Shortly before World War I, the NYC and PRR pioneered the construction of all-steel box cars with steel sheathing. In 1922, the NYC began delivering their NYC Specification 486 steel box car. These became thesecond most populous steel box cars on Americas railroads, second only to the PRR X29 cars. From the 1920s through the late 1950s, these carscould be found everywhere on the New York Central system, as well as traveling in interchange almost everywhere in North America.
Variations in design over the decadeswere relatively few.   In this production run, all ofour models will have rectangular-paneled roofs, AB brakes, ARAU-section trucks, and a steel-grid running board along the top of thecar.   We model two variations of doors and two variations of end caps.   Some models will have corrugated doors and some non-corrugated.  The two end-capvariations are 7-8 corrugated ends and Dreadnaught ends.
Inaddition to the NYC models, we are also offering eleven 2-packs ofmodels from railroads that ran the ubiquitous USRA 40′ steel boxcars.  The cars are almost identical to the NYC prototype inreal life. 
Thehopper car models come completely assembled and decorated.   Each 2-pack contains two distinctive cars with different road numbers.