Revised
Following up on their beautiful double sheathed, 40 ton USRA
offering, Rapido has just announced their version of the single sheathed 50 ton
USRA box car. By my modelling era of
1944, nearly 2000 of the original 25000 cars had been rebuilt or wrecked,
leaving 22201 cars in service in their original configuration. Of these, the Pennsylvania RR rostered nearly
half with 9765 of their X26 class, Milwaukee retained 3857 of their original
4000 cars, and New York Central had 1967.
A complete list of cars extracted from the October 1944 ORER follows.
|
Mark |
Start |
End |
Oct 44 # of cars |
|
AA |
90000 |
90199 |
198 |
|
AB&C |
27000 |
27199 |
190 |
|
B&O |
186999 |
187499 |
463 |
|
C&O |
600 |
1505 |
51 |
|
CC&O |
8000 |
8299 |
289 |
|
CNJ |
20000 |
20499 |
482 |
|
CNW |
143700 |
145698 |
980 |
|
D&H |
17001 |
17500 |
463 |
|
MEC |
36001 |
36300 |
297 |
|
MILW |
700000 |
703999 |
3857 |
|
N&W |
120000 |
120799 |
778 |
|
NYC |
160000 |
160999 |
5 |
|
NYC |
277000 |
277999 |
979 |
|
NYC |
282000 |
282999 |
983 |
|
NYC |
TOTAL |
1967 |
|
|
PRR |
37100 |
39865 |
2731 |
|
PRR |
44001 |
46725 |
2693 |
|
PRR |
83397 |
83572 |
173 |
|
PRR |
86798 |
869000 |
100 |
|
PRR |
90504 |
90513 |
10 |
|
PRR |
93901 |
93925 |
25 |
|
PRR |
97805 |
97948 |
141 |
|
PRR |
511396 |
511430 |
35 |
|
PRR |
512065 |
512069 |
5 |
|
PRR |
518217 |
518949 |
723 |
|
PRR |
530076 |
530080 |
5 |
|
PRR |
531194 |
531198 |
5 |
|
PRR |
540001 |
540798 |
785 |
|
PRR |
549202 |
549282 |
81 |
|
PRR |
564270 |
566090 |
1795 |
|
PRR |
596001 |
596450 |
442 |
|
PRR |
598438 |
598453 |
16 |
|
PRR |
TOTAL |
9765 |
|
|
RDG |
5001 |
5999 |
678 |
|
RF&P |
981 |
1140 |
144 |
|
RF&P |
2451 |
2800 |
339 |
|
SP |
26360 |
27359 |
970 |
|
WM |
26300 |
26599 |
290 |
|
Grand
Total |
22201 |
||
Now to the applicability of the Rapido models to my
era.
The D&H, PRR, CNW, MILW, MEC, SP, CNJ, C&O. NYC,
RDG, & RF&P cars are usable as depicted for a 1944 modeler. The AA artwork is in the 90000 series, but the
listed car numbers are in the 346500 series. I can’t quite make out the reweigh
date in the online rendering. The
B&O model are lettered in the 90000 series and would need to be renumbered
for 1944. Are those actually the AA
numbers? N&W renumbered their cars
into the 40000 series after 1945 so I would have to back date them into the
120000 series.
I can justify several of the Pennsy cars along with a couple
from SP, MILW and NYC. Singletons from
the usable list can replace Accurail and Tichy cars currently in my fleet. Time to call my dealer!
John Barry
Lovettsville, VA
15 June 2021
Update: Thanks to Jim Gates eagle eyes, I removed the PRR 83589 X25 series I misread as X26 and updated the totals in the text and table.
JCB
