Red Caboose - RM-26038-09 - Flatcar, 40 Foot - Baltimore & Ohio - 109268, 109401

Specific Item Information: This Red Caboose 42’ Fish Belly Flat Car is painted black with white lettering for the Baltimore & Ohio. The deck is painted tan. The car is equipped with Micro-Trains® trucks and couplers. Note there are two cars per package.

Model Information: Cars are sold in pairs. Each package contains two unique road numbers. 3-Packs contain 6 Ready-To-run cars with 6 different road numbers. All flat cars are weighted and come with Red Caboose Bettendorf Friction Bearing trucks. They have Magnematic® couplers.

Prototype History: A flatcar (US) (also flat car (US) or flat wagon (UIC)) is a piece of railroad (US) or railway (non-US) rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK), one at each end containing four or six wheels. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry extra heavy or extra large loads are mounted on a pair (or rarely, more) of bogeys under each end . The deck of the car can be wood or steel, and the sides of the deck can include pockets for stakes or tie-down points to secure loads. Flatcars designed for carrying machinery have sliding chain assemblies recessed in the deck.

Flatcars are used for loads that are too large or cumbersome to load in enclosed cars such as boxcars. They are also often used to transport intermodal containers (shipping containers) or trailers as part of intermodal freight transport shipping.

40 foot flatcars became the standard length at the end of the 19th century when most railcars adopted similar proportions. The 40 foot railcar was the predominant freight car up until the second world war, when flatcars, boxcars and gondolas all stepped up to a more modern 50 foot length.

Road Name History: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (reporting marks B&O, BO) is one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. It came into being mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal (which served New York City) and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, which would have connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. At first this railroad was located entirely in the state of Maryland with an original line from the port of Baltimore west to Sandy Hook. At this point to continue westward, it had to cross into Virginia (now West Virginia) over the Potomac River, adjacent to the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. From there it passed through Virginia from Harpers Ferry to a point just west of the junction of Patterson Creek and the North Branch Potomac River where it crossed back into Maryland to reach Cumberland. From there it was extended to the Ohio River at Wheeling and a few years later also to Parkersburg, West Virginia.

It is now part of the CSX Transportation (CSX) network, and includes the oldest operational railroad bridge in the USA. The B&O also included the Leiper Railroad, the first permanent horse-drawn railroad in the U.S. In later years, B&O advertising carried the motto: "Linking 13 Great States with the Nation." Part of the B&O Railroad's immortality has come from being one of the four featured railroads on the U.S. version of the board game Monopoly, but it is the only railroad on the board which did not serve Atlantic City, New Jersey, directly.

When CSX established the B&O Railroad Museum as a separate entity from the corporation, some of the former B&O Mount Clare Shops in Baltimore, including the Mt. Clare roundhouse, were donated to the museum while the rest of the property was sold. The B&O Warehouse at the Camden Yards rail junction in Baltimore now dominates the view over the right-field wall at the Baltimore Orioles' current home, Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

At the end of 1970 B&O operated 5552 miles of road and 10449 miles of track, not including the Staten Island Rapid Transit (SIRT) or the Reading and its subsidiaries.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Originally Red Caboose was a manufacturer of HO and N Scale model railroading items. It was located in Mead, Colorado, and was founded in 1990 by Leon Fairbanks. Red Caboose manufactured highly accurate, well detailed N, HO, and O Scale freight cars and locomotives.

Red Caboose closed its doors in January of 2015. Red Caboose N Scale has been sold to Fox Valley Models and HO was sold to InterMountain Railway. Many of the Red Caboose toolings have seen re-releases from Fox Valley since the acquisition. We just wish they would clean up the underframes. Red Caboose always went light on the details where they thought people wouldn't look.

Manufacturer Information: While they were in business, Red Caboose split its production runs between the US and China. Which models were produced where was a function of which body style and which run. Furthermore, which Chinese company was used for production is something we would love to find out.