I have a couple of HO box cars that I picked up used, and they seem to be from the same company.
What is unusual is that the steps are part of the underframe and not part of the car body.
Based on the condition of the cars, the materials (mostly plastic), and clarity of the text printing, I would guess that these are of a more recent vintage.
Anyone know who manufactured freight cars with the steps on the underframe?
Kadee 40 and 50 foot box cars use an end sill step that snaps into the underframe.
Photos here:
https://www.kadee.com/documents/4100-4110ins.pdf
Good Luck, Ed
Some pictures would help.
Roundhouse/Model die Casting made some boxcars with the steps on the under frame. But, the underframes were cast metal.( I’m working on 5 of them now.)
A photo of the underframe would help, a number of manufacturers built this way
These cars have plastic underframes. The axles are metal, but just about everything else is plastic. They are both 40’ boxcars, NYC and PRR.
I don’t use a third party server for photos. If you can name any companies in recent years who did mostly plastic cars with steps connected to the underframe, I can do the sleuthing.
The Kadee 40’ box cars have a metal frame with flexible side steps that are attached on the top side of the metal frame. The metal frame is marked ''Kadee" close to one of the trucks. The Kadee car came with ''sprung" side frames and self centering trucks (to line up on the rail head) and underframe brake details.
These apparently are not Kadees.
The underframe and the steps are black plastic. The steps are not painted to match the accompanying boxcar paint schemes.
You can email me the pictures and I will post them.
I think that is the quickest way to find out.
-Kevin
Link doesn’t work Ed.
This is a quessing game. [%-)] No writing or anything on the bottom?
The few Kadee kits I’ve seen, the steps are a seperate item, not on the body.
Mike.
Fixed it, Mike [Y] https://www.kadee.com/documents/4100-4110ins.pdf
That’s the way all my Kadee HO box cars are, if I’m not mistaken. Black delrin no matter what the carbody color is.
Good Luck, Ed
The underframes on these cars are less complex. They are a single piece of plastic. The Kadee underframes are reminiscent of those of Athearn kits.
I found a similar underframe in a box of saved junk, but it’s for a 50’ car. There are no markings on it, but it has moulded-in holes for adding the major brake gear components…
I thought that it might be for some 50’ ConCor gondolas I have, but it’s slighly too short for those cars.
I took a not-too-thorough look through HO Seeker, guessing that the mystery item might be from Tyco, ConCor, Model Power or LifeLike (the proto-no-thousand early LifeLike), but none of the photos showed rolling stock with painted and lettered bodies, but stirrup steps in black.
Wayne
I vote for Wayne’s!
Mike.
Thanks, this looks similar to the ones I have. I have never seen a Tyco or Life-Like car made this way. Also, the quality of the colors and printing is a definite step up from those of the cheap brands. This looks like either a high-end line of cars from a cheapo manufacturer, or a budget line of cars from an upscale manufacturer.
DSC02631 by wp8thsub, on Flickr
Does the car look overall like this? It’s a Model Die Casting kit with the later underframe that was cast in plastic.
Yes, one of the two cars looks like that, although the trucks don’t appear to be as nice as the ones in the photo.
The other car has double doors that don’t appear to open.
When I put that underbody back into the box, I found a roof, moulded in the same shade of black plastic, and with the exact same width and length as the portion of the floor that’s apparently meant to fit into the carbody casting. Based on the roof, a radial type with moulded-on platforms and ice hatches, I’d guess that they’re from a more recent version of Model Die Casting’s wooden express reefer. I never cared for the appearance of those cars because they looked to me to be unnaturally low-sided. I believe that the original version of those cars did have the cast metal underbody.
I vaguely recall that somebody gave me that car, which lacked some of the detail parts. I probably kept the roof, with thoughts of later shortening it and building another 40’ reefer, although I’m not sure why I kept the floor…likely to re-claim the sheet metal weight, as that box of junk has a pile of metal weights.
I won’t go so far as to say that your car-floor may also be a Model Die Casting item, but I’m pretty sure that mine is.
MDC/Roundhouse did make some pretty good models, and perhaps made a switch to plastic underbodies - likely cheaper to produce than the metal ones, and the older plastic car-bodies would likely be a slip-on fit. They did make at least one 40’ steel boxcar, and also a single sheathed 40’ wooden boxcar, both with a wide variety of roadnames.
Wayne
Were Model Die Cast and Roundhouse related? I am not very familiar with either brand. (I am more of an Athearn guy.)
They were the same brand. Athearn has since bought them out and rebranded some of their own lower detail offerings under Roundhouse, regardless of origin.
They did. Some of the cars, like the 40’ box I pictured above, were released with plastic floors with cast-on steps, and the plastic parts were essentially identical to the old metal parts. Athearn continued to use this later version of the MDC 40’ boxcar with the plastic floor as a Roundhouse/RTR version.