Pushed my own timeline from 1954 to 56 when Kato released their El Capitan (I rode those hi level cars to and from LA when visiting relatives in my teens- couldn't pass them up), and was surprised at how many freight cars began to make their appearance about that time. As noted by Nkalanaga, no centerflows, of course, but seems like railroads were replacing a lot of older cars in the mid 50s. Let me run the Athearn 2893 cu ft hoppers (as GA-94) and the BLMA (I think) 60' flats (as F-5s, I think, might be I should look that up), and I don't need to weather them much, given the paint would have hardly been dry on them in real life.
Of course, on the eastern side of the country, you have the BLI PRR H32. Which has always struck me as a huge car given its 1948 production date. Can't imagine it was used for cement- that many cu ft of cement would have ground off the wheels. What was it built to carry?
