provides both ready-to-run rolling stock and kits. Their boxcar
is the Rio Grande’s 3000 series car. The Rio Grande had 750 of
these cars in service, more than most narrow gauge railroads
had in their entire fleet. Other products come from Precision
Vintage Classic Models, former Berwyn kits, Overland brass, The
Cimarron Works, Design Tech, Miller Engineering & Design laser
wood, BTS laser wood, RailMaster, Wiseman Models, and MDC
and Athearn, kitbashes.
HOn3
You would think in HOn3 that there would be lots of boxcars
offered, but this is not the case. Blackstone offers two versions
of the 3000 series cars; however one of those is out of produc-
tion. Rail
Line also
has a kit
3000 series
car. Grandt
Line has
a limited
amount of
C&S boxcars
and Micro-
trains no
longer list
any freight
cars on its
web site.
LaBelle has
a very good
selection
of wood
3
3: East Broad Top single-sheathed steel
boxcar. Its number is unknown and there
is no identification visible. Photo courtesy
of BHI Publications, Tim Mulina collection.
craftsman kits for boxcars including a Florence and Cripple Creek
that migrated to Pearl Harbor in WWII. Trout Creek Engineering
has a very good selection of boxcars for the Southern Pacific;
these are also wood craftsman kits. For eastern modelers, the
selection is slim with LaBelle producing the only Ohio River and
Western car. Tweetsie cars are produced by David Hoffman and
Mt. Blue has reissued the Train and Trooper 32’ car. Funaro and
Camerlengo offers a boxcar for the Cairo and Kanawha and both
the 150 series wooden East Broad Top boxcar and the steel East
Broad Top boxcar. If you can find them, Gloor Craft (Quality Craft)
made the East Broad Top boxcar 170, which was a composite car
having a steel underframe and wood sides.
HOn30
The manufacturers identified for HOn30 that are currently
available include Funaro and Camerlengo resin, Chivers
Finelines plastic, Railway Recollections resin one-piece casting,
4: Tweetsie off-center door boxcar. Speculation has
it that the cars were sized up from 28’ cars, leaving
the door where the center of the car would have been.
Johnny Graybeal collection.
4
The Lite and Narrow Column - 3
MRH-Feb 2014
