I was at a hobby shop this past weekend and saw this car. It was painted in the new CN scheme w/website (Athearn #70753). Upon closer examination i noticed this car had a ROOFWALK. This is an attractive car and i was wondering if this car is accurate for CN and if the roofwalk was removed would it be approiate for a modern era layout? Is this car still in CN service and if so what is it used to haul. Thanks[banghead]
Hard to say, unless someone can identify a prototype photo of this car.
The 404xxx-series cars were Trenton Works high-cube cars built in the 1990s, but that series tops out at 404799. The number on the photo is 404822; that could be one of the secondhand cars that CN has acquired over the years, and could well match this model except for the running board, full-height ladders and high brakewheel.
Even if that 's the case, though, to make the car anywhere near correct for that paint you’d have to remove the roofwalk, move the brakewheel and replace the full-height ladders, which would destroy much of the factory paint. It’s really a pity, since the Athearn paintwork does looks quite nice, and I haven’t seen many factory painted cars in this scheme yet.
Probally another athearn paint anything any scheme car, you’d think after all these years and many makers doing the correct painting and using correct cars, athearn/horizon would join in, but sales will dominate correctness, so anything still goes…
Athearn has some very nice looking cars …However…They missed the mark with this car…Its a Foobie…
It is close but not exact or perfect (these pice were taken in 2005)
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cn/cna404812bpl.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cn/cna404871apl.jpg
AS Will mentioned plus the # of ribs are off by 2 on each side of the door