Life-Like - 7628 - Train Set - CSX Transportation - 3-unit

Specific Item Information: Double Header Set with Caboose

- EMD GP38-2, CSX 6638, Life-Like Stock Number 7842
- EMD GP38-2, CSX 3683, unpowered dummy unit, only available in this set
- Caboose Cupola Offset 8-Window, CSX 586432, also available without road number, Life-Like Stock Number 7716

Series Information: The 'Double Header Set with Caboose' is a series of train sets by Life-Like that comprises two locomotives of the same type, one powered and the other dummy, and a caboose, all from the same road name.

Road Name History: CSX Transportation (reporting mark CSXT) is a Class I railroad in the United States. The main subsidiary of the CSX Corporation, the railroad is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and owns about 21,000 route miles (34,000 km). CSX operates one of the three Class I railroads serving most of the East Coast, the other two being the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) and Canadian Pacific Railway. It also serves the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Together CSX and Norfolk Southern Railway have a duopoly over all east-west freight rail traffic east of the Mississippi River. As of October 1, 2014 CSX's total public stock value was slightly over $32 billion.

CSX Transportation was formed on November 1, 1980, by combining the railroads of the former Chessie System with Seaboard Coast Line Industries, and finally with the Seaboard System Railroad in 1986. The originator of the Seaboard System was the former Seaboard Air Line Railroad, which previously merged with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1967, and later with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, as well as several smaller subsidiaries such as the Clinchfield Railroad, Atlanta & West Point Railroad, Monon Railroad and the Georgia Railroad. The origin of the Chessie System was the former Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, which had merged with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and the Western Maryland Railway.

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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.