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Getting Real Column - 4
their way every bit as distinctive and unique as the Milwaukee
rib-side cars. There is a fine article by Pat Wider about the
wagon tops, in
Railway Prototype Cyclopedia
(Vol. 9, 2003,
pages 1–25). Recently ExactRail has produced a superb model
of a Class M-53 car, as shown here. This class was not the only
wagon-top class, but was among nearly 5000 cars of this design
built by B&O (3).
But the largest single class of B&O boxcars was the M-26 class,
very similar in design and execution to the Pennsylvania X29
boxcar. Like the X29, the B&O M-26 cars were essentially built
to the 1923 American Railway Association proposed standard
all-steel boxcar. There were some 14,000 cars in six distinct
sub-classes, a major group of boxcars for any railroad. A fine
3
3: My two signature Baltimore & Ohio boxcars are seen
here together, the one on the left the M-26, one of more
than 14,000 cars of that type, and on the right, the
famous “wagon-top” class M-53. Both models are injec-
tion-molded styrene, and are from Red Caboose on the
left, ExactRail on the right.
article about the 1923 car designs is available from Pat Wider,
in
Railway Prototype Cyclopedia
(Vol. 18, 2009, pages 1–113),
with an entire section within that article about just the B&O
M-26 cars (pages 61–79). My model is a Red Caboose styrene
kit, lettered with Speedwitch decal set D117.1, which is espe-
cially for M-26 cars, including subclasses A, B and C. Mine is
numbered within the M-26 car series 265000–266999, built
by Pullman in 1925. The trucks, doors, AB brakes, and letter-
ing represent replacements in later years. Of the original 2000
M-26 cars, 1952 cars were still in service in 1951.
Not every set of signature cars need be entirely boxcars.
Denver & Rio Grande Western was a railroad with a fleet
smaller than most of the roads described in this column, with
4: A vitally important D&RGW boxcar group, cars
66000–67499, remained a central part of the railroad’s
fleet of boxcars into the 1950s. This one was built from a
Westerfield resin kit, with Kadee Vulcan trucks.
4
MRH-Apr 2013
