The Norfolk & Western Historical Society has produced a special run of HO scale 36-foot box car kits with Accurail. These models have wood ends and a straight center sill.
The models are factory painted and lettered following the as-built 1909 appearance of the N&W class BI box cars. They are available through the N&WHS Commissary.
Let’s take a look at some prototype details for this model.
Prototype data
These BI class, 36-foot, double-sheathed, wood box cars were built in 1909 by the Barney & Smith Car Company or Dayton, Ohio and assigned road numbers 60500 through 60999. This is just one box car class on the N&W. There were many more but I don’t know how many were similar to the Accurail model.
The Official Railway Equipment Registers (ORER) from various years can be reviewed to see how these 500 cars survived in service. Most railroads do not include car class info on their listings, so cars need to be checked by using the number series. Here are the quantities over time.
1911 – 500 cars
1913 – 499 cars
1919 – 484 cars
1926 – 472 cars
1934 – 431 cars
1943 – 334 cars
1947 – 132 cars
1950 – zero cars
Edit – Many thanks to Randall Hammill for sharing the 1947 and 1950 data in a comment on the Pre-Depression Era Railroad Modelers Facebook group.
By 1943, these BI class cars were the only 36-foot interior length N&W box cars in service. Also listed were 612 36-foot ventilated box cars of the BJ class.
Paint and lettering
Over the course of four decades, these box cars wore a few different lettering schemes. The lettering followed in-house N&W practices and the recommended lettering practices established by the Master Car Builder’s Association (MCBA), and American Railway Association (ARA). Lettering diagram drawings were altered with each lettering update.
Here’s a 1921 revision of an earlier diagram from the Teens. This is one of the many gems to review at the archives page of the Norfolk & Western Historical Society website. The online versions are low resolution. Better quality files or paper prints can be ordered through the Society.
Here’s a shot of a BI class car not long after a 1934 repaint and lettering. As with many railroads, the car lettering was streamlined. Cars of the Teens and Twenties often had a parts inventory stenciled on the car side to ease off-road repairs. This went away by the Thirties when lettering was minimized to focus on the owner reporting marks, car number, weight, and dimensional data.
The N&WHS also has this 1944 image that captures a BI class car near the end of service. Notice the lettering hasn’t changed since the 1934 image. You can see a few upgrades to the car. At some point, ladders replaced the individual grab irons. A doorstop was also installed, possibly in the early Twenties. This type of doorstop shows up on many 36-foot cars in the late Teens and Twenties.
Summary
The N&WHS has produced a very nice HO scale model for the BI class box cars. The lettering is crisp and follows the as-built 1909 appearance. I suspect the lettering didn’t change much until just after WW1. It’s a welcome fleet addition for anyone modeling the pre-1930 years. They are available through the N&WHS Commissary.
Additional prototype information for these Accurail 36-foot box cars can be found in a few PDF files posted to the Accurail Prototype Data resource page.
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