After a long time reading about it, I’m starting to put together some trains. I am working on HO ATSF “some time in the 1960s”.
I have picked up some freight cars just hanging around different estate sales, closeout sales etc. Here is an typical example. This boxcar says Santa Fe on it, and the price was $2.88. So I grabbed it. Why not?
It all looks pretty decent, if a bit dusty. Maybe the couplers could be swapped out for Kadees and the plastic wheels exchanged for metal. I could just tack it on a train and go. After all, it says Santa Fe, ATSF, and the Grand Canyon Line on it. What’s not to like?
But I have found out that model railroading can be a playground for the OCD. So I decided to do some research to see what it is I have here, and if it would be “suitable” to run it on the 1960s ATSF.
First I started with the model itself. I just picked it up off a table when I bought it, there was no box or anything else with it to identify it. And, like many of the different pieces I have found so far, there is no identifying mark on it anywhere as to who made it, and what its model might be. This seems to be a common thing in the model railroading market. Strange. You would think a company would put their name somewhere on it, there are places out of sight to do this such as underneath the bottom, but there is nothing. Unless I don’t know where to look.
So I turned to the internet to see what I might find by searching. I searched on the words ATSF and Grand Canyon along with the road number 145386 and was able to discover in short order that it is an Athearn model 5014. Cool, knowing what it is, maybe i could find out more about it, or some instructions as it was apparently a kit to start with. Searching the Athearn website didn’t help much, but via Google I found this web page
We’ve got to teach you how to post pics. On Flickr the upward right curved icon gives you a choice of links. You want BB code. Just paste it, don’t use any icons in the posting window
Pic 1
Ok I cheated and bent the rules. Flickr wants to include your identity in the links.
Clickable links use the chain icon. It doesn’t always work, for reasons above my paygrade. I always set the target to open in a new window
As to your question, reasonalbly plausible is good enough for me.
Those who model a specific date in time will disagree. It’s their railroad, and mine is mine. I don’t get my knickers wrapped around the axle over what other people want.
If you edit the post the clickable links don’t click.
Based on your desciption and what I found out on this website for steam era models this is one place where Athearn’s 40’ Boxcar is close to being correct. The actual model is of an IC or DSSA car, but is very close to other AAR 1937 Mod Design Boxcars, the big difference between AAR 1937 and AAR 1937 Mod is the interior height of 10’ versus 10’6". The Athearn car has the correct 5-5 ends and a Murphy panel roof. The major problem is that the underframe was produced backwards, for a more correct car use the Intermountain, Red Caboose, and Atlas Cars (Ex Branchline) for correct cars of this period.
The above website is my bible when looking at the prototype cars of this era.
By the way, the trucks would not have been replaced, maybe new axles and wheels but per FRA rules, trucks are good for 52 years. Car life at that time was 40 years and for more current cars it is 50 years with some exceptions. Also if the car never leaves the home rails it doesn’t matter how old it is.
Thanks for the link to your great article, I am looking forward to going through it. Forgot to mention, I actually got 2 of these to play with for few bucks. Different road numbers but only by 1 digit.
I am finding the picture posting process here a bit awkward. Trying again: Nailed it!!
Railroad rolling stock is built and financed with the expectation of a 40 year service life. So a prototype placed in service in 1942 might well be still running in 1982. In the time frame boxcars carried everything, no railroad ever had enough of them, especially in harvest season. Freight cars were exchanged between roads. Freight cars marked for any US railroad might turn up on the Santa Fe. The Athearn cars are properly sized, nicely painted, and upgrading couplers and wheels is a perfectly rational thing to do. I might wash the entire car in warm soapy water, scrub well with a toothbrush and rinse well to get rid of the dust collection on the roof. A lot of my box cars are Athearn blue box.
I agree with the sentiment that it’s more than close enough to prototype, and well within the life expectancy of such a car to be on your 60’s layout. Maybe weather it (or leave it dusty) to give it an aged appearance as it would probably have some hard wear 20+ years after production. Neat that you got two with different road numbers.
