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Life-Like - 7736 - Boxcar, 50 Foot, Steel, Double Door - RailBox - 553093

15  of these sold for an average price of: 9.579.5715 of these sold for an average price of: 9.57
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Collectors value this item at an average of 6.886.88Collectors value this item at an average of 6.88
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N Scale - Life-Like - 7736 - Boxcar, 50 Foot, Steel, Double Door - RailBox - 553093 Copyright held by TroveStar
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Stock Number7736
BrandLife-Like
ManufacturerSanda Kan
Body StyleSanda Kan Boxcar 50 Foot Double Door
Prototype VehicleBoxcar, 50 Foot, Steel, Double Door (Details)
Road or Company NameRailBox (Details)
Reporting MarksCNA
Road or Reporting Number553093
Paint Color(s)Yellow w. Silver roof and doors
Print Color(s)Black
Additional Markings/SloganThe nationwide boxcar pool
Coupler TypeRapido Hook
Coupler MountTruck-Mount
Wheel TypeChemically Blackened Metal
Wheel ProfileDeep Flange
Item CategoryRolling Stock (Freight)
Model TypeBoxcar
Model Subtype50 Foot
Model VarietySteel, Double Door
Prototype RegionNorth America
Prototype EraNA Era IV: 2nd Gen Diesel (1958 - 1978)
Scale1/160
Track GaugeN standard



Model Information: Made for Life-Like in China by Sanda Kan. Sanda Kan also produced these same cars for Industrial Rail. The Life-Like packaging claims these models are "Hi-Cube" boxcars, but they aren't the right dimensions. These cars can be terrible runners. The trucks just don't roll well.
Prototype History:
The 50-foot boxcar made its first appearance in the 1930s and steadily grew in popularity over the years, which further improved redundancies by allowing for even more space within a given car. Today, the 50-footer remains the common boxcar size. After the second world war ended, and steel became once again readily available, steel became the go-to choice for construction of boxcars. Pullman Standard and ACF were some of the most prolific builders of these cars.

Double Doors were frequently an option for most of the major North American railcar manufacturers in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. These cars were slightly more expensive to produce and maintain, but for many applications allowed faster loading and unloading times.
Road Name History:
RailBox Company (reporting marks ABOX, RBOX, TBOX, FBOX), founded in 1974, was created to address a boxcar shortage in the United States in the 1970s.

The concept behind RailBox, as evidenced by their slogan "Next Load, Any Road!" was that since Railbox was owned by many of the railroads as a privately owned cooperative, their boxcars were not subject to load/empty rules. Railbox cars could be assigned for service anywhere in Canada, Mexico and the United States on lines where an AAR Plate-C loading gauge is permitted. Railbox purchased boxcars from many Manufacturers including American Car and Foundry (ACF), Farmers Machinery Company (FMC), and Pullman-Standard (P-S).

Under the ICC car routing rules in effect at the time, cars owned by operating companies were supposed to be routed back to their owning road as soon as possible or the host road would have to pay demurrage(car storage and handling) charges. This was the cause a shortage of available cars and not an actual shortage of boxcars numerically. As empty cars were required to be routed back to their home railroad instead of being loaded and routed to another destination.

RailBox cars are all boxcars and are painted yellow with black doors. RailBox cars had a bold graphic side logo, which was a stylized X made of red and blue intertwined arrows to symbolize free flow. During the 1970s many railroads had old fleets of railcars. Due to the poor financial state of many railroads these cars were dirty and grimy. Railbox cars stood out with their bright yellow paint and large logos. The company's car reporting marks, as noted above, ended in the letter "X". Under FRA designation reporting marks ending in "X" are assigned to private owner cars.

As of 2015, many RailBox cars are still in service. The rise of intermodal containerized freight (which began in the late 1980s and early 1990s) has reduced the demand for full carload boxcar service. Also deregulation in the 1980s eliminated the legacy car routing rules, reaching its peak with the elimination of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1995.

RailBox (and the similar Railgon Company) are currently subsidiaries of TTX Company.

From Wikipedia
Brand/Importer Information:
Life-Like Products LLC (now Life-Like Toy and Hobby division of Wm. K. Walthers) was a manufacturer of model railroad products and was based in Baltimore, Maryland.

It was founded in the 1950s by a company that pioneered extruded foam ice chests under the Lifoam trademark. Because ice chests are a summer seasonal item, the company needed a way to keep the factory operating year round. As model railroading was becoming popular in the post-war years, they saw this as an opportunity and so manufactured extruded foam tunnels for model trains. Over the years, Life-Like expanded into other scenery items, finally manufacturing rolling stock beginning in the late 1960s. At some point in the early 1970s, Life-Like purchased Varney Inc. and began to produce the former Varney line as its own.

The Canadian distributor for Life-Like products, Canadian Hobbycraft, saw a missing segment in market for Canadian model prototypes, and started producing a few Canadian models that were later, with a few modifications, offered in the US market with US roadnames.

In 2005, the company, now known as Lifoam Industries, LLC, decided to concentrate on their core products of extruded foam and sold their model railroad operations to Wm. K. Walthers.

In June 2018, Atlas and Walthers announced to have reached an agreement under which all Walthers N scale rolling stock tooling, including the former Life-Like tooling, will be purchased by Atlas.

Read more on Wikipedia and The Train Collectors Association.
Manufacturer Information:
Established in 1973, Sanda Kan was originally a venture (subsidiary?) of Life-Like products. In 1979, Mr. Wai Shing Ting, formerly of Cox Hong Kong, joined Sanda Kan and took over as de facto CEO. At some point ownership of the venture changed hands and Mr. Ting became the primary owner. In 2000, Ting sold Sanda Kan to ZS Fund. The company was later resold to Kader Holdings, the venerable Hong Kong based toy manufacturer. The original location of the Sanda Kan facility was in Hong Kong, but after the liberalization of the mainland Chinese economy, the primary manufacturing site moved to Guang Dong (Canton), while the administrative offices appear to have remained in Hong Kong. At its height, Sanda Kan operated in 10 factories across Guang Dong with over 10,000 employees in 1.2 million square feet of space.

Sanda Kan is a highly recognized developer and manufacturer of precision models. It produces a full range of model train locomotives, from the very small 1:220 scale to the large 1:22 scale products. Other hobby items include electronic slot racing cars, sophisticated digital controls as well as accessories such as scenery, promotional cars and trucks. It continues to work closely with some of the world’s leading brands from concept to mold construction through to final production.

Sanda Kan’s unique structure allows for maximum flexibility. Its production facilities are located in Songgang, Shenzhen and Wanjiang, Dongguan. Each location is outfitted with mould shops providing full service on-site mould construction and maintenance. Both locations are also sub-divided into individual factories capable of manufacturing complete products, which are comprehensively equipped with injection moulding machines, tempo printing and spraying facilities, and dedicated assembly lines. This arrangement provides our clients with the dedicated capacity, service and privacy levels that they may require.

In 2008, Sanda Kan was acquired by Kader Holdings, the parent company of Bachmann and Tinco, but remains in operation producing model trains for numerous clients including: Atlas, Lionel, Aristo-Craft, Micro-Ace, S-Helper, Hornby, Brawa, Marklin and Tomix.

For more on Sanda Kan and Mr. Wai Shing Ting, please visit the Atlas Model Trains article on Wai Shing Ting.
Item created by: gdm on 2016-12-05 14:17:24. Last edited by gdm on 2021-02-14 11:39:51

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