While, admittedly, I wouldn’t run a commemorative car on my layout, I will say I’ve paid enough attention to some of the sales to note that they will offer a scheme on a car from a totally wrong era. This President Trump car is circa 2025, but it has a running board?!
I recall that this goes back to MR’s 50th anniversary car. A 40-footer with a running board. I’m sure a few of those prototype cars were still running in the real world in 1984, but why not a car that better represented the 1980s?
To be fair I don’t really like commemorative cars. I have 3. The Spirit of 76 Pennsylvania car that my dad got me 50 years ago, a 1982 World’s Fair boxcar because I fondly remember going to it and the special run Three Mile Island Meltdown commemorative boxcar. I added paper nuclear waste drums inside that one with drips and puddles of glow paint inside
I think a good 20 years ago a company called Show Me Lines made a 25 car set of the National Parks and the logo and name of each park. They were on Athearn 40’ Box Cars. I bought everyone. The last car was not a park. I think it was the Philadelphia Liberty Bell. I haven’t run them in who knows how long. I thought they were neat as my wife and I have gone to a number of the National Parks.
I do have some others that Greenway Products made, including a White Castle and I think a Three Stooges!
I like commemorative models. However, from Japan, it’s difficult to find out when they’ve been released and shipping costs are high, so I can’t collect as many as I’d like.
Fortunately, I was able to get a 1982 World’s Fair car 10 years ago. An advertisement for it ran in MR magazine from the Sept. 1982 issue to the Jan.1983 issue, and I know that it was released by Atlas in N scale and Lionel in O scale. The seller, Ak-Sar-Ben Hobby Co., seems to have been in business from 1980 to 2010 (O Gauge Railroading Online Forum). The name is spelled backwards as “Nebraska”.
When I went to Supertrain in Calgary a couple of years ago there was a vendor that had boxes of commemorative cars for sale. Each box had all the same cars in them and he had quite a lot, some with as many as 50 copies. I was talking with him and he laughed and said they were hard to move. He also said he hadn’t paid for any of them.
I don’t understand what the attraction is of them but to each their own. If someone made a locomotive with a Prime Ministers mug on it they would just be looked at funny and asked how many they think they are going to sell? But wait a minute! What if they made cars with hockey players on them??? But then again…No.
Here in the U.K. there is a road haulier named Eddie Stobart. He has companies building models of his vehicles.
Not so long ago he had models made and on the sides were names of Rugby League clubs. They are still available.
I don’t buy commemorative or special cars of any sort with rare exceptions. For me, it ruins the illusion of a real railroad.
The only ones I will buy are cars that look like real prototypes. For example, I have a couple of Tangent gondolas (not yet on the layout) that commemorate the 50th anniversary of the NJ Division of the NMRA. Reporting marks are NJDX, with road numbers 1968 (year the division was founded) and 2018 (50th anniversary). Here’s one of them:
I will not buy a planet car, battleship car, presidential car or anything else that strikes me as hokey. For folks who like that kind of thing, have at it! To me they’re mostly just efforts by sellers to make a quick buck.
Commemorative models are so-called freelance, so the quality of the artwork is important. There are only a few beautifully finished ones. My favorite among them is the next one. It is a reefer commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Denver HO Model Railroad Club, and was decorated by Con-Cor.The handbrake wheel, roof hatches, and underfloor are painted sky blue.
The next one was also made by me, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the club I belong to, and the decals were printed with a Alps micro dry printer.
I have lionel’s 85th anniversary car still in box bought it new but never open it. that’s the only one I have ,unless you consider an American flyer Christmas box car?
A couple of years ago a seller had the N and HO cars by the case and incomplete car bodies available. Apparently not a big seller since there was no availability or even a mention of them in the Fair gift shops.
I don’t know where my car box is off the top of my head but I know there’s both a “blueprint” of the car and an order form detailing exactly how many of each item was ordered by Ak-Sar-Ben. I know there were sets in both HO and N scales with steam locomotives, boxcars in multiple colors, tank cars and cabooses.