Hello Everyone!
For Christmas my wife purchased 3 PS-1 boxcars decorated for the B&M which she knows I model. The problem is that I model the mid 90’s, these cars are a bit dated, ie roof walks, old trucks, etc. The cars are custom painted Athearn ‘blue box’ models that she bought at a local hobby shop. I like them and want to be able to use them. Is it true that today’s current laws allow such cars to be run as long as they stay on the home road and not used in interchange service? They look a little odd behind my gp40’s and 50’ Guilford boxes. 
it does’nt matter…if you like them…run 'um!..chuck
That is correct. Also if those cars are still around, they are probably relagated to MOW service. So a little such relabling as such will be in order. It is typically done by adding various M, X, and MX, suffixes and prefixes to the car number.
Example. say the box car is numbered 6549 a mow relabling would be sort of like M6549X or 6549MX.
Then just add some optional labeling like what the car might be dooing like “Tool Car” or “Enginerring” and stuff like that.
Once you have all that done up, You have yourself a Maintencence of Way car employed in Company service. It has been my observation that MOW cars are hauled at the back of the train. And typically in your second or third class freight trains.
I hope I have been helpful.
James
James,As long as a MOW car has a steel underframe and roller bearing trucks it can be place in any block of the train…I haven’t seen a wooden underframe MOW car for several years now…
Look. The man asked a question. He doesn’t need you to tell him it his road and he can do what he wants. He specifically asked what are the prototype practices regarding old equipment because THAT is what he apparently likes and is inquiring to here.
It irks me to no end when someone asks a specific question and the right off the bat reply is the same old lame line “it doesn’t matter” - if it didn’t matter to him, he wouldn’t have asked - so lay off!!!
This isn’t the first time this has happened or it wouldn’t have bothered me. How about cutting people who care about real life practices some slack if you expect it in return.
Well now that’s off my chest.
Older cars are used in MoW service - roller bearing trucks might be good ALTHOUGH I have seen some MoW stuff with friction bearings. It wouldn’t hurt to have them hanging around the yard on a siding either - I’ve seen some pictures of old cars here and there just hanging around. The thing is they don’t look factory fresh - I assume these are probably in the McGinnis scheme - blue and black?
I have seen old cars still in revenue service too. The PS-1 was a later design - maybe with r/b trucks and putting ST/G reporting marks over the number you could have a relic still running - just the other day I saw an old riveted 50’ plug door still in revenue interchange - was a QGRY car.
To add onto David’s post, you would still need to remove the roofwalks if you want to depict it as an old revenue car still in service. The ladders were usually cut down on the sides as well.
Rick
Yes the cars are in the blue/black McGinnis scheme. I thought about placing them on a siding. There is an old B&M depot near where I work that is now an antique shop that has 3 such cars on an old siding that are now used for storage. The turnout for the siding was removed quite some time ago. I’ve also considered replacing the trucks with roller bearing ones and removing the roof walks and using them in service. There was a shortline in Norhern NH that did that in the 90’s, can’t remember the name for the life of me.