I need some information about a brass car.

[westsidelumber12]

I saw a brass box car that i might purchase but i was wondering if any of you know anything about it. It is a Nickel Plate Products Pennsylvania R.R. X-31b Single Door Box Car. Whoever owned it painted it Virginia & Truckee #67.
             Thanks for any help

[Woody Elmore]

I had two NKP 40 footers - single door and double door. Both of mine were painted SAL (Seaboard had round roofed cars).

I got them in the late 70s so the car you are looking at is about 30 years old. I remember that I put CV trucks under my cars. I don't recall if they came with trucks or the originals may have been clunkers.

They were nicely made models.

[Santa Fe buff]

Well, ebay has NOTHING. But steamers of Nickel Plate, Cabooses- and everything except a boxcar! I myself like Nickel Plate, and did some reasearch <more like watch a television program> and it said Nickel Plate was more profitable in the lines of coal, but they did do quiet a lot of boxcar work. I guest they didn't make as much boxcars as they were in real life. Or maybe it was the time peroid. We can easly find the model of modern trains because they're are easly designed. To keep making a certian model after the company dies might effect it. Well. No one seems to have a boxcar- unless you bought it when they were still manufactured.

[Guilford Guy]

It isn't a Nickel Plate boxcar. Nickel Plate Products is a company who built brass locomotives and rolling stock. The boxcar is a PRR boxcar lettered for V&T.

[modlerbob]

If you cam get it at a price you can afford go for it.  If you need to have the paint removed find someone with a bead blaster to remove it.

[Woody Elmore]

Last time I was in Timonium for the train show I saw a Nickel Plate Products, double door, round roof 50 ft brass box car (brand new in box, mint) on a vendor's table. He was asking $125. I noticed that, by the end of the day, it was still there!

I wish I still had mine. I also wish I still had my LMB brass  NYC 15000 series caboose.

[TonyD]

Marklin has a flawless NYC low cuppola caboose, or did, I got one for $34, that's only 'cause the guy selling it was a frend having a bad day at a show, since top end resin boxcars are never more than that......you can buy a fleet of great looking and rolling plastic for what 2 brass models will cost. Since the oversized box is half the value, I choose not to 'invest' in brass models. And they are an unnecessary expense on a layout. Hard to enjoy yourself if you have to worry about a month's pay going over the trestle, tight curves, finicky switches. etc etc etc, better to have fun with that money.... I have an unmade athearnNKP plug door if someone really NEEDS one.... I buy decals for what I NEED....those are even cheaper.....

[GN.2-6-8-0]

You can find  tons of information on the PRR X31 class boxcars on the Bowser website by looking under   Freight /boxcar listings

[Woody Elmore]

I once modeled the SAL and when the brass round roofed cars came out I had to have a couple. Back in the Seventies there weren't as many suppliers of freight cars and these particular brass cars weren't all that expensive when I got them because nobody was buying them. If I remember correctly, they had 40 and 50 feet cars with single and double doors. They were the first cars to be painted with my then new Paasche airbrush. Champ Decals finished the models.

I also had a couple of the really old Athearn metal car line in HO; the ones that had stamped parts and a wooden frame. The line featured round roofed cars and I had managed to acquire a couple of those that were factory lettered for SAL.