Accurail 36 Foot Boxcars

My interests are eclectic, and I've never been the sort to see my hobby as something I do to satisfy someone else's tastes. So I run what I like, and that includes hauling turn-of-the-20th-century prototypes behind diesels. I really like the Accurail variations on the 36-foot steel underframe boxcars they've brought out over the past several years.

I substitute the plastic wheels in the kits with Kadee 33 inch ribbed back wheels and the couplers with Kadee 158. I also substitute the flexible plastic steps in the kit with A Line Type A stirrups. I tend to create batches of brass brake wheels soldered to brass wire to install on Accurail cars that use them, so I haven't finished such a batch for these cars.

On the Boston & Maine car below, I substituted a pair of old Roundhouse Fox trucks for the arch bars in the kit. The Boston & Maine had a number of these cars in storage at Walpole, NH when I found them there in 1967, and they had kept their Fox trucks.

I seek out models of standard freight cars lettered for interurban lines like the Fort Dodge, the South Shore, the Sacramento Northern, and the Pacific Electric. This Accurail Fowler car is lettered for the South Shore. I'm working on another Accurail Fowler lettered for the Illinois Terminal.

I have a 1928 Official Railway Equipment Register, and the South Shore did in fact have ten of these cars.