87181 Canadian National single car; 87182 2-Pack.
In 1983, Canadian National tranferred this group of quad door cars from US subsidiary Grand Trunk Western to the parent road. The GTW blue paint remained but all lettering was changed to Canadian National. The CNA (rather than the usual CN) reporting marks mean these cars were built in the US and assigned to international service. This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers.

87161 Denver & Rio Grande single car; 87162 2-Pack
Rio Grande received these quad door cars from Pullman Standard in the Summer of 1966. They were initially assigned for loading at a GM plant on the Pennsylvania RR in Indianapolis. Rio Grande had no assembly plants on line, but since they served as a bridge route for traffic between plants, they joined the appropriate multi-railroad equipment pools. This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers.

87151 Grand Trunk Western single car; 87152 2-Pack
Grand Trunk Western received these quad door cars from Pullman Standard in the Summer of 1967. This was prior to their adoption of “The Good Track Road” motto adopted in response to the deterioration of key competitor Penn Central. Initially, these cars were assigned for loading on the GTW in Flint, Michigan for delivery to GM assembly plants in other states via connections. This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers.

87171 New York Central Medium Cigar Band Logo single car; 87172 2-Pack.
New York Central received these quad door cars from Pullman Standard in 1967 and assigned them for loading at an Oldsmobile plant in Lansing on the Grand Trunk Western. Unlike previous NYC 86’ cars, this group received the medium size cigar band logo. This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers.

Canadian Pacific 86’ Double Door Boxcars.
In 1996, CP Rail changed their name back to Canadian Pacific Railway. This paint scheme was the result. This group of cars was originally delivered by Pullman Standard in 1967 in an austere brown with only reporting marks. Over the years many were repainted in CP Rail colors and finally this paint scheme. The CPAA reporting marks mean these cars are assigned to international service, moving parts between plants in the United States and Canada. The white conspicuity stripes are a feature of CP's new paint scheme standards and actually predate the FRA reflector stripe mandate by nine years. This run will be available in three road numbers. Due Fall '11

Golden West Service 86’ Double Door Boxcars.
Golden West Service was established in 1990 with an agreement between Southern Pacific and Greenbrier Industries. A wide range of freight cars from the SP, Cotton Belt, and Rio Grande fleets that were in need of rebuilding, gradually made their way to Greenbrier’s Gunderson railcar plant. They emerged in Golden West Services paint and resumed their roles under the management of SP. Because of the structure of the deal, Greenbrier was required to apply common carrier reporting marks (no private owner marks ending in X) to these cars so they made a deal with Galveston Railroad (GVSR), Ventura County Railway (VCY), Coe Rail (CRLE) and for a short time Kansas City Southern (KCS) to use their reporting marks. Ultimately, the Golden West fleet would grow to exceed 10,000 cars. This group of former Cotton Belt cars was assigned GVSR marks. This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers. 86441 single car; 86442 2-Pack. Due Late Summer

Illinois Central Gulf - CN 86' Double Door Boxcars
ICG was born from the 1972 merger of Illinois Central and Gulf Mobile &Ohio. In 1985, they began selling off routes to new regional railroads with the goal of getting down to a core Chicago-to-the-Gulf business. With most of the former GM&O in the hands of others or abandoned, Illinois Central Gulf dropped the “Gulf” from their name in 1988. They left behind two decades of orange paint and adopted gray for boxcars. Eleven years later, the “new” Illinois Central was purchased by Canadian National. At this point, CN logos began to appear on IC rolling stock. One might ask why cars would be painted with the current CN logo and Illinois Central Gulf lettering when the "Gulf" had been dropped years before. This is probably due to wording in the original equipment trust and lease agreements since a large percentage of the repainted fleet carries this lettering. Some of these cars have been painted brown instead of gray so we are including one of the brown cars in the 2-pack. 86471 Illinois Central Gulf - CN single car (gray), 86472 2-pack (1 gray car, 1 brown car). Order a single and a 2-pack to get all 3 road numbers available. . Due Fall '11

86411 Milwaukee Road - oxide red double door.
Milwaukee Road - as built. Milwaukee Road received these cars from Pullman Standard in December of 1967 in this paint scheme. This group was initially assigned for loading Ford body panels on the New York Central in Monroe, Michigan. This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers. 86411 single car; 86412 2-Pack. Due March/April 2011

86401 Norfolk Southern - oxide red double door.
Norfolk Southern - large logo. In the last several years, Norfolk Southern began painting these boxcars with a much larger version of the flying NS logo. In 2005, yellow reflector stripes began to appear on freight cars around the nation in response to new FRA regulations. This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers. 86401 single car; 86402 2-Pack. Due March/April 2011

