Ray Breyer Has some info

Ray Breyer has written about these cars.  MRH published an article by him, but I don't think they covered these...

http://designbuildop.hansmanns.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/accurail_data_1150series.pdf

Got a Soo Line one

I picked up a Soo Line version and it looks really good. I could be wrong but I think the CN version prototype had five foot doors, not sure about the model. It might have six foot doors, but again I could be wrong. I’ve got a couple of the old George Taylor kits and could check it out later. I think they all had similar braced wood ends. But there’s absolutely no question the Accurail model is a very fine model. Incidently, there’s actually a prototype Soo Line Fowler preserved at the county fair grounds not far from my home, in very nice shape. I’m really glad they came out with this kit.

Barry P.

@Barry - please post details

Barry,

Where is the Soo Line car you mentioned?n you pst photos?

Mark

Short Fowlers - 5 foot vs. 6 foot doors

The new Accurail Fowler represents a car with a six foot wide door. In general, Canadian-service Dominion cars had five foot wide doors while American railroads had cars with six foot doors.

Mostly.  All CP cars had five foot doors, and most Canadian roads copied them. But the CN was created in 1923 out of several bankrupt railroads, the largest of which was the Grand Trunk, a railroad that was partly American, and partly Canadian. They bought cars with six foot doors, and the CN inherited them all. They also built several thousand copies, meaning that ultimately, about half of the CN's Fowler/Dominion cars had the wider doors.

So from a "mostly prototype" perspective, it's OK to use these Accurail models for the CN, but not for other Canadian railroads. In a practical sense however, if you need a big fleet of these cars (any modeler of a Canadian railroad before 1960) there's no shame in using these simple $18 kits instead of difficult to assemble, $50 resin kits. 

Soo Line Boxcar

howdy Mark,

the box car (and there may be more than one) is located on the Dakota County Fairgrounds, Farmington, MN . By coincidence the fair starts tomorrow, August 5. This county fair is on the southern edge of the Minneapolis-St.Paul area. I might go there this week with the grandkids. They have a heritage village set up there to display life in 1870. There’s a nice little depot there too, but I’m not sure where it’s from. If I get out there I’ll post some photos for you.

in any event you might be lucky on this car, as there’s a model railroad club about 200 feet from the car. Looking at the fair website I gather they’re called The Model Railroad Club of Rambling River. They’ll be open for the fair August 5-12. I expect the fair site would have info for contacting them and they could send you photos. I’ll also try to look up some imfo on Fowler cars in general. Even the Westerfield instruction sheets have a lot of good information.

Hope this helps. Talk to you later.

Barry P

Such great informative

Such great informative replies. Much appreciated.

I'm going to order some. I think they'll be ideal for my branch line circa 1956.

Soo Line Fowler cars

Remember that the Soo Line was owned by CP and followed their design so Soo Line Fowler cars had 5 ft. doors just like CP.  I don't understand why the kit was made with 6 ft. doors since CP had 33,000 Fowler cars.

Robert

I ordered one and I'm hoping

I ordered one and I'm hoping I'm able to weather it just like James Six does.

I got

I got one!

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/34381

Going to use Jim Six's technique on it.

Fowler cars

A manufacturer has to make decisions on the variations. I can't fault Accurail for choosing a 6 ft door - it was most common among American railroads. I like the NC&StL one but am wondering how to model a steel roof for it.

Folks, The Accurail Fowler

Folks,

The Accurail Fowler car is a really nice model. When weathered appropriately it looks as nice as the expensive, difficult to assemble (as Ray pointed out) resin kits. While they may lack the individual grabs and a few other add-on details, the molded on detail is very fine and all is straight and lined up properly -- something you cannot say about resin kits regardless of who builds them! The under body detail of the Accurail model is nice too.

We each have our likes and dislikes. We each have our own perspective on the hobby. Some of you may be freight car centered while others are more layout centered. Personally, I lean both ways, but the layout trumps proto accuracy of individual freight cars for me. When your freight cars are weathered nicely and in a train on the layout only some folks that are over-the-top nit-pickers can tell a resin kit from an Accurail.

Here is an Accurail boxcar that I added wire grabs at the corners of the roof walk and a formed wire coupler cut-lever at each end, and of course mild weathering. The rest of the detail is all Accurail. I dare anybody to place their resin kin on my layout with this model and claim it to be better.

Jim Six    

Agree, these are great models...

Some 36ft Accurail boxcars. 

Nice work...

Nice work, Jim! Your work on cheap cars is always impressive! I am freight car centered but I am only really a stickler for home road cars. Foreign cars are a little more flexible on my layout, plus I don't have the shelf space or cash for all of the books I would need for accuracy in foreign cars.

Fun with Accurail Fowler cars

As a CP modeller I was taken by the new Fowler cars by Accurail, following up on their great 36' steel frame box cars. The problem was those six foot doors. I cut them out and filled the gap with scribed Evergreen styrene, then added Tichy doors and windows to make M-O-W bunk and kitchen cars.