Athearn 40 foot boxcar

Athearn 40 foot boxcar Athearn 40ft Boxcar...
Athearn makes a decent 40 foot boxcar. It is not completely accurate for any of the Chessie classes, but it is good enough. I have done three of these cars. I bought the first one, sight unseen, from Bev-Bel. It came in an all brown paint job with a yellow cat logo. There were NO cars that came anywhere close to that fake paint job. I stripped off the paint and painted mine blue. I put Herald King decals on it after repainting.

Remember that there were only three Chessie 40 foot boxcars. Most of the 40 foot boxcars did not get repainted. So, to be accurate, you only need one Chessie car, and some of each of the predecessor road paint jobs. You should pay between $6-7 for one. I am uncertain as to how many road numbers and how many predecessor paint jobs are out there, but I did two in B&O predecessor paint, since they were a close match. I know there is a decorated one for the WM available that would make a handsome addition right out of the box.

Below is a Dean Heacock pic of one of the three 40ft boxcars in Chessie blue, Chessie C&O #23757.

Below is my repainted Athearn 40ft boxcar, Chessie C&O #19335. It is basically 80% correct out of the box. The flaws are too minor to worry about fixing. I didn't do any cutting or sanding on this kit. I just stripped off the old paint and repainted it.