Seaboard System 86’ Double Door Boxcars.
Seaboard System was the result of the January, 1983 consolidation of The Family Lines into one railroad. The family tree looks like this: Prior to 1967, Atlantic Coast Line controlled Louisville & Nashville who together jointly operated the Clinchfield and jointly controlled the Georgia Railroad who in turn controlled Atlanta & West Point and Western Railway of Alabama. In 1967, ACL merged with Seaboard Air Line to become Seaboard Coast Line. In 1974, The Family Lines image was adopted on many freight cars for all of the above railroads. The railroads remained separate and The Family Lines was simply a joint marketing image. Then on January 1, of 1983 all of the Family Lines roads were actually merged into Seaboard Coast Line who then changed their name to “Seaboard System.” This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers. 86451 single car; 86452 2-Pack. Due Late Summer '11

Western Pacific - 2nd version 86 ’ Double Door Boxcars.
Western Pacific’s Pullman Standard built auto parts boxcars were delivered in the “Distribution Dividend” scheme (see Bluford 86191 and 86192) in 1967. As these cars came due for repainting, they received this scheme. WP had a large Ford plant on line in Milpitas, California obliging them to contribute cars to a pool including many other railroads and several auto plants in the Midwest and South. This run will be available in 3 road numbers. Due Fall '11

86361 ATSF Quality single car; 86362 2-Pack.
In the aftermath of the failed application to merge with Southern Pacific, Santa Fe launched their “Quality Service Network” with the goal of attracting premium rates for moving selected priority traffic. They adopted a new variation of the Santa Fe logo with a stylized “Q” surrounding the traditional circle and cross logo. This was applied to the mineral red (nearly burgandy) paint job that replaced the Indian red used for many years. This roadname is available in 3 road numbers: 86361 single car; 86362 2-Pack

87041 B&O quad door single car; 87042 B&O 2-pack.
Pullman Standard built the large batch of quad door cars for the Baltimore & Ohio in 1965. B&O classed them as M-86 and initially assigned them for loading in Parma, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana for destinations across the map.

86351 Burlington single; 86352 2-Pack.
In January of 1969, when these cars arrived from Greenville, Chicago Burlington & Quincy was preparing for merger with parents Great Northern and Northern Pacific (and sibling SP&S.) New equipment was being delivered in Cascade Green with “BURLINGTON ” in the new style lettering and CB&&Q reporting marks. After the merger, they expected to add “NORTHERN ” and change the number. However, small changes in the lettering style led BN to abandon this plan and completely repaint the cars only when they came up for major shopping. We photographed one of these cars still in original lettering in California in 1996, 26 years after the BN merger!
New! - BLW did not take advance reservations on this road. In stock 2/9/2011

86251 Central of Georgia double door single car,86252 2-pack.
This batch of CoG cars was delivered in the summer of ‘66 and also initially assigned for loading in Cleveland, although at a Ford ’s Walton Hills plant.The 1,700+mile Central of Georgia blanketed much of Georgia and Alabama with branches to Tennessee and Florida. In the early 60 ’s, Southern gained control of the CoG and their influence spread into the lettering styles used on CoG ’s 8,000+car fleet.

86201 Chicago & North Western -Yellow single car, 86202 2-pack.
In 1980, Chicago & North Western changed from boxcar red to this yellow and black scheme with a three-color logo on many boxcars. The C&NW logos also changed over the years. These cars were delivered in brown with yellow and black “Chicago and North Western Railway ”logos which was later replaced by “Employee -North Western -Owned ” but by the time these cars were painted yellow, they had long since switched to “Chicago and North Western System".

86211 CP Rail (MILW) single car, 86212 2-pack.
CP Rail ’s auto parts fleet includes former Milwaukee Road cars like these. The single and one car in the 2-pack have the lettering arrangement shown above. The other car in the 2-pack has the CP Rail name a few panels to the right as on the prototype for its road number. The painted door bars and area around the door latches on this batch seems to be unique to CP Rail.

86181 Frisco single car, 86182 2-pack.
Frisco served auto plants in Oklahoma and Missouri plus handled considerable bridge traffic from the Deep South to the Midwest and Southwest. The Frisco was acquired by Burlington Northern in 1980!

