Is there a prototype for the Roundhouse 36’ Bilboard Box Car? This is the fishbelly side frame, metal sides and wooden ends.
No.
There were thousands of cars built 1895-1915 or so that had a steel underframe with fishbelly side sills and wooden sides, ends and roof.
Dave H.
Dave’s right; the basic outline of the car is OK, and Roundhouse did make the car with wood sides as well, but they really dropped the ball in making a car with steel sides and wood ends. Steel ends and WOOD sides would have been much better.
If you already have one of these cars, and don’t know what to do with it, the simple thing to do would be to rebuild the ends. Add sheet styrene to represent sheet steel, and add two I beams near the center of the ends to represent bracing. Check with the Westerfield online catalog for similar cars.