Fox Valley Models N Scale Soo Line North Fond du Lac (NFDL) 7-Post Boxcars. Not wanting to miss the first eight cars in this release, I placed a reservation months ago with Chuck at Feather River Train. They arrived Jan 8 and I took the time to have a reasonable inspection of the brown and white cars released so far. I referred to the poster printed by the SLHTS (Soo Line Historical and Technical Society) for the drawings and the article on these cars printed in the Spring 1999 issue of the SOO, SLHTS's in-house publication. Car No's - 17546, 17634, 17712, 17848, boxcar red w/ white SOO LINE 48" billboard lettering. Roof is galvanised (silver). These numbers are part of the 1969-built 17500-17848 series of 175 cars (even numbers only) built with Stanray's X-panel roof and 4-4 Dreadnaught ends and Youngstown 10' plug doors, low ladders and no roofwalks. This series were fitted with DF Loaders giving a 4994 cuft capacity and 15" draft gear. The model very closely follows the prototype in all facets with only the following minor mistakes made with the body and artwork noted; The low positioning of the end tackboards - should be one corrugation higher in line with the brakewheel, A full rivetted roof - should only be the end panel rivetted and the rest welded. Pre-'66-built cars with high ladders and roofwalks had full rivetted roofs (or is it rooves?), Incorrect cuft for this car - should be 4994 instead of 5038. Car No's - 18452, 18472, 18525, 18638. white w/ black 48" SOO LINE billboard lettering, and black ends. Roof is galvanised (silver). These numbers are part of the 1972-built series of 100 cars numbered 18440-18638 (even numbers only) built with Stanray x-panel roof and 4-4 Dreadnaught ends and Youngstown 10' plug doors. This series were fitted with a single moveable bulkhead giving a 4955 cuft capacity and 15" draft gear. The same is evident as with the above series except for the cuft being correct and the IW incorrect (9'3" vs 9'4-3/4" actual) To better represent the above draft gear arrangements, the model would be better served by 1033 roller bearing w/medium extension rather than the supplied 1030 roller bearing w/short extension MTL trucks and couplers. The 33" wheels are correct for these two series of cars. The fourth series of Soo cars with the red SOO LINE represent the 1977-built cars which had ASF 100T trucks and 36" wheelsets. The 1978-built cars were practically identical except for black billboard lettering. Overall these are great cars that haven't been made before in any scale* to this fidelity. The paint is very good on the white cars - the brown cars appeared to be a little thick - and the lettering crisp with the data readable in all cases. Being a Soo Line modeller I'm very happy about these cars. * AccuRail manfactured a special run of HO 7-post cars for the SLHTS some years back by creating new sides and using one of their off-the-shelf ACF boxcar molds for the (incorrect) ends and roof.
