The Ertl Collectibles Authentic Railway Designs HO-scale Rolling Stock
collection consisted of three different freight cars: Flat Car; Gondola; and Box Car. At their time of release
in the late 1990s, these cars did feature a unique attribute among other HO-scale ready to run rolling stock on the market
as they were produced with factory applied weathering.
The cars were produced in China for the Authentic Railway Designs line
and featured fine detailing, including separately applied grab irons, underframe details, roofwalk and sliding doors
(on the box car), and knuckle couplers. Packaging included a window display box that was of a generic design.
The car's specific information was printed on a sticker that was applied to the lower center front below the display window
and wrapped beneath onto the package base. The rolling stock was housed in a thin white plastic base with a clear
plastic protective shell covering both the base and car.
An additionally unqiue feature for this line was the era chosen.
The majority of the rolling stock produced for the HO-scale model train market tends to be of the Steam-to-Diesel Transition
Era. This time period is generally recognized as taking place from just prior to U.S. involvement in World War II and
up into the 1960s. Pick up about any freight car from any manufacturer and you're usually safe betting that it could
be ran during this timeframe. The Ertl Collectibles Authentic Railway Designs cars were prototypical for a period
of time from around World War I and into the 1920s. This made them somewhat considerably older than most anything produced
for the HO-scale ready to run market.
To date, none of these three freight cars in the American Classic Series has
returned in another company's product line. According to the company's product catalogs, each of the three cars was
made available in ten different roadnames.
