C&CV Boxcars

There are certain types of  freight cars that I just find extremely fascinating. One that immediately jumps to mind are the Thrall All-door boxcars. There are just so many bars and levers and doors going on that it looks really busy and neat. 

Years ago, I was at the hobby store and found an HO scale model painted for the Cooperstown and Charlotte Valley Railroad (written about previously on my blog here). It was a Walthers' "limited edition" car from 2002 and there was mention somewhere that a two-pack of cars with different road numbers also existed. I asked the owner if he had that set, and after digging around he located it. They were the last ones in the store! I snatched them up and paid a bit more than I normally would for freight cars but since they couldn't be found on Ebay or anywhere else it I had to do it.

An excellent website resource with information on these cars is here, and it indicates that the CACV acquired six of the cars (#28070-28075) in 1974 which wore D&H markings until 1976. Another six cars (#28076-28081) were purchased in 1975, and they apparently never had D&H markings on them.

Sadly, I have never run them. The problem is that the cars are perfect for a 1970s layout, but not one set in 1984. I have some images of these cars and by that time they were patched out and labeled with new railroad owners. And they looked sloppy. Because I liked these models, I didn't want to do that to them. But, my sense of "historical realism" also prevented me from running the cars as is. So, they have sat in their boxes for years.

Recently, though, I came across the image below of car #28071 from April 1986. The D&H shield on the left is painted out and stenciled with "CACV", but beyond that the "Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley Railway" logo is still visible. Though some changes have been made, there aren't too many. This car wasn't patched out as ugly as some of the others. It doesn't even look very weathered in the image. Inspired by this, I might get the cars to the workbench this winter to make them layout ready. I would only need some black paint and some white or yellow letter decals. Then they would be good to go.

At the same time, I also just purchased a pair of brand new O gauge (three rail) cars made by MTH Electric Trains in the same paint scheme. I am starting to collect O scale equipment for a future three-rail New England themed layout. Now, I have some really neat freight cars in two different scales. And I know Red Caboose made them in N scale too. Uh oh...