I saw some responses on the forum from a member whose webname is “masonjar”. Hey masonjar, did you know you can have your own personalized boxcar and it’s a real prototype?! An article 20 - 30 years ago in either Model Railroader or RMC, I can’t remember which, covered the Muncie and Western, a short line that served a factory that made mason jars. They had wood boxcars with the slogan “The Ball Line” for Ball-brand mason jars, and a picture of a mason jar.
I found my own personalized prototype car. My initials are KLA and I discovered in a 1954 Official Railroad Equipment Register a private car owner with the reporting marks, KLAX. The H.Earl Clack Co of Harve, Montana owned 8 tankcars and (according to Moody’s Industrial Manual) was a subsidiary of Husky Oil which leased 400 - 450 tankcars. Someday, I will have to find a pix of one of those cars and build one.
Anyone else have “personal prototypes”- real railroad cars that look like the kind of imaginary names modelers sometimes dream up?
Kenneth L. Anthony, Corpus Christ, Texas.
Hey, that’s cool! Any chance you happen to have a picture?
Andrew
Just gotta mention this here: my initialls are MRR.
As in, Model Railroader.
Nope, not kidding!
Masonjar, I’ve been trying to track down the photo of the boxcar with the Mason Jar picture. I thought it was in an article on shortline railroading in “Railroad Model Craftsman” about 30 years ago. Looked through the tables of contents of about 70-80 mags from their period with no hit. Couldn’t find a photo on the Trains.com magazine search index either, or some internet train sites. I also looked in the Microscale decal catalog index and they didn’t list it either.
What I did find- Muncie and Western was a 7-mile long line in Muncie that connected to Nickel Plate Road. (Wonder if NKP fan Tony Koester knows anything about the Muncie & Western Ball Jar boxcars?) It was owned by the Ball Brothers who had the Ball Jar company making mason jars. Reporting marks are MWR.
I once had an HO scale Muncie and Western boxcar in the early 1970s that I believe had the mason jar graphic. The model was sold under the “Train Minature” brand name. That company came under a trademark conflict situation around 1980 and name was changed to “Train Minature of _____ (some state name)” to avoid conflict. The model was am ochre-ish yellow wood body car with a wooden door, and I believe the mason jar picture was on the relatively flat wood door. I divested myself of my HO scale equipment years ago.
I presently have a Muncie and Western boxcar, sold under the Atlas name about 30 years ago. It is a bright yellow single-sheath wood outside braced boxcar with an older style of drednaught steel ends. Has a steel door, more or less corrugated which prevents a large graphic from fitting on the door, and this car does NOT have the big mason jar picture. Don’t know whether it is from a prototype that had this type door and lacked the masonjar picture, or whether the model paintscheme was modified to match the carbody of the mass-produced mold that may have been different from the prototype. Just don’t know.
That HO Train Minature car just might show up at a train show or on some
Thanks for all the info… My LHS has a pretty extensive “used” section. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on it I guess, if there is to be any chance of getting one…
Andrew