R.H. Macy's & Co. Box Car

Thanks for posting.  I'm not sure where the idea came from other than it being on display at MACY's.  The original thread's picture was pretty clear for me to see it was a freight car and not a holiday / Christmas / Hanuka / Kwanzaa / Festivus etc. theme car. 

 

 

Big Jim,

   Actually now that I understand it's not a Christmas Box Car I might just have to pick one of these Macy's Fancy & Dry Goods Box Cars up, it does look kind cool, definitely an original.

PCRR/Dave

 

 

No, not a "Christmas" car, but would look great in pretty much any Christmas consist with those colors & styling.  If I did traditional I'd try to pick one up. 

 

The red on the tops of the "ladder" actually look pretty good to me - as if they're colored for safety, etc. 

It is "BROWN", not black.

Thanks for posting.  Mine won't arrive until Monday.  It is actually nicer than I thought, a departure from the holiday/parade cars.  It will look great heading up the others.  I still need a decent Macy's caboose.

There is one now on the Bay for $100! 

What is interesting to me is that if you look straight on at the side of the car, the red doesn't show. Look from above and below and you can see the red as you mentioned.  

 

There is also appears to be a bit of "texture" to the finish. Looking at the finish at a low angle, it appears that the side has a hint of a horizontal tongue & groove. The brown also stands up higher than the white lettering only. The rest of the lettering is smooth with the brown finish.

 

None of this takes away from the fine finish of the car, it just makes me wonder how they painted the sides.

 

Jim,

 

This car is part of Lionel's Made in the USA series.  They don't actually "paint" the sides.  To see how the cars are decorated (using the back and forth printing process), check out:

 

Inside the Lionel USA Factory

 

Stu

www.LionelNation.com

 

 

Thanks Stu, that explains everything!

Where can you purchase one of these boxcars?

I tried a search and nothing comes up except this post.

Ron,

The photo that I took was not taken straight on. You need to hold the car in your hand to see what I am talking about. And yes, if you will pay close attention to what the heck is happening and have an analytical brain, the video Stu provided does explain exactly why the "BROWN" is only on the horizontal surfaces of the car where it was applied and not on any upper or lower surfaces.

 

Now, as for the "BROWN". The sun had gone down behind the trees by the time the car had arrived at this station, so, it may not appear as brown as it really is. However, it is clearly brown in my photo, not black, nor should it "may as well be black".

quote:

Where can you purchase one of these boxcars?

I tried a search and nothing comes up except this post.

SC2, you can read all about it in the linked thread Macy's Boxcar.

Called The Herald Square(New York) store directly this past Sunday after searching  the Macy's site and placed my order These cars are in limited supply and not carried thru out the Macy' system I live in the Detroit Metropolitan area and none of their stores carry this item. If you do get thru make sure you have the sku number and Lionel item number for this is how the clerk at the Hearld Square store located this item Shipped directly

Good looking car, can't wait til mine arrives.

 

This car will look good in my holiday train but will stay out all year, and remind me of the the holidays, thanks for posting the pics.

 

Cant wait for the parade tomorrow morning, watching the parade is a family tradition, great kick off to the holidays.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Good looking car, can't wait til mine arrives on Friday.

 

This car will look good in my holiday train but will stay out all year, and remind me of the the holidays, thanks for posting the pics.

 

Cant wait for the parade tomorrow morning, watching the parade is a family tradition, great kick off to the holidays.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

This car is only located at half a dozen or so Macy's stores throughout the country.  If you're shopping at a local Macy's, just go up to any customer service station and they can arrange to have the car shipped to you after finding it in their inventory system.  When I ordered mine, the system was showing stock in Herald Square, NYC; Philly, PA; Chicago, IL; one store in CA; and two stores in Florida.

 

The Lionel SKU is 6-83644, but you need the full Macy's SKU in order for the customer service employee to locate the car in THEIR inventory system.  The Macy's SKU is 023922836441, and it will show up as Lionel L.L.C. Custom Macy's Train Car.

 

Best of luck... I order mine on 11/19 by visiting a local Macy's store here in Montgomeryville, PA.  The order fulfillment is rather random.  And when I received a shipment confirmation email (very quickly), I can see by the tracking info that mine is scheduled to arrive on 11/28 via UPS SurePost from Miami, FL.  No complaints here, as there was no charge for shipping.

 

You could also try calling the Macy's Herald Store in NYC directly.

 

David

got it yesterday

 

Since the OGR forum won't allow large photos, here's a link to bigger ones

 

http://s13.postimg.org/7483sst...ys_2015_boxcar_1.jpg

http://s2.postimg.org/54uobx21...ys_2015_boxcar_2.jpg

http://s7.postimg.org/vybfhr6a...ys_2015_boxcar_3.jpg

http://s11.postimg.org/jj07nkx...ys_2015_boxcar_4.jpg

http://s11.postimg.org/nob49hv...s_2015_boxcar_5x.jpg

Happy Thanksgiving

Link to larger photo:
http://s18.postimg.org/40dstso...ppy_Thanksgiving.jpg

It's nice I got mine last week at Herald Square. There was a guy in front of me who bought a sealed case of six. It's nice sprung trucks and the brown had a nice metal flake sheen to it. In glad it doesn't say Thanksgiving so it could be run on not Thanksgiving at the same time running it would make a normal person think of thanksgiving without hitting you over the head with it.

