Mark, it doesn’t fit my 1956 era layout either, but I like it, so I run it.  “Close enough”, is “good enough” for me!

John

👍🏻👍🏻

While trying to keep water out of the house in SoCal, I thought I'd take a moment to join in the "Suzy-Q" fun with Williams' version:

The "Suzy-Q" graphic is remarkably well done:

Wow, it’s late, but still sunday evening here in middle Tennessee. I’ll ad my Susie Q box car, and a Southern box car and both are sound cars by Lionel purchased new several years ago, however they haven’t been ran yet…. I wish everyone a great week. Happy Railroading Everyone

Thank you for liking some of my custom run reefers. They were painted by the Weaver Train Co.

WOW! everyone...I almost feel guilty with what I started with my Susquehanna box car...I guess "Susie-Q" was really popular and I can see why, its a really neat logo!

All the best everyone!

Don

Susie also made it into my post though it wasn't my featured boxcar.

@Bill Swatos posted:

While trying to keep water out of the house in SoCal, I thought I'd take a moment to join in the "Suzy-Q" fun with Williams' version:

The "Suzy-Q" graphic is remarkably well done:

Oops! Sorry for the spelling errors; Hostess Suzy-Q's are my favorite snack cake...

@Bill Swatos posted:

Oops! Sorry for the spelling errors; Hostess Suzy-Q's are my favorite snack cake...

I almost misspelled it myself!  😄

@Bill Swatos- It iz OK ef U Kant spill...Don

@Don McErlean posted:

@Bill Swatos- It iz OK ef U Kant spill...Don

👍🏻👍🏻 😄

And for us CCR fans, they don't make it any eazier...

We are not sunday but..... "Susie-Q" is also present on a boxcar made by "BEV-BEL Corporation. I think it is a company who used the old ATLAS cars, making them display better.

Daniel

AHA!  Now we have "mademoiselle" Suzie-Q from France!!

Don

I really like the Susie-Q boxcar, and searched for some on eBay.  Someone was selling Lionel versions, NIB, for under $30 so I jumped on it.  I looked carefully at the logo afterward, and Lionel's were not as colorful as the one above.  I said 'oh-oh', and then decided to look up pictures of the real thing.  The Lionel version actually looks more like the prototype.  The only colorations on the real thing were the lantern, gloves, bandana, and hair, and that's what Lionel had.  No doubt that the one above is much nicer looking though.

@Don McErlean posted:

AHA!  Now we have "mademoiselle" Suzie-Q from France!!

Don

Exactly Don, but the car is made in USA..... in fact maybe it is the only one in France.....

All my best wishes, Daniel

In the past I have made and posted a lot of "pretend" boxcars for a real railroad for which I had the privilege to be employed.  Here is yet another one:

We did not survive deregulation, but the legacy lives on.

The color scheme mimics the colors of the red landscape in a part of central Texas affectionately known as "the Big Empty".  The Red River comprising much of the Texas/Oklahoma border actually is a rusty red color...I have the white T-shirts, now red, to prove this after a swim.  The gray and khaki colors are other layers of soil colors in the eroded landscape while the green represents invasive cedars in the area.

I consider this one as one of my "buzzards" which I do not wish to keep and will be part of the list of things to sell at the next Lone Star Hi-Railers Train-a-Palooza on March 2024.  Our show has become quite a success. 

Several manufacturers have produced REX cars in O gauge, and they are well done but I think a level of realism can be achieved by doing it yourself.  The road numbers may not be exact, but these are otherwise quite accurate.

I enjoy buying nice Atlas plug door boxcars at a low price and repainting them to what you see here.  They fit nicely in consists I have collected for ATSF trains 7 and 8 (the Fast Mail), or FW&D unnamed mail-express trains 7 and 8.

Hello Boxcar fans. Rob, I always enjoy your contributions & thanks for getting us started. As for me, here is a MTH Burlington 50-foot double door that I found in my collection this morning. It could use a little lite weathering similar to the Weaver 40-foot that I like to keep on the layout. There is also a rail fan taking photos I have 3 or 4 of these on the layout.

Robert…great looking cars with excellent paint work and weathering. Nicely done!

Dave, the CB&Q is always a favorite. The red color always pops!

Here are three I finished recently. All variants of the NC&StL, the “Dixie Line”…

Tom

@Rob Leese, @Dave Ripp., @Krieglok - Great cars all, Tom super job of customizing as usual, Dave bright red always is an eye catcher, Rob - your story about the color scheme on that QA&P boxcar was really interesting.

Today I am going to vary just a little bit from the "boxcar" although not very much.  This is what Lionel called a "Merchandise Car" and it is automated, one of the first pre-war cars with this sort of action.  Loaded with small boxes and placed on an activation track near a ramp, this car ejects little boxes.  Seems like the Lionel Lines had about the same degree of concern with breaking whatever is in the boxes as does USPS !!

Here is the Lionel #3814 Merchandise Car from 1939-1941

Here is the side view and you can see the mechanism inside the car that ejects the boxes (loaded through a hatch in the roof)

Some close ups of the data end and the logo end.  You can see a few chips in the paint especially on the lower corners, but I prefer to leave things this way as I view these as "scars" from a lifetime of use...84 years and counting.

I have waited quite a while to add one of these to my collection.  Only made for 3 years pre WWII  (they did not return after the war) they are not too common.  Plus the fact that all offered for sale seemed to be either in awful condition / missing parts or very highly priced.  This one is fully complete (except for the little boxes themselves) and not too bad on its paint and such and was only $30 plus shipping and handling, so I finally had to pull the trigger.

Hope you are having a good weekend and that the upcoming week goes well for everyone.

Don

Hope all are enjoying your Boxcar Sunday, Have a good upcoming week. God and Country and God Bless my U.S. Army