Have noticed several mentions of Enchantment Blue. This was a C&O color — not a B&O color — until C&O got control of the B&O. Until then, the B&O’s blue was a Royal Blue shade that was commonly called “Bando” (B and O) Blue. Enchantment Blue has a bit of a purplish cast. It seems that mpodel paint manufacturers have a hard time understanding this, as you will often hear of folks who think Enchantment is right for the independent, pre-C&O, Baltimore & Ohio. By the way, the “Big B&O” lettering was rarerly, if ever, seen before about 1953 or 1954; and the circular “13 Great States” emblem could still be seen well into the 1960’s.
I have a question about B&O 40’ steeel boxcar purchases in period just before and after WW2; as I understand M-55 family of cars are 1937 AAR type, and M-59 is AAR 1944 type. I was reading great articles in Trainlife.com from RMJ magazines, from authors like Hawkins and Hendrickson, and all 1937 and 1937 modified roster lists does not have any B&O boxcars listed.
Also no mention in 1937 rosters of B&O boxcars there: http://www.steamerafreightcars.com/prototype/frtcars/protofrtcarsmain.html
What am I missing?
What you are missing is that all B&O Cars were oddballs due to the clearance problems on the East End of the Railroad, also many of them were homebuilt in their shops with oddball ends and their inside hight was never more than 10’ high which is why they had so many of the X29 clones on the roster as they were only 9’4" high.
An M-55 kit used to be availale from Sunshine Models and may be found on E-Bay but it still had problems in total accuracy.
I would suggest getting on the B&O Historical Group website and reading the available modeling quides and maybe purchasing the DVD of the old guides if you want to model the B&O.
Rick J
Lee,If I may so,folks won’t be confused on this matter…
The C&O never bought the B&O…C&O bought 51% of the stock and took control of the B&O…They didn’t merge until '87 under CSX.First merger was B&O/WM in May of '83 then B&O into the C&O in '87 and then the C&O into CSX in '87…
Either one of the 40’ steel boxcars will be good from the 50s-70s.
<img width=“800” height=“610” src=“//farm3.staticflickr.com/2867/13695099095_eb7e3bdb73_c.jpg” class=“main-photo”>
→
⤢
Stan Carlson
The B&O yard at East Salamanca NY is a sea of M-53 and M-26 boxcars in this transition era photo.
-Stan
Nice photo, Stan. [tup]
Looks like several of the foreground tracks are occupied by cars undergoing repairs.
Wayne
Yes they were Wayne. There were four cripple tracks there. The yard had about 35 tracks overall.
-Stan
The Accurail USRA twin hopper was mentioned in reference to the B&O. It is correct for B&O class N-17, although Andrews trucks would make it more accurate. Remove the cast-on ladder rungs and attach separate ladders, and you’ll have a pretty close representation of a B&O N-12.
The Accurail SS boxcar referenced earlier has a rather vague, rough resemblance to a USRA SS car. B&O had those, and I guess the Accurail car could serve as a stand-in, but they were nearly extinct by the early 1950’s. If you want a wooden B&O boxcar, the Westerfield M-15 is your best bet, although a lot of them had been retired or rebuilt as wagon top cars by the 1950’s. Some surviving wooden M-15’s were still in Company service in the 1950’s, but few still in revenue service.
Sorry if I’m coming into this late, but I had a question. Did the B&O consistently repaint their boxcars, or could you have had some earlier lettering/paint schemes sneak into later years? I have a wagontop with the brown steam era scheme, but I model transition era when it would’ve been red-thinking about getting rid of it.