50’ Modern Railbox / IPD Boxcar
HISTORY
The term shortline fever was used to describe the movement that swept through the North American boxcar fleet beginning in 1978. An impending shortage of newer, serviceable XM-class general purpose boxcars spurred changes to AAR car service rules. There was a shortage of boxcars for high-quality lading like paper and food. Railroads were buying lots of covered hoppers and container flatcars, not 50-foot boxcars. At the same time, scant capital funds on the part of the railroads for new cars encouraged a proliferation of savvy, opportunistic financiers ready to join in. This became known as the “IPD” (Incentive, Per Diem) craze and it produced some very colorful boxcars from some small railroads that wouldn’t have otherwise had any quantity of boxcars for interchange service. Little regionals and shortlines like The New Hope & Ivyland, the Terminal Railroad of Alabama State Docks, the Pickens Railroad and the Chattahoochee Industrial Railroad (just to name a few) suddenly found themselves on the national stage with their boxcars running coast to coast.
Unfortunately, the good times were not to last. By the mid to late 1980s, railroads like Conrail and Union Pacific, tired of seeing their market share being eaten up by the little guys, used their capital might to leverage the jointly owned Trailer Train company to bring “Railbox” to bear. The TTX subsidiary swamped the market with new XM type boxcars which could be had cheaper than the IPD cars. Along with that, the IPD rules were changed and these colorful cars returned to their home roads to be scrapped or resold. Many of them were resold to leasing companies and had their reporting marks changed while the old paint scheme continued to roll on.
Our Car
Our car is a faithful representation of the FMC 50’ Plate “C” boxcar. This car served both the IPD boom as well as being well represented in the Railbox fleet. The car is an all-steel car with corrugated ends and Youngstown or Superior Steel type doors.
The car features:
All steel welded construction. This model should be assembled with either a MIG or TIG welder. This is not a hard process and can be learned by anybody (with practice!).
Precision Steel Car details including their brake wheel and grab irons.
Numbers etched into the steel so the car becomes “build by number”. Lightly etched numbers disappear when covered with paint.
Tab-in-slot construction makes assembly easy!
Steel frame included and it includes 1/2” holes for installing air lines all down the length of the carbody. This keeps air lines inside the frame and safe from damage.
Steel roof that gives the option of being fixed in place or use the included hinges and gas strut to make the roof openable to use the inside of the carbody for storage.
Frame has 1/8” starter holes for locating couplers and trucks to make it easy!
All screws and details included.
Doors are able to be fixed in place or openable which is the modeller’ choice and you can choose door type.
We look forward to providing another wonderful car kit to the hobby and we can’t wait to share this one with you, so order today!