EXR 5200 Gunderson Box Car - six new paint schemes.

[TiVoPrince]

The 
yellow doors are nice to break up the endless string of plain brown boxcars.  The yellow doors and yellow stripes were far less numerous in the grand scheme of things.  As a modeler of the ' common and mundane' yellow door cars are far more the sprinkled on spices rather than the meat and potatoes.  I really like them but the wallet breaker would be the oh too common PC&F in all those cool door variations...

[Dave Schneider]

I have one of each car and just looked at them.  The roofs are glued on.  I was able to pop the Gunderson roof easily, but the Evans doesn't want to budge.  The Gunderson roof is flat underneath however, so it stands to reason that the roofs are interchangeable.  Now the question is whether or not separate parts are available from EXR.  I'll find out.

Maybe this is a dumb question (or naive) but if the roofs are interchangeable, why would they use the incorrect one for some of the paint schemes? I also realize that this is a loaded question....perhaps I am unclear on what you guys are trying to do. Fix a currently offered paint scheme or produce an accurate car for other roads?

Best wishes, Dave

[lock4244]

The 
yellow doors are nice to break up the endless string of plain brown boxcars.  The yellow doors and yellow stripes were far less numerous in the grand scheme of things.  As a modeler of the ' common and mundane' yellow door cars are far more the sprinkled on spices rather than the meat and potatoes.  I really like them but the wallet breaker would be the oh too common PC&F in all those cool door variations...

CN in the 1960's used yellow doors to denote newsprint and green to denote lumber service boxcars. This was dropped at some point, and my assumption has always been that it seemed like a good idea on paper, but the reality of self-imposed usage restrictions on expensive rolling stock was costly and a PITA in practice. Seemingly great ideas are often proved to be folly when exposed to the end user.

[bbussey]

Maybe this is a dumb question (or naive) but if the roofs are interchangeable, why would they use the incorrect one for some of the paint schemes? I also realize that this is a loaded question....perhaps I am unclear on what you guys are trying to do. Fix a currently offered paint scheme or produce an accurate car for other roads?

Best wishes, Dave

Fix a previously-offered scheme on the model, where the correct roof did not exist at the time the scheme was released.

[cv_acr]

CN in the 1960's used yellow doors to denote newsprint and green to denote lumber service boxcars. This was dropped at some point, and my assumption has always been that it seemed like a good idea on paper, but the reality of self-imposed usage restrictions on expensive rolling stock was costly and a PITA in practice. Seemingly great ideas are often proved to be folly when exposed to the end user.

Actually I'm pretty sure that computerized car tracking meant that the visual codes weren't needed anymore. Paper was and is high-value, easily damageable cargo that required clean cars in top shape. Most roads handling paper had cars dedicated to paper service only.

[cv_acr]

Maybe this is a dumb question (or naive) but if the roofs are interchangeable, why would they use the incorrect one for some of the paint schemes? I also realize that this is a loaded question....perhaps I am unclear on what you guys are trying to do. Fix a currently offered paint scheme or produce an accurate car for other roads?

Best wishes, Dave

The gunderson has a non-overhanging roof, the Evans car has a roof that overhangs the car eaves. Not interchangeable.

[Dave Schneider]

Thanks guys for the roof information.

Best wishes, Dave

[bbussey]

The gunderson has a non-overhanging roof, the Evans car has a roof that overhangs the car eaves. Not interchangeable.

That doesn't mean that the Evans roof cannot be adapted to fit the Gunderson car.

[bbussey]

Just heard back from ExactRail.  Currently, the part is not available separately.  They also sited the fact that the Evans part is an overhanging roof.  HOWEVER - although no time frame was specified, the good news is that car parts will be available for sale in the future.

The SP&S, BN (ex-SP&S) and some of the later SP cars have X-panel roofs.  Do all the other prototypical roads have the diagonal roof that is on the model?

[wazzou]

Other than the MN&S car, are there any other prototypical roads?

[wcfn100]

Other than the MN&S car, are there any other prototypical roads?

The EXR ad implies that the BNSF, MNS, and SSW are prototypical roads for this release.  We can probably assume that the BNSF has the wrong roof.  The MNS car should be correct but I haven't looked at the fine details yet. There are some pics on RRPA of a new #901 and an old #909 at IRM.  As for the SSW, I haven't found a picture of that series of cars much less the roof.



Jason

[wcfn100]

Well here's what I can surmise from everything I found.

The SP had these cars with the diagonal panel roof, but the number series EXR used were x-panel roofs. Oops.

The SSW cars had diagonal panel roofs, but there may be some smaller details that are off.

MNS wins.

Jason

[bbussey]

Jason, how long did the MNS cars remain in that scheme?

[wcfn100]

Jason, how long did the MNS cars remain in that scheme?

From the one at the IRM, I'd say (some) never got repainted.  The SOO bought the MN&S in '82 soo maybe some were restenciled?  I don't have any other photos than what's online of that series of cars.   The MNS did have at least one other series of cars in white so it wasn't really an anomoly.   I could ask the MN&S group but it's not very active(to be kind).  Maybe the SOO group would some info?


Jason

[Mark5]

I like the MNS car. Tempted to pick one up although I'm not sure if I can stomach another WHITE car in my fleet (LV). ;D