Roundhouse - 8342 - Boxcar, 50 Foot, FMC, 5077 - East St. Louis Junction - 7724

Model Information: Boxcar, 50 Foot, Offset Double Sliding Door, Rib Side, Without Roofwalk, FMC. Originally designed by MDC Roundhouse, this tooling was acquired by Athearn in June of 2004. It has since been re-released with Accumate and/or McHenry couplers. This body style has two doors offset from center of the car.

Current versions features: Scale profile brake wheel; Roller bearing trucks; Fully-assembled and ready-to-run out of the box; Accurately painted and printed; Highly detailed, injection molded body; Machined metal wheels; Screw mounted trucks; McHenry knuckle couplers; Weighted for trouble free operation; Clear plastic jewel box for convenient storage; Operates on Code 55 and 80 rail; Minimum radius: 9-3/4".

Prototype History: In the 1970's with the growth of the Per Diem business model, FMC produced a series of 50 foot box cars in different configurations. The single-sliding-door configuration is one of the best known and used widely by many different railroads. These cars were produced using the Gunderson metal works which FMC had acquired in 1965. In late 1975, FMC began producing a 5,077-cubic-foot Plate B box car for IPD and Railbox service. FMC's 5077s have seven panels to either side of the 10-foot door, an X-panel roof, and non-terminating ends that are slightly different from those used on FMC's earlier cars. Note how the sidesill is notched all the way back to the bolsters, a key feature of FMC's mature design.

The main difference between the 5077 cu. ft cars built by FMC vs the 5277-5347 cu. ft cars built by the same manufacturers is the overall height of the car, the smaller 5077 cars were Plate B while the larger 5277-5347 cars were Plate C. Over 4,300 cars were produced from 1975-1979 by FMC's Portland, Oregon plant. The cars were delivered in numerous colorful shortline paint schemes, as well as the nationwide car pool fleet of Railbox. Many secondhand cars were later seen in Class 1 railroads and large leasing company fleets under additional shortline reporting marks.

Road Name History: The ESLJ was established in 1918 by the National Stockyards Company to operate the parent company’s 26 miles of track serving the stockyards in National City in the northwest corner of East St. Louis, Illinois. The parent company had first built track in 1872. In addition to the stockyards, ESLJ served packing houses of Amour, Hunter, Morris and Swift as well as a few cold storage warehouses. During the particularly busy month of October, 1920, ESLJ was switching 450 loads per day. Of course, livestock and reefer traffic was among the first business lost to the trucking industry. In 1975, part of the ESLJ line was leased to Chicago & North Western. The last big ESLJ customer was Hunter Packing and they closed in 1982. To add insult to injury, in 1986 a major fire destroyed the stockyards office building, taking with it all of ESLJ’s company records. Union Pacific took over operation from C&NW of the leased segment following their merger and UP filed to abandon it in 2003.

Text Courtesy of Bluford Shops

Brand/Importer Information: MDC Roundhouse was founded in California in 1938 and relocated in 1993 to Carson City, Nevada due to statewide restrictions on painting. MDC Roundhouse was a producer of both RTR (Ready-to-Run) and kit versions of N Scale rolling stock as well as RTR locomotives. They entered the N scale market in 1979 with a Thrall Hi-Side Gondola and a Hi-Cube Single Door Box Car. MDC Roundhouse was purchased by Horizon Hobbies in June of 2004, when its owner since 1938 C. H. Menteer retired, and merged into their Athearn line.

Unlike many of their contemporaries which contracted with European firms to produce their products, MDC made their own toolings. They made several popular body styles and produced them for road names that many other vendors (even Micro-Trains) wouldn't touch. This made them popular with modelers. Also, their un-assembled "kits" permitted a lower price point so they were popular with "runners" as well as "modelers".

Of particular interest was the attention given to modern 50 foot steel boxcars. They made some attempt to accurately mold the differences into distinct models to represent each of the major prototype manufacturers products. They have distinct toolings not only for the different products from FMC, BFF and PS, but also multiple models for each of these manufacturers including "standard" vs "Youngstown" doors and "waffle" vs. "rib" sides. In total they produced 13 different versions of the 50 foot steel boxcar.