86292 Illinois Central Gulf double door 2-pack.
The 7,100 mile Illinois Central Gulf was well positioned to handle auto parts traffic between the upper midwest and central southern states and contributed these Greenville built cars to the various 86' boxcar pools accordingly. For the 1972 merger of Illinois Central and Gulf Mobile & Ohio, the IC's "split rail" logo was modified, joining the two halves and centering the dot above. In 1988, ICG changed their name back to Illinois Central but retained a version of the big I logo. In 1999, Canadian National purchased the IC and these cars joined the greater CN fleet.

86301 L&N Family Lines double door single car; 86302 2-pack.
Louisville & Nashville received their last batch of 86' boxcars from Greenville in 1977. They were delivered in this Family Lines paint scheme. The Family Lines consisted of Seaboard Coast Line, L&N, Clinchfield, Georgia, Atlanta & West Point, and Western Railway of Alabama (the latter two were known together as The West Point Route.) SCL owned a significant block of L&N stock. The two together jointly owned the Clinchfield. L&N and SCL also jointly controlled the Georgia who in turn controlled the two West Point Route roads. So the Family Lines was not an encorporated entity but could be thought of as a shared marketing image. Beginning in 1983, L&N and SCL were merged as Seaboard System with the other Family Lines roads included as well. Seaboard System was already under the CSX Corp umbrella and about three years later Seaboard System changed its name to CSX Transportation.

86331 Missouri - Kansas - Texas double door single car, 86332 2-pack.
After a number of troubled years, the Board of Directors at MKT brought in John W. Barriger III, a railroad turnaround specialist credited with saving the Monon and doing wonders for P&LE, to whip the Katy into shape. One of Barriger's priorities was to update the freight car fleet. This batch of Greenville 86' boxcars delivered in 1969 was a direct result of that program. Like neighbors MoPac and Frisco, Katy was in a position to serve auto assembly plants in the Sun Belt and contributed cars to (likely Ford) pools.

87051 New York Central quad door single car; 87052 NYC 2-pack.
This batch of cars was built in 1966, classed by NYC as "104B" and initially assigned for loading by Chevy in Flint, Michigan on the Grand Trunk Western. This is another example of auto parts cars belonging to a multi-railroad pool assigned for loading (and unloading, for that matter) off home rails. Single car sold out. We are offering a single from 2 pk set.

86311 New York Central double door single car, 86312 2-pack.
This batch of 101 cars was delivered to New York Central in 1965. Initially at least, they were assigned to carry Chrysler parts. At this point in the Central’s history, they had 9,700 route miles in 10 states and 2 Canadian provinces. The freight car fleet was a whopping 78,000+ cars. New York Central blanketed southern Michigan as well as auto manufacturing centers in Indiana, Ohio, western New York and others, making this line vital to the industry.

86261 Penn Central double door single car, 86262 2-pack.
In addition to the huge auto parts fleet inherited from New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads, Penn Central ordered more of these double door cars in 1969 from Pullman Standard. At this point, Penn Central had far and away the largest fleet of 86' boxcars in the country. For that matter, they had the largest freight car fleet in the country with an astounding 187,000 cars! .

86162 Pennsylvania 2 Pack Set
Delivered in 1966, this group of PRR cars was the largest batch ever delivered of this type of car. PRR had such a huge freight car fleet (over 112,000 cars of all types) that a typical mixed freight anywhere in the country was statistically certain to have some PRR cars in it!

86171 Penn Central ex-PRR single car.
PC 237851 had been delivered in PRR paint but shortly after the 1968 Penn Central merger, the car was renumbered and the PRR keystone covered by the new PC logo. Apparently the PRR tuscan red was in too good a shape to warrant repainting the whole car green... (Single only-no 2pk).

87131 Rock Island single; 87132 2-Pack.
Rock Island received these quad door cars in the Summer of 1966. Auto parts traffic on the Rock Island was fairly significant with bridge traffic in addition to assembly plants located on line. Most of the “Granger Railroads” kept largely to one side or the other of a border stretching from St. Louis to Kansas City and on to Denver. C&NW and MILW for instance were to the north of the line while M-K-T and Frisco were to the south. Rock Island was the only line to have more or less equal portions on both sides of this line. Going from Minneapolis to Dallas? Rock Island was your single-line option.
New! - BLW did not take advance reservations on this road. In stock 2/9/2011

86191 Western Pacific single car, 86192 2-pack.
WP had a large Ford plant on line at Milpitas, California and forwarded parts from Midwestern parts plants to this facility. Since this group of cars was part of a large multi-plant pool, a number of WP cars could be seen moving parts between the South and Midwest as well.

87051 New York Central -- Click on photo for previous Bluford 86' Boxcar releases still available.