Brooklyn Locomotive Works - BLW-47 - Boxcar, 40 Foot, PS-1 - Canadian National - 589791

Model Information: This is a model of a PS-1 boxcar with no roofwalk. Micro-Trains introduced this version of their popular steel boxcar in 1976. It features the same operating doors as the popular 20000 series boxcar with similar dimensions and details but this model is appropriate for hobbyists who model the post-roofwalk era.

Prototype History: The 40' Boxcar is widely known as one of the most popular freight cars used by railroads as they transitioned from steam to diesel. In particular the Pullman Standard or PS-1 design was one of the most popular and was widely used by North American railroads. These boxcars were built beginning in 1947 and share the same basic design, with certain elements such as door size, door style or roof type varying among the different railroads and production years. When production of these cars ceased in 1963, over 100,000 had been produced.

So just what is a PS-1? Well the simple answer is it is any boxcar built by Pullman Standard from 1947 on. The design changed over the years – sometimes subtly, sometimes for customer request, and sometimes in a larger way. In general, most PS-1’s built from 1947 to 1961 share the same dimensions and basic construction techniques. These cars all had a length of 40′, a height of 10’5″ or 10’6″, welded sides and ends and roof of Pullman’s own design. The greatest variation was in the size and style of doors used. Pullman Standard also offered 50′ and later 60′ boxcars – also with the PS-1 designation.

Road Name History: The Canadian National Railway Company (reporting mark CN) is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec that serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN's slogan is "North America's Railroad". CN is a public company with 24,000 employees. It had a market capitalization of 32 billion CAD in 2011. CN was government-owned, having been a Canadian Crown corporation from its founding to its privatization in 1995. Bill Gates was, in 2011, the largest single shareholder of CN stock.

CN is the largest railway in Canada, in terms of both revenue and the physical size of its rail network, and is currently Canada's only transcontinental railway company, spanning Canada from the Atlantic coast in Nova Scotia to the Pacific coast in British Columbia. Its range once reached across the island of Newfoundland until 1988, when the Newfoundland Railway was abandoned.

Following CN's purchase of Illinois Central (IC) and a number of smaller US railways, it also has extensive trackage in the central United States along the Mississippi River valley from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Today, CN owns about 20,400 route miles (32,831 km) of track in 8 provinces (the only two not served by CN are Newfoundland & Labrador and Prince Edward Island), as well as a 70-mile (113 km) stretch of track (see Mackenzie Northern Railway) into the Northwest Territories to Hay River on the southern shore of Great Slave Lake; it is the northernmost rail line anywhere within the North American Rail Network, as far north as Anchorage, Alaska (although the Alaska Railroad goes further north than this, it is isolated from the rest of the rail network).

The railway was referred to as the Canadian National Railways (CNR) between 1918 and 1960, and as Canadian National/Canadien National (CN) from 1960 to the present.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Brooklyn Locomotive works is a hobby shop that is located in Manalapan, New Jersey. Pete A. Postel founded BLW in 1979. They specialize in N Scale although they claim to cover other scales as well. In addition to serving as a volume discounter with competitive pricing for N Scale hobbyists, Brooklyn Locomotive works also often works with various manufacturers to create their own line of branded special runs. These special runs are usually only available through their retail operation (online or storefront). They also worked for a limited time in the early 1980s as a custom decorator. They bought undecorated kits from Micro-Trains and painstakingly custom painted and decaled a series of cars for collectors.

Manufacturer Information: Kadee Quality Products originally got involved in N-Scale by producing a scaled-down version of their successful HO Magne-Matic knuckle coupler system. This coupler was superior to the ubiquitous 'Rapido' style coupler due to two primary factors: superior realistic appearance and the ability to automatically uncouple when stopped over a magnet embedded in a section of track. The success of these couplers in N-Scale quickly translated to the production of trucks, wheels and in 1972 a release of ready-to-run box cars.
In October 1990 Kadee separated in two companies, with the newly created Micro-Trains® Line Co. continuing the Z, Nn3, and N Scale product ranges, with Kadee retaining the HO range.

Commissioner Information: Brooklyn Locomotive Works was a hobby shop, specialized in N-scale, located in Manalapan, New Jersey, that also sells on-line. BLW regularly commissions special runs.

The company was founded by Pete Postel who announced that he would retired by end of 2018. His brother Paul should continue the business from his own shop Hogtrainz.com.

Brooklyn Locomotive Works (BLW) released special runs from various manufacturers under its own brand until approx. the mid-1980s. Thereafter the special runs where sold under the manufacturer's name and denoted as special runs for BLW. Hence in this database, we assign the BLW brand in the former case, and the original manufacturer's brand in the latter.