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50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Bangor & Aroostook
No. 8431 -1982 Release
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Canadian National
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Champion Spark Plugs
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Doritos
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Eat It All Cone
No. 8423
This model's box flap gives M.C.C. (Maryland Cup Corporation) for this item's actual
roadname.
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar
Erie Lackawanna No. 8533
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Good & Plenty
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar
Reading
No. 8470
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac
No. 8528
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Seaboard Air Line
No. 8473
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Tootsie Roll
No. 8422
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Tropicana
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Union Pacific
No. 8432 -1982 Release
50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar Vlasic Pickles
Life-Like adds this boxcar to the company's HO-scale
train catalog in 1982. Given the toy train level of much of the manufacturer's line at the time of introduction,
this tooling is and remains an above average release. Life-Like goes so far as to note the model is an Evans-made prototype
with Stanray X-panel roof in the 1982 product catalog debuting this model. That's a fairly shocking amount of prototype
detail being included and you won't find many other examples of this level of labeling at the time.
The first two road names offered are Bangor &
Aroostook and Union Pacific. Neither owned this Evans' 50-foot boxcar prototype. Aside from some billboard series
offerings, which included Doritos, Champion, and Vlasic, this car saw no additional cataloged road names during the 1980s
and into the 1990s.
The
model did find service frequently in special promotional train sets. The pictured Good & Plenty purple car
on this page is from a special release set. You'll also find Campbell's Soup decorated cars from special sets.
Bev-Bel also purchased
examples of this model and made a number of releases for it over the years.
Jim Eager in RailModel Journal provides background on the prototype. Mr. Eager states
Life-Like's model is Penn Central's X72/X72A boxcar. Similar to the prototype, this HO-scale model includes the already
noted Stanray X-panel design roof, plus accurate 50-foot, 5-inch length, Stanray's 4/4 improved Dreadnaught end design, and
10-foot Superior sliding door. Eager also notes the prototype's Cushion-Pak underframe is "attempted" by Life-Like for
its model. Again, quite an effort when you consider this release sat side-by-side in catalogs with elderly Varney 40-foot
boxcar and reefer models.
Proto 1000 50-foot Hi-Roof Boxcar
Life-Like's Proto 1000 Series included three freight
cars that graduated from the ranks of the company's former standard line of HO-scale products. The 100-ton hopper, Thrall All-Door boxcar,
and this 50-foot Hi-Roof boxcar all received improvements and new paint scheme offerings and joined the Proto 1000 line.
As a Proto 1000 release, this model could be found decorated for Penn Central and Western Pacific, following
prototype usage. The shell itself remained the same between standard Life-Like release and Proto 1000
issue. The improvement to the model for Proto 1000 release came in the form of a new underframe.
This model, thanks to its smooth large billboard
sides
Walthers Mainline 50-foot Sliding-Door Boxcar
Following Walthers
purchase of Life-Like's model train assets in 2005, this model has remained in production. It most recently joined Walthers'
mid-level quality Mainline collection of HO-scale releases. Illustrated is an image of a Walthers Mainline
release of this former Life-Like car. This recent issue included a variety of Conrail paint schemes, including this
U.S. Savings Bond example. Though the model remains the Evans prototype, Walthers promoted its most recent release for
these cars as being 1967 National Steel Car 70-ton newsprint boxcars.
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