This one is for the NP modelers of the group. I have an Athearn SE set of NP Plug Door RBLs (#2309) and I would actually like to use them in my operations.
From the pictures that I can find, neither of these cars are completely correct for the post-merger era that I model. This image is from the era: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/np/np97736acs.jpg. Where I am having the question is in finding the right decals to fix. My best guess is Microscale 87-555. It seems to have the correct DFB labels but I don't see the stripe. As usual any assistance that can be provided would be most welcomed.
The NP scheme appears to have lasted long into the post BN/NP/CB&B post merger era but I don't know if the Athearn car is a fantasy or not. I didn't find any NP photo's in RailCarPhoto's either than matched it's PS style lower side sill.
There are some models on the way that appear to match the prototype car in the FF photo however:
The prototype photo however has a slightly inset bottom sill so the up coming Moloco FGE cars look closer:
https://www.molocotrains.com/blogs/news/117153028-fge-10-foot-and-12-foot-door-announced
The FGE cars in the above link should be due out very soon.
These Moloco announced, but not yet prodcued, SP box cars look very similar to the photo as well:
https://www.molocotrains.com/blogs/news/117591684-pc-f-plate-b-rbl
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
From what I was told in another group, the Athearn cars are not accurate for an NP car. I have decided that I am just going to leave the cars in their box and not do anything with them otherwise. It's not like I need more freight cars. (Between engines, freight cars, passenger cars and caboose I have somewhere between 150-160 pieces of rolling stock not including about 30 that will be going in storage at some point.)
That is not unusual. Probably the majority of earlier models have no real life counterpart simply because the models made back then matched only a few real freight cars. Most of the other paint jobs were lifted from freight cars that were of a different type to allow the manufacturer to sell a greater variety.
Years ago I had some Athearn D&RGW 40' high cube box cars with plug doors. In the 1990's I bought Jim Eagers Color Guide to Rio Grande Freight and Passenger Cars and discovered such real box cars were never owned by the Rio Grande. D&RGW did have a class of 40 hi-cubes but they did not have plug doors but Athearn took the liberty of taking that paint scheme and putting it on the plug door box car.
I sold my two fantasy D&RGW 40' hi-cubes, followed by a number of other "fantasy" Rio Grande models I had collected. I used my Color Guide book going forward to check out available models and tried to only buy those that matched the real cars presented in the book. Fortunately over the years, I've found quite a few models that were very good matches.
Hi-tech and more recently Tangent has made a nice model of the real D&RGW 40-foot hi-cube appliance box cars that the Athearn plug door model copied. Not long ago I researched the Athearn 40' hi-cube plug door box car; it appears to only match a prototype owned by the Union Pacific that I've found - although the model was painted for UP, ATSF, D&RGW and a few others. I was unable to find photographs of the other paint jobs on Athearn's model that I searched for.
Keep in mind that occasionally real freight cars did exist to match a model produced, but photographic evidence may not always be easy to find. I was researching an Atlas Penn Central 50' model and could find no pictures matching it on several of the photo sites. Then someone who had a copy of the Penn Central Color Guide to Freight Cars found a photo in thier book of that box car and it even had the road number the model had.
Even today there are still a lot of varying degrees of what the manufactuers deem as "close enough" - mainly from Athearn, Atlas, Walthers. Even Intermountain, ExactRail and Tangent sell freight cars that do not match real cars closely, although they tend to sell a lot more models that match real freight cars.
Tangent's models are almost always excellent matches, but I do know of one instance that they offered coal cars that did not match a given prototype but apparently there was so much demand that they went ahead and ran them.
The good news is in the last 10-15 years, there have been a lot of models produced which are close matches to real freight cars. Since I don't have unlimited resources and there are always more models produced than I have money, I typically try to only buy models now which fall withing my modeling period and actually match real freight cars. I've also sold off the majority of my fantasy models and only have a small number as "stand-in's" for freight cars not yet offered in HO.
Of course, everyone has a different level of tolerance and can choose what suites them. Some are not fussed if models don't match a real freight car but are just in to the general look of a freight train for operations which is a personal choice. But for me at times when I didn't have a space for a layout, I would use some of my hobby time to do research and what with some great resources on the internet now, and some books, I can usually check models from the past and present to see which I want to "cherry pick" as close matches to real freight cars. And it doesn't have to be expensive models either. I've a number of Athearn and Accurail models match real freight cars and bought some Accurail in recent months to beef up my mix of fallen flag road names such as NP and GN etc.