Freight Car Spotlight / Canadian National 50' Newsprint Boxcars*

 Greetings all,

Freight Car Spotlight

Canadian National 50' Newsprint Boxcars

Welcome to another freight car spotlight. Today the spotlight will shine on the Canadian National 50' Newsprint Boxcars.

Prototype Information

In 1967 the National Steel Car Corporation started building 70 ton 50' boxcars specifically designed for shipping rolls of newsprint from paper mills in Canada to newsprint companies throughout North America. A total of 3,2592 were manufactured between 1967 and 1971 for six railways. 

"Boxcar, Canadian National - 10586862645" by Gary Lee Todd, Ph.D. is marked with CC0 1.0.

The boxcars have an inside height of 11'0" enabling newsprint rolls to be loaded in two tiers. To provide maximum protection to the easily bruised newsprint rolls the cars have smooth interior walls and a cushioned underframe. 

"CN Boxcar" by djaytoo (d*jay) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

The cars also featured an aluminum roof, NSC designed corrugated ends and either a smooth or exterior post Youngtown 9' wide plug door. The vast majority of these cars remained in service through 2001.  

"CN Boxcar" by djaytoo (d*jay) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Model Information

I came across this four car set of Limited Edition P1K boxcars on the Trainz.com website which were listed as used with a very nice price plus I had a coupon for 10% off.

I've seen numerous types of these 50' Newsprint boxcars in various videos moving through the Northeast in pre and post Conrail era freight trains and thought they would be perfect for serving printing companies on and off the layout and as interchange traffic.

Freight cars like these could be found on NYC/PC Train VN-4 out of Selkirk which was also known as "The Paper Train" heading to Manhattan for delivery to the various newspaper printers like the NY Daily News, The Post, etc.

The boxcars come as kits with some add on details in the plastic bags. The also feature metal wheelsets and Proto knuckle couplers.

The end ladders and door lock rods have been installed. A nice feature is that these parts were cut from the sprues at the factory eliminating that chore. 1/4 ounce stick on weights were added above the trucks.

The CN 400549 is back together. The proto couplers have been matched to the Kadee Height Gauge. The factory applied ACI label is a nice touch.

All the boxcars received a shot of Testor's Dullcote. The trucks were painted with rattle can flat black and the wheel faces have been brush painted flat black.

The four car block is now ready for service.

Train VN-4 "The Paper Train" rolls thru the layout.

Final Thoughts and Comments

After initial testing I wasn't happy with how some of the cars wobbled when rolling. Truck tuning didn't help the situation and I ended up swapping some of the Proto metal wheelsets with plastic axles for Walthers metal wheelsets with metal axles. This solved that issue. I did use the Proto metal wheelsets in some other newly acquired freight cars and the rolled along just fine. Go figure.

This four car block along with other newsprint / paper service only boxcars in the fleet should make for a good looking freight train coming from papermills in the north with the needed materials to "keep the presses rolling" in the big city.

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See you soon!!!