Fruit Growers Express B&O Car

[surlyknuckle]

Bought this Athearn rtr model of an insulated boxcar on vacation in September of 2012. It's one of the former Details-West molds that has been released by Athearn ready to run. It's an okay-model; the details are a little thick.

But, modeling the Chessie in the early 80s, a few of these cars are needed to round out the fleet. So, here is the car straight outta the box:



Yeah, she's kinda fugly. Here is a link to a prototype car from Fallen Flags:

www.rr-fallenflags.org/bo/bo879449jpa.jpg

I replaced the stirrups with Details Associates, added Kadees, cut levers, some date decals, and weathered it with mostly oil paints.

The end result;



A moderately realistic, run-of-the-mill car for a 1980s Chessie mixed freight. Hope y'all like it!-Jeffrey

[rhpd42002]

Jeffrey,

The mods you made to it, plus the weathering sure make a BIG difference in it's appearance.

Nice work and a nice looking car.

[buffalobill]

Jeffrey: Your modifications turned the old Details West car into a very nice model. Like the weathering/rust effect on the roof.
Bill

[surlyknuckle]

Thanks for the compliments, guys.

[riogrande]

How do those compare with the Walthers FGE 50' box cars? I have a few of those, and just won a Union Pacific "stand-in" FGE box car off fleabay.

[surlyknuckle]

Not sure, I don't have any of the Walthers cars (removing the cast-in end detail is what scares me). They're obviously different cards, and appear to be newer with welded sides.

[shoofly]

Feb 21, 2013 9:32:17 GMT -8 riogrande said:

How do those compare with the Walthers FGE 50' box cars? I have a few of those, and just won a Union Pacific "stand-in" FGE box car off fleabay.

They're different cars...the DW is more of a plate B and the Walthers is a Plate C. The problem with the DW car for FGE is minor but still a spotting feature. The proto FGE cars have two lines of rivets on panel seams. One line of rivets is every other rivet from the first. There's some other things but that is all covered by Jim Eager in the following articles:

Details West:
www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/22/1654/october-1990-page-62

Walthers:
trainlife.com/magazines/pages/144/10416/february-1993-page-42
trainlife.com/magazines/pages/146/10586/april-1993-page-52

Chris P.

[riogrande]

Good info Chris. I didn't research the DW cars and just assumed they may be older tooled models as the same car as the Walthers FGE - nice thing that they are different! I read the articles on the Walthers cars (have the hard copies of the magazines) so knew that model was a good copy of a number of prototypes. Thanks for filling in on the DW car!