Nice car

Being something of a stickler for reality, I wonder if Macy's, in their glory days, ever had a freight car owned or leased to them and leffered for them.  And I wonder this about the other, once, large retailers like Sears, that used to ship house kits (build it

yourself), and, I think, Allstate autos, in boxcars (although these last might have

come direct from Kaiser).  And there was Montgomery-Wards, Aldens, and several

other large mail order retailers.  I wonder if ANY of them had dedicated freight cars?

Doubt it.  Any "dedicated" cars would have been supplied by the railroads and would have only had "When Empty Return To [insert name here]" stenciled on them.

 

In the late 50's, I do remember seeing a slew of Sears semi trailers outside Burlington's Freight House 9 in Cicero, IL every time we went to my grandparent's place.

 

Rusty

Well, that makes the highly sought after Marx flat car and its Sears and Allstate

trailers, and the rarer still, Walgreens, Wards, and Western Auto trailers, with the tin semi cabs, legit, for sure....

It appears to be a 50' car?

 

I love it except for the RED top and ends....

 

Makes it look cartoonish.

 

I know, I know - somebody is going to tell me it is prototypical......

 

(still don't like it)

 

Now maybe if I could match the brown and do some paint over??? Hmmm!

What color would you have painted it?

Hope Lionel and Macy's do a 90th anniversary boxcar for the Thanksgiving Day parade in 2016!! Hint Hint!!!!

I agree.   here's hoping they choose a nice design for the car.

I would have the top and ends match the sides, or (less attractive) had them done in black.

Received my Macy's boxcar in mail today but totally bummed seeing box partially crushed and bottom of it split / torn open. Took photos before opening it and my worse fear was realized as the Lionel box itself was crushed too and the boxcar cracked and broken.

Am certain there'll be no problem with Macy's with the return but likely there'll be none left to send as a replacement.

Since no outer USPS stamp on box citing it was damaged when it was received, I'm guessing damage was by USPS and not UPS. I understand the shipping was free but if it had been shipped from Miami, FL by UPS and delivered directly to me from UPS rather than UPS delivering it to the local USPS office for a mail carrier to deliver it to me, I'm wondering whether it would have incurred damage. As they say, too many hands in the pot can spoil things.... and to think the local Macy's stop sales associate who placed my order wouldn't even give me the Macy's discount that many of you here who bought it received.

Yeah, Michael Hokkanen, the red/brown color of the Lionel 2015 Macy's box car is extremely prototypical.



Quote:Rowland Hussey Macy, Sr. was the fourth of six children born to a Quaker family on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.

At the age of fifteen, he worked on the whaling ship Emily Morgan and had a red star tattooed on his hand which became part of the store's logo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowland_Hussey_Macy

That is why the Lionel Macy's 2015 boxcar roof is painted red. In recognition of Mr. Macys' red star tattoo.

Here is a larger image that can not be viewed on the OGR forum
http://s1.postimg.org/ob42bfm5...ys_2015_boxcar_6.jpg

Has anyone ordered one of these boxcars in the past day or so from Macy's directly?  Are they still available? Or sold out?  Just curious 'cause I see folks appear to be readily spending over $100 on eBay for these already this past weekend.  

 

Meanwhile the former, more colorful Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade themed boxcars from 2006-2009 are typically going for only $20-$40.

 

That pretty much is representative of how folks in our hobby get caught up paying premium prices for having the latest and greatest offerings.  How quickly the novelty wears off though.  

 

David

 

 

David,

You observation may be right.  The market price of the 2015 Macy's boxcar may very well be on eBay in the $20 to $40 dollar range.
However, there are those that will enjoy running this rare boxcar RIGHT NOW... and for many, many years on their model railroad layout.  I know I will be enjoy running  mine now, and not 2, 3 or 5 years later.

 

 

 

The Lionel box on mine was crushed as well and one flap was open, but fortunately there was no damage to the car itself.  The outer Macy's shipping box was not damaged which makes me think it was the luck of the draw for who ever pulled it from the case and then shipped it to me.  Doesn't matter to me, this will be run this Saturday on my display at my church during our annual Breakfast with Santa event. The trains run continuously for 4 hours, I'll let you all know how it holds up!.

 

Ron,

 

Lionel's Made in the USA vendor uses the same techniques for decorating O Gauge trains as they do for decorating G Gauge trains.

 

You asked how I know about their decorating techniques for O Gauge trains.  The Lionel employee in charge of their club car program explained it to me.  I design and distribute many custom Lionel products.  To do so, I need to know decorating techniques so I come up with designs that are able to be manufactured.  I've seen additional videos and photos of Lionel's Made in the USA vendor decorating Lionel O Gauge trains.  That info is consistent with how the process was explained to me from Lionel.

 

Regarding the red color showing through on the tops and bottoms of the steps and door guides, Big Jim is correct.  Think of the Lionel decorating process as a giant ink-jet printer.  The ink is sprayed at the side of the car ... straight (90 degrees) at the sides.  That's why the sides get printed and the leading edge of the steps and door guides get printed, but when the ink is sprayed perpendicular to the sides, it doesn't get on the top surfaces or bottom surfaces of steps or guides. 

 

In the case of the Macy's car, it's molded in red plastic and the ink-jet-like decorating process is used on the sides. The red tops and bottoms of the steps and guides is from the red plastic shell not getting printed on, since those surfaces are perpendicular to the main car surface (plane).  The back-and-forth ink-jet printing process is exactly the reason for the texture that's shown in Big Jim's photos.

 

Regarding this level of quality being acceptable or unacceptable at a certain price point, that's a personal opinion.  There's so many factors that are involved ... quality, price, quantity, country of origin, decorating techniques, etc.

 

Stu