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From September 1975 comes this Life-Like ad below for its
new Thrall Door Box Car. You may click on the ad for a larger view...
NEW FOR 1975
Life-Like's 1975 catalog introduces the Thrall Door Box Car
model. The catalog displays a series of three pictures all of actual prototypes and not HO-scale models. The Canadian
Forest Products, Green Bay and Western, and Lignum are actual prototype photos shown for 1975. The 1975 catalog additionally
lists A&P Lumber, Armstrong, and Bennett as three other roadnames slated for the first group of Life-Like HO-scale Thrall
Door Box Cars.
  THRALL SHELL VARIATIONS
There are at least two different shells for the Life-Like Thrall
Door Box Car. Initially, the car's shell was multi-piece with both ends being cast separately. The ends slid
into a track inside the ends of the car's body shell. The end railings were separate items, as was the brake wheel.
Later examples of the Thrall from Life-Like feature a single cast shell that includes the ends and railings all cast into
one piece. Later Thralls only feature the brake wheel as an additional separate part. The picture presented shows
an in-the-works custom painted ICG orange example of the early design Life-Like Thrall sitting next to a later example Illinois
Terminal Thrall. Notice that the depth on the end section was much better on this earlier multi-part shell. One
assumes this better appearing original design gave way to the simplier single piece shell, which became
the norm by the early 1980s. The upgraded PROTO 1000 Thrall Door also fetures the simplified single piece
shell.
PROTO 1000 THRALL DOOR
Life-Like's PROTO 1000 Series included what was listed
as a 60' Thrall Door Box Car. The basis for this PROTO 1000 offering was the same simplified single piece mold used
for the standard line's Thrall Door with an improved underframe offering body mounted knuckle couplers and high quality trucks.
Though called 60' in length, the PROTO 1000 Thrall Door remains prototypically undersized and the same 52' in length as the
previous Life-Like offering.
 LIFE-LIKE'S OTHER ALL DOOR
Life-Life did have an All Door Box Car is its line prior to the
1975 introduction of the Thrall Door Box Car model. The same All Door Box Car that recently returned to Bachmann's HO-Scale
Silver Series line and at one time was offered by AHM was also part of the early Life-Like freight cars. The 1974 Life-Like
catalog lists CN, Can For, and Bennett for this original All Door Box Car model. The car carried the 08591 stock number.
The CN model was the "newsprint" scheme as seen below. The model is based on the 1961 Pullman-Standard built All-Door
Box Car. This prototype is known to have been owned only by the Southern Railway.
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