Lured by modern O Gauge Freight Cars by Lionel.

[Anonymous]

In Traditional O Gauge what is strangely absent are several distinct 1960's and 1970's freight cars.

There are several causes behind this. One is the fact that Lionel was slipping out of business in the 1960's and the new owners struggled with Lionel in the 1970's. Then Lionel, Williams, and MTH decided to do 1940's and 1950's remakes of Traditional O Gauge cars in 1980's and 1990's.

Strangely enough the Motive Power for Traditional O Gauge has moved on to the 1990's with the RailKing DASH 8 and in the 2000's with the LionMaster SD90MAC.

These Lionel Traditional Sized cars gave me hope that Traditional O Gauge would go modern and be well rounded.
Waffle-Sided Box Car
Trinity ARC-5 Articulated Spine Flat Car (TTUX)
Maxi-Stack Articulated Container Car
Thrall Car Auto Carrier and Thrall 60' Center I-Beam Flat Car

When Atlas O came along with Big O Scale. It was amazing, but it brought the releases of NEW types modern Traditional O Gauge Cars to an end. Lionel now has to Compete with Big O Scale.

There are a few of these cars in the MTH RailKing Line
Modern Tank Car
Cylindrical 4-Bay Covered Hopper
Center Beam Flat Car
Husky-Stack Intermodal Container Car
But the RailKing Modern 50' Boxcar is scaled almost exactly between the Lionel Waffle-Sided Boxcar and the MTH PREMIER 50' Modern Box Car.

Now with the return of Industrial Rail, the Modern O Gauge freight cars of the 1960's and 1970's might be rounded out with more recent hoppers designs than that standard rendition of the 1930's PRR Covered Hopper.

These cars are very common, but have not been made in Traditional O Gauge.

Pacific Car & Foundry 50' Insulated Boxcars

2970 Cubic Foot Capacity AFC Center Flow 2-Bay Covered Hoppers

4600 Cubic Foot Capacity ACF Center Flow 3-Bay Covered Hopper built between 1965 and 1985

Pullman-Standard 4750 Cu. Ft. 3-Bay Covered Hopper built between 1972 and 1990.

Bethlehem Steel Three-Bay Open-Top Hoppers from the 1970's.

Greenville Steel and Pullman-Standard 2-Bay Cement Hoppers from the 1970's.

Those are the most common and most distinct of the late 1960's and the entire 1970's. They are not like anything else done in Traditional O Gauge. Maxi-Stack Cars are supposed to be operated with PC&F 50' Insulated Boxcars not Wood-Sided Reefers. If there is a Husky-Stack, Maxi-Stack, and ARC-5 in O Gauge then these cars are even more reasonable for all O Gauge manufacturers including the Atlas O Industrial Rail line and the Williams Trains O Gauge line.

Andrew Falconer

[FJ and G]

Hi Andrew,

This may not address any one specific topic you mentioned, but there's an interesting and civil discussion about "scale" Lionel rolling stock that you might like to see:

http://ogaugerr.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3181048701/m/9191077304/r/1021065404#1021065404

[Anonymous]

David,

That forum post was for Lionel's O Scale Line.

The development of highly-detailed O Scale Freight Cars by LIONEL is great because Atlas O and MTH can not make all road names and car types.

The bad side of this is that there are no additional Traditional O Gauge Models of freight cars from the past 40 years being developed and produced through LIONEL.

That is the difficult trade-off.

I like the modern freight cars, but it is a bit pricey and space-hogging to have all of them as super-detailed O Scale Models. Some of them need to be Traditional O Gauge proportions.

Andrew Falconer