Does Trainman have a daughter? I'd like to meet her (the modern 50' boxes rock!)

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Reading about the new Atlas USRA boxes reminded me that I wanted to post the praises of Atlas's Trainman 50' Modern Boxcars.

For $8 a car out the door, I can't argue with these one bit. In fact, I think these are the BEST cars for the money out there.

Considering that they hold up really well to the competition (compare the TM St Mary's car to the IM version), come in multiple numbers, and look, well, great, I think they're just stellar.

This past weekend I had the chance to weather up my 4 of them, and I wanted to post the pics for you all to see (and go buy some for yourselves!)

I'll start with the Railbox cars. I know the doors are wrong, but for half the price of the competition, I'll deal.





An Athearn/MDC car for comparison:


The ASAB version of the Atlas car. I know nothing about these cars, so I'd love to hear more if anyone knows about them.


And the St. Mary's car. I have a video of CR stuff in the DC/MD/VA area from my era, and these things were EVERYWHERE! I think I'll have to grab the other road number at some point.

[cv_acr]

An Athearn/MDC car for comparison:

UGH!!

What _is_ that? I just about vomited seeing that car!  Looks like a combination of features from at least 3 different prototype cars...

[cv_acr]

The ASAB version of the Atlas car. I know nothing about these cars, so I'd love to hear more if anyone knows about them.

The prototype cars I'm finding in this range all seem to be built by FMC, not ACF, but the paint job on that Atlas car looks pretty nice.

http://freight.railfan.ca/asab/asab7165.jpg

Today these cars have a much more boring appearance:
http://freight.railfan.ca/asab/asab7161.jpg

[ljudice]

Looks right to me!

http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=105486


These are really nice cars, it's great to have some variety finally in modern boxcars.

We need some waffle sided 50-ers though!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

UGH!!

What _is_ that? I just about vomited seeing that car!  Looks like a combination of features from at least 3 different prototype cars...

That's tooling that's probably older than Iain, and possibly close to as old as I am.

[Wlal13again]

You cant ever have too many Railbox cars.... ;D

[justTRAINcRaZy]

I know the doors are wrong.......

I found this door style in one of my pics. Looks the same to me??

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Why, yes it does!

Excellent!

[Wlal13again]

I may have to go up to Herbs and buy all the 50 foot Trainmans he has. Look good with a little dirt on them...Ed, by staying in the early to mid 80`s we can still get away with using those shortline boxcars that where all over the place in the late 70`s.

[tom mann]

You know, replacing the stirrups with BLMA parts and the wheels with FVM would make those cars look killer and still keep the price to about $10.

[Sokramiketes]

Ed must like his women cheap and dirty too!

[TiVoPrince]

All about
quality for a reasonable price.  I will go for the girl who prefers real life to expensive dramas too.  If that places me in the cheap and dirty category I'm
proud to be there...

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I thought the MDC/Athearn box shown was of a different prototype (and reletivly accurate) Wasn't it the Berwick cars that were off?

[3rdrail]

Ed, you asked about the ASAB (Bay Line) cars. These were leased by the ASAB from ITEL Rail to handle linerboard and woodpulp for the International Paper mill in Panama City, FL. The mill and the railroad were subsequently sold to Southwest Forest Industries (the company that owned the Apache RR). SFI sold the mill to Stone Container and the railroad to Earl Durden, who renamed it The Bay Line, LLC (BAYL). Stone was bought out by Smurfit (one bottom feeder eating another) and Earl sold out to Genessee & Wyoming. Most of the cars got the GE boxcar red scheme. Since Earl Durden had his own car leasing company, many of them were released back to GE, but I still see one every once in a while in Panama City. If you're doing CR in 1985, these would definitely be seen going to IP box plants. Didn't they have one in York?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Gregg, that's MUSIC to my ears!