Hear this advice and opinion with the knowledge that the person giving it has -and is happy with- Athearn BB (mostly unmodified) and smilar as much of his rolling stock. If you’re like me you’ll be happy with it for years. If, however you take a dive down the deep rabbit hole of accuracy and prototype, you’ll tire of it soon.
I got it, for Flickr select the picture, then left-click the download link, then right-click the size you want (I used Medium (640x236) and select Copy Link Address, this gives you a direct link to the jpg file that you can use here.
If you want to be able to show the full size photo then you would need to click the little arrow which gives you a short link that you can copy and paste. This gives a URL to that photo’s web page. Such as:
I guess another question is this: When I am perusing a big pile of stuff, how do I know what is good? How do I know what is suitable for my layout?
I guess you have to just stick with it and learn more and more and then you’ll know.
For example, I don’t have a caboose yet. I spotted a somewhat nice ATSF caboose for $1.88 so I picked it up. But then I found out it is an “extended vision” caboose, not introduced until the mid-70s. Dang it! Can’t put it in with a 1960s train.
I have no idea how the model brands rank. It seems the Athearn blue box are considered to be pretty decent. But maybe some are better, and some are worse. So far I have some from these manufacturers: Accurail, Athearn, Bowser, CBT, E and C, Intermountain, Proto 2000. Some do look nicer than others, but I need to train my eye better. Is there a reference that talks about all of the different brands and their quality, accuracy, etc?
Lots of times the used ones are in boxes, but also lots of times they are not. So in that case, I can’t figure out on the spot if its a good brand or not because I can’t even tell the brand. I suppose I’ll get better as I go along.
If you’re having fun by being OCD about model railroading, then you’re still within the line. If you are not having fun and fidelity becomes a true obsession, you probably crossed the line.
Then a window pops up and you can go to the BBCode tab, right click the displayed link and use Ctrl+C to copy. I pick a larger size as the M-R forum software will automatically resize the image for this page.
Once you have that link copied simply go back to your reply window in M-R and using Ctrl+V paste the link. The photo won’t appear in your text box, just four lines of URL but when you submit your reply the photo will appear where you placed it.
The old Athearn 40 foot boxcar isn’t a good model of anything really. Try to upgrade it and you have an inaccurate car with more details. When dealing with cars like this, I typically add decals and weathering, along with Kadee couplers and metal wheelsets. They keep going until I feel like replacing them.
After reading through your post, it appears that you’ve already done some pretty good research.
The “LA” of the re-weigh data seemingly (and not surprisingly) signifies Los Angeles, but that’s a Southern Pacific weigh scale, rather than one of Santa Fe’s. In your chosen era, most freight cars were re-weighed approximately every 48 months, and it was not unusual for a car to be re-weighed on a scale other than that of the owning road.
In a similar manner, a car on a foreign (non-home) road that had a damaged safety appliance (grab iron, sill step, running board, etc.) could not be released until repairs had been done. There was a uniform code of billing for this practice and for re-weighing, covering all of North America, so at the end of each month, all of the railroads paid or collected the monies owing.
This kept the supply of cars available and no road, theoretically, would be out-of-pocket any more than as if they had done the work in their own shops.
Athearn Blue Box cars are, for the most part, not overly accurate, but they were well received in their day, and can still afford good modelling opportunities, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.
Here’s one of eight cars, bought off the “used” table at a nearby hobbyshop for $2.00 apiece, or less, the same as your boxcar except for the lettering, that I re-worked for my freelanced model railroad…
They all had their original roof removed, along with the batten strip at the eaves…
Generally, go for old Athearn Blue Box stuff. It is usually easy to identify by finding the metal covers that hold the couplers in place. Athearn does not put manufacturer’s ID marks on many of their castings.
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Athearn BB cars are well made, durable, and they usually have good paint jobs.
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I would avoid most things with couplers mounted to the trucks because they will require more work, but they will be fun to upgrade later.
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Don’t spend too many $$$ on something unless you are sure you can use it. I still buy things that are not correct for my era from time to time.
It’s journey and while I’ve been in the hobby a long time, I’m still learning new things often.
