Accurail 40ft 6-panel SLSF boxcars

I've enjoyed adding a number of Accurail freight car models to my roster over the past decade or so that they have been available. Most, or at least many, of Accurail's cars are unique, they look good, they have crisp lettering, they roll well with very nice trucks, they are easy to assemble, and - best of all - they don't cost much! Even better, Accurail likes to do cars in Frisco colors since they do sell well!

As with most things in our hobby, there are sacrifices. Accurail's cars are not always - certainly in the case of the Frisco - not always totally true to the prototype. But, they have a Frisco "flavor" and, for an inexpensive car kit, that is good enough for me.

Following is a nice, quick, easy project that will result in two good looking Frisco 1930-1960 period box cars with a different appearance. This uses Accurail's kit 7108, their 40' Frisco "6-panel wood box car". Remember, I didn't say totally accurate, I said good looking!

This Accurail car is meant to look like Frisco's 40' Howe Truss box cars built in the 1926-1930 period. It's close, and has the correct flavor, but is not totally accurate as noted above. The cars were built for SLSF by ACF, Pullman and General American, and were numbered SLSF 147000-148999 (ACF 1926), 149000-149499 (GA 1926), 160000-160999 (ACF 1928), 161000-161499 (GA 1928), 161500-162499 (P 1930), and 162500-163999 (ACF 1930). See Pat Wider's and Ed Hawkins' RP Cyc #1 for details.

You will need two Accurail #7108 SLSF 6-panel box car kits, one set of Tom Stolte's OddBalls Frisco decals #187-238, one set of Accurail's renumbering #7108 decals, some water, your decal setting system stuff, and some patience.

Pics of my two completed cars are posted below. The first car, SLSF 160064, is simple - build the stock Accurail kit, and then renumber it to one of the numbers from the Accurail renumbering decal set. This was the first time I used these, and they work terrific. It is very hard to see that the car numbers on the sides and ends have been renumbered. Nice! I'll be doing this to some other Accurail cars - they have them available for most of their kits at nominal cost.

But - there is one additional problem with my renumbered SLSF 160064. The actual car by that number, built by ACF, had a wood door, not the steel door on the car. What the heck! Next time I'll pick a higher number.

The second car, SLSF 162237, uses the stock kit car number, but has the Oddballs "Let it Go Frisco!" decal set applied. Tom's decals go on very easily, and are very thin filmed, with minimal trouble covering the decal sheen. I thought it makes into an interesting looking car.

Yes, SLSF 162237, built by Pullman, did come with a steel door as per the model. But, there is another compromise - the "Let it Go Frisco" lettering was really not applied to these cars until the mid-1950's, and then, I think, only to the cars that had been rebuilt with steel sides. In addition, the rebuilt cars were renumbered into the 32000 series. But, I thought the unique look was worth having, yet did not want to go to the trouble of modifying the car sides for this particular kit.

I'll get these various details correctly modeled when I get around to doing my two Sunshine model kits I have for the Frisco's Howe truss cars. I've seen them built and they look terrific.

Enjoy! Thought this might be of interest to some who don't worry about rivet-counting. The price is right! Pics follow.

Ken

ps - In addition to the decals, I added Kadee #5 couplers, Kadee rib-back wheel sets, a Kadee Ajax brake wheel, and Cal-Scale brake line hoses to each car.