Hi everyone.
I just received my Walthers 50' smoothside plug-door boxcars lettered for the
Hubinger Co. in Keokuk, Iowa. I thought I would pass on some comments.
1) As the person at Walthers told me, these cars have a built date of 5-62.
What they neglected to mention was that there was also a shop date of 6-70.
Personally, that means that I will have to back date the cars to their
as-delivered appearance. Any help on what this might entail would be
appreciated, but some of my guesses follow.
2) The car has no roof walk, short ladders on all corners, and a lowered brake
wheel. My guess would be that these cars would have been delivered in 62 with
metal roof walks, tall ladders on some corners, and grab irons on the others
(like the recent Blueprint series RBBX car). The supplied ladders seem to be
separate pieces which could be removed fairly easily. Any help on firming up
some of these details would be appreciated.
3) As might have been expected, the stirrup steps on the car are quite thick
and some might want to remove them and replace with finer products.
4) The paint and lettering are quite good.
For those who may have layouts which involve any K-line traffic, the cars
provide some local colour (yellow), but be aware of the above when deciding if
they fit your time-frame.
Duncan
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