Red Caboose - RN-17407-02 - Boxcar, 55 Foot, Thrall All-Door - Boise Cascade - 3015

Prototype History: Lumber has always been difficult to ship by rail. Box cars provide protection but are hard to load and unload. Flat cars eliminate those problems, but loads have to be tarped to protect them from the weather.

In 1967, Thrall took the best of both ideas and created a unique car that would solve these problems. The All-Door Box Car had no true sidewalls, but was equipped with four large doors which could be opened in pairs. This provided a 25' wide opening that made loading and unloading a breeze! And since it was a box car, the loads were completely enclosed for the entire trip. As the housing boom began in the 1970s, the cars became a common sight at lumber mills and yards across America.

Thrall Door boxcars arrived in Detroit in the early 70s. They were used to carry hardboard products to Ford plants in the Detroit area.

Road Name History: Boise Cascade Company (NYSE: BCC), which uses the trade name Boise Cascade, is an American manufacturer and distributor of lumber & building materials.

Boise Cascade Wood Products manufactures plywood, engineered wood products, lumber, and particleboard and supplies a broad line of wood products and building materials through Boise Cascade Building Materials Distribution's 33 distribution locations. Boise Cascade Company is a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BCC.

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Minnesota Dakota and Western Railway (reporting mark MDW) is a shortline railroad operating 4 miles of track between International Falls and Ranier, Minnesota as well as between International Falls and Fort Frances, Ontario via the Fort Frances ? International Falls International Bridge, which is jointly owned by MDW and Abitibi Consolidated. The railroad serves the paper mills in both International Falls and Fort Frances. The railroad interchanges with Canadian National Railway at Ranier.

In 2005 the railroad handled 11,841 carloads of wood pulp, pulpwood, chemicals, raw materials and finished paper. The railroad has a fleet of more than 3100 railcars.

Originally a subsidiary of Boise Cascade designed to serve its paper mills, the MDW was created in 1910.

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Brand/Importer Information: Originally Red Caboose was a manufacturer of HO and N Scale model railroading items. It was located in Mead, Colorado, and was founded in 1990 by Leon Fairbanks. Red Caboose manufactured highly accurate, well detailed N, HO, and O Scale freight cars and locomotives.

Red Caboose closed its doors in January of 2015. Red Caboose N Scale has been sold to Fox Valley Models and HO was sold to InterMountain Railway. Many of the Red Caboose toolings have seen re-releases from Fox Valley since the acquisition. We just wish they would clean up the underframes. Red Caboose always went light on the details where they thought people wouldn't look.

Manufacturer Information: While they were in business, Red Caboose split its production runs between the US and China. Which models were produced where was a function of which body style and which run. Furthermore, which Chinese company was used for production is something we would love to find out.