Great Northern 1944 Plywood boxcars with Camel composite doors (Sold Out)

Protocraft’s all-brass model of Great Northern’s 1944-45 plywood doube-sheathed plywood boxcars has produced two versions of this distinctive boxcar. Never before done in O Scale, these exquisite and highly detailed models are built by Boo Rim Precision of Korea, adhering accurately to the actual GN Mechanical Department drawings dated April 5, 1944. Trucks roll on hard steel sintered rib-back wheels with ball-bearings and have working journal covers.

 

Following the production of tongue & groove wood double-sheathed boxcars, the G.N. turned to plywood during WWII. Notable due to their distinctive Omaha

Orange sides. Pullman Green ladders, grabs, door tracks, corner gussets, placard boards, top and bottom side sill plus side facing end rivet strips; black ends, roof, truck side frames and underframe. Pullman Green stencil lettering over the orange sides. Green monogram with green center backgound. A color scheme that stood out distinctively for its day. Material shortages during WWII even resulted in the use of a composite plywood-steel door. The two dierent doors are the

dierence in the Protocraft part numbers.

 

Nine hundred seventy ve hundred (975) plywood cars were built in GN’s St.Cloud, Minnesota shops between 1944 and 1945. Two dierent composite plywood

6’ doors were applied - Camel/Youngstown composite door was applied on 350 cars numbered as Series 44400-44749: PC-3505. Superior composite plywood doors were applied to 250 cars numbered as Series 44750-44999: PC-3506.

 

The composite doors were an interesting design. Only the bottom 1/3 of the standard all-steel Youngstown 3 section corrugated door was used. The frame being

given shear strength by the bottom steel panel and then plywood installed in the top 2/3 of the frame. Camel xtures made up the door locking and roller components. Composite doors supplied by Superior utilized the bottom 1/3 of the standard 7-Panel Superior door with plywood on the top 2/3‘s.

 

Modeling oportunites include modiying the plywood cars into Series 44025-44399. These cars were built with standard Youngstown’s 3-section all steel door.

Doors are available separatly from Protocraft. The second modeling opportunity would be adding the full Youngstown doors, Allied high-speed trucks, steam lines

and Universal end-mounted hand brake and numbered a Series 2501-2524. The third option would be to paint the car Pullman Green with Glidden Yellow lettering.. See RP CYC 8, page 10-11, and RP CYC 19, pages 31-38.