As for where you draw the line, that is a personal decision. There are many who are satisfied with models that look genearlly like a box car consistant with certain time periods and at the other end, there are those who like to have models which you can match to real box cars. For the latter, companies like Tangent and Moloco actually post pictures of the real thing along with there model and you can see for yourself, they match, and they have done the research for you. Those models come with a fairly high price, but you can weather it to taste and it’s a very accurate model.
There are books of course, and some online resources that help you check models to see how close they are to real freight cars, such as rr-fallenflags.org and railcarphotos.com etc.
It’s up to the modeler to decide what fits their interests, after all, it’s your model railroad.
By the way the first Extended Vision cabooses were purchased by the Rock Island in 1958 and if you dug deep enough you would probably find the ATSF had them in the early 60’s.
If you are intent on modeling the Santa Fe, I would suggest buying any of the Color Guides for the Santa Fe they give you a wealth of information on the types of cars owned by the Santa Fe, when they were purchased and many times when they went out of service.
A few places to keep in mind for prototype accuracy etc. are three groups I belong to. The Steam Era Freight Car Group, the Baby Boomers Freight Car Group and the Modern Freight Car Group.
Even when Athearn cars were new on the market (and I am sure this one goes back to the late 1950s at least, when the kits cost maybe $1.79 if that much) many flaws were noted: the entire underframe was mirror image because the die makers read the plans as if from below when they were drawn as if from above. Also on the plastic cars Irv Athearn often carried over paint and lettering schemes from his old metal line (when they were often accurate) to very different plastic cars where they might not be accurate - one common problem is that he put numbers on 40’ cars that the original railroads put on 50’ cars, and vice versa. The 1962 ORER (Official Railroad Equipment Register) for example lists 145386 as among a group of 50’ boxcars. (That said cars were renumbered often during their useful lifetimes so your era may differ). And I have no idea if these particular Santa Fe paint schemes were on a car with that number.
Curiously it took a long time for folks to complain about the “claws” at the bottom of the Athearn doors, even while Mantua had doors that could open but nonetheless avoided the claws. Indeed the old Athearn metal line of boxcars had scale thickness doors that could open in very close to accurate troughs for the door bottoms and tops. They also had separate ladders and grab irons and it was no wonder that for some modelers, plastic seemed like a step backwards.
There was not as much info about freight car details then as there is now (that is, types of ends, types of doors, types of roofs and running boards, types of brake wheels, types of trucks, paint and lettering schemes) and for the most part articles and reviews and even plans lumped all “steel” box cars together. As noted by others the Athearn prototype for its 40’ boxcar model, which it sold for years and years, is a bit of a mongrel and not exact to any but close (and depending on your fussiness level, “close enough”
I’m sure we‘re all in agreement here that that Athearn Blue Box cars is lacking detail and accuracy and general quality. But you get what you pay for. I wouldn’t every spend more than $5 for such a car, but I would easily spend $2-3 on such a car just to fill an empty spot on a roster for a limited time. If the OP want’s cars that are more accuarate and detailed then the OP need to pay more.
But if the OP is on a budget, I get that! I am too! I usually buy cheaper stuff dilute my OCD tendencies when it come to model railroading. I say maybe I‘ll fix that later and enjoy the trains as they are! And will I fix then later? I have no idea, but I’m still getting my money’s worth out of those cars by running them as they are.
So I’d say the OP should keep that car and run it as a stand in until a replacement comes. If that replacement is the same car with a lot of work done, so be it! If not, so be it!
To make these old cars acceptable, you will need Kadees and metal wheelsets at a minimum. I had some with worn out trucks so those needed replacement, but it made such an improvement to reliability that I just routinely replace the trucks when I do the wheelsets.
I use Intermountain wheelsets and Kadee #5 or #58 couplers.
Typically, I use plastic Tichy truck frames. I spray paint the trucks with a rusty brown rattle can, and then weather them with powders and finally a coat of flat rattle can spray. I mask the wheel bearing holes and the truck bolster before painting, and always clean the bearings out with a Micro Mark truck tuner before putting in the wheelsets.
Clean the body well and apply some level of weathering. You don’t want a car with an old built-on date looking brand new.
