Upgrading MDC/Roundhouse boxcars

[sailormatlac]

Wayne, you've made my brain think too much!

Using them for CNR may be a little bit far fetched, I'll probably use recently acquired TM cars for that purpose. (I'm curious, are the Accurail single-sheated cars useful for canadian prototype? CN and CP boxcars were lower than Accurail it seems.) Let say I used them for the ARA Recommended Practice (didn't find pictures of them, only the all steel boxcar), I guess I would have to gave up the ends and roof. What end type were used back then? Murphy? I'm thinking in a way to make the process easy and straightforward!

Also, my fruitless searches turn out information about a interesting Boston & Maine car, type XM-1 50-ton boxcar (is it the code for the Recommended Practice?). Sunshine Models made one that as exactly the same arrangement. The interesting feature is that roofs, ends and doors varied considerably. And many were own by North Eastern railways, which is alaway a plus to me.

http://www.sunshinekits.com/sunimages/sun91c.pdf

http://www.sunshinekits.com/sunimages/sun91b.pdf

This is a Yankee Clipper kit:



The MDC car also looks like Westerfield 4701 BX-12 SS BOX CAR SANTA FE to me.... They were built in 1930. And for this one, I could reuse the MDC ends albeit some modifications. I could also try my luck and model one with the extended roof... Some interesting infos here:

http://www.protocraft.com/category.cfm?I...egoryid=20

Anyway, looks like there is are interesting projects to do with the MDC car. What was a generic car tweaked to fit MDC tooling seems to wield a tremendous potential!!!

I think the Sunshine & Photocraft infos are a good starting point. I'm just a little bit lost with many ends and roofs design...

Matt