Con-Cor - 1681B - Boxcar, 50 Foot, Grain Loading - Santa Fe - 22133

Specific Item Information: CON-COR molded into bottom of frame.

Model Information: This model appears in the 1979 JMC catalog but not the 1973. I suspect it was introduced around 1976, but I would love confirmation. It was produced in Con-Cor's NEW Jersey facility and features a die-cast underframe and a standard 1st-generation injection-molded body. The tooling was likely moved to China as at least one modern Christmas Car was produced with this tooling.

Prototype History: Grain-Loading boxcars were variations on standardized boxcars built with specialized doors. Grain doors were the term used for the wooden, or in later years cardboard inserts mounted inside the regular doors to keep the grain from spilling out when the main door was opened. These allowed any suitable car to be used in grain service.

These cars were typically rebuilt from older cars and modified such that the door was boarded up from the inside and the grain was blown in over the top of the boards. These cars were all made obsolete by the appearance of specialized covered hoppers in the 1980s. At this point some of these cars were adapted for MOW service.

Road Name History: The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (reporting mark ATSF), often abbreviated as Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. Chartered in February 1859, the railroad reached the Kansas-Colorado border in 1873 and Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876. To create a demand for its services, the railroad set up real estate offices and sold farm land from the land grants that it was awarded by Congress. Despite the name, its main line never served Santa Fe, New Mexico, as the terrain was too difficult; the town ultimately was reached by a branch line from Lamy.

The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport, an enterprise that (at one time or another) included a tugboat fleet and an airline (the short-lived Santa Fe Skyway). Its bus line extended passenger transportation to areas not accessible by rail, and ferryboats on the San Francisco Bay allowed travelers to complete their westward journeys to the Pacific Ocean. The ATSF was the subject of a popular song, Harry Warren & Johnny Mercer's "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", written for the film, The Harvey Girls (1946).

The railroad officially ceased operations on December 31, 1996, when it merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad to form the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Con-Cor has been in business since 1962. Many things have changed over time as originally they were a complete manufacturing operation in the USA and at one time had upwards of 45 employees. They not only designed the models,but they also built their own molds, did injection molding, painting, printing and packaging on their models.

Currently, most of their manufacturing has been moved overseas and now they import 90% of their products as totally finished goods, or in finished components. They only do some incidental manufacturing today within the USA.

Important Note: The Con-Cor product numbering can be very confusing. Please see here in the article how to properly enter Con-Cor stock numbers in the TroveStar database.