B&O M-53 Wagontop Boxcar from FVM Fox Valley announced B&O M-53 Wagontops in both N and HO today. Ohh my aching wallet.
"N scale cars will feature FVM metal wheels and Micro-Trains body mounted couplers".:thumbs_up::thumbs_up:
That loud crakle and boom was the sound of my credit card coming out the wallet for these cars! Way to go Matt!
Plus MILW rib side box cars and ESM XIH box cars and G26 gondolas for me. These are great times for N scalers, but also real expensive times...
I want some of these! The price is not that high: 20 dollar, so maybe around 16 dollar in the online shops, so that will be something like 12 euro for a boxcar. Nice!
So, you B&O experts out there, what was the lifespan of these four paint schemes? I know the "bilboard" is too new for me (I model '47 -'51). Thanks, Otto
I have the same questions as Otto. Would someone break down timelines for these cars? Particularly for the years 1955-1968. Boxcab E50
Here is the break down on original paint dates for the scheme as far as I know. B&O Original (Flat Door) - 90301,2,3: Late 1937 B&O 13 Great States - 90304,5,6: Mid 1945-1946 B&O Late Billboard - 90307,8,9: 1955 on in various forms. C-16 Railway Express - 90310,11,12: 75 Converted 1941 thru 1945. 50 Returned to gerneral service 1947-49. Remaining cars used through the 60's, some painted blue. Wagontops were built starting in 1936 as M15 during a rebuild program. These would also work for the M15 wagontops. The M-53's were built on all new on Duryea frames starting in 1937. The frame would be the primary spotting difference. More info: http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/boxauto/bo380601main.html The cars lasted quite a while. There is a pic posted on another site of a surviving car in 1970. To prove the range of the cars, this was posted on the B&O Yahoo group. All these cars were built in 37'. They would only be repainted when shopped. If a car got out of the system, it could have survived a while in it's current paint scheme. You could have a 50's train with 3-4 different paint schemes all in the train at the same time. There are a total of 8 or 9 different schemes and colors these cars could be done in so expect more variations announced in the future.
It would appear that all three might fall within at least the early years of my time frame. Now if only we could learn more of how late the first two versions might have lasted.... Boxcab E50
This doesn't help with paint but here are the numbers. In 1970, there were 597 M-15's on the roster. I have found one reference that 14 survived into 1980. The B&O colorguide has many shots of M-53's in the mid 60's all wearing the Late Billboard scheme. Unfortunately, there are no shots of the older schemes, in fact the oldest photo of a wagontop in the book is 1957.
I think there are (or were) some schematics somewhere on the website of the B&ORRHS. It is called B&O Boxcar Lettering Arrangements 1920s - 1960s. But I don't have a link to it. And I don't know what the color was.
