Athearn - 2106 - Boxcar, 50 Foot, Steel, Plug Door, FMC - Laurinburg & Southern - 902018

Model Information: Originally designed by MDC Roundhouse. This tooling was acquired by Athearn in June of 2004 and re-released under the Athearn name.

Prototype History: Starting in the 1970s, the 50-foot exterior post boxcar is a ubiquitous piece of rolling stock. The car is a 70-ton Association of American Railroads (AAR) plate B car built by FMC. These cars were in heavy use by the BN and the WP.

The GBW added fifty 50' boxcars (GBW 7000-7049) and an additional three hundred 50' boxcars (GBW 1600-16299) in December 1979 and January 1980. These cars were built by FMC and painted in the familiar bright yellow paint scheme with black lettering and a red-and-white GREEN BAY ROUTE herald.

Road Name History: The LRS opened in 1909 with a line from Laurinburg to a connection with the Aberdeen & Rockfish in Wagram, North Carolina. In 1921, they bought the Aberdeen & Rockfish branch from Wagram to Raeford, resulting in the 28 mile line that they operate today. In 1982, LRS launched their own shortline group, taking over operation of some local routes no longer wanted by the owning Class One line. The Saltville Railroad was the first to appear followed by Fairmont & Western, Red Springs & Northern, Franklin County Railroad, Nash County Railroad and finally the Yadkin Valley. These lines shared LRS’s red and white paint scheme but used their own names on the locomotive flanks. The Laurinburg & Southern and their remaining subsidiary lines were sold to the Gulf & Ohio Railways shortline group in 1994. LRS continues to operate today as part of the G&O family. Traffic, which includes chemicals, feed, fertilizer, glass, lime and soda ash, averages about 112 cars per week.

Brand/Importer Information: Athearn's history began in 1938, when its founder-to-be, Irvin Athearn, started an elaborate O scale layout in his mother's house. After placing an ad selling the layout, and receiving much response to it, Irv decided that selling model railroads would be a good living. He sold train products out of his mother's house through most of the 1940s. After becoming a full-time retailer in 1946, Irv opened a separate facility in Hawthorne, California in 1948, and that same year he branched into HO scale models for the first time.

Athearn acquired the Globe Models product line and improved upon it, introducing a comprehensive array of locomotive, passenger and freight car models. Improvements included all-wheel drive and electrical contact. One innovation was the "Hi-Fi" drive mechanism, employing small rubber bands to transfer motion from the motor spindle to the axles. Another was the double-ended ring magnet motor, which permitted easy connection to all-wheel-drive assemblies. Athearn was also able to incorporate flywheels into double-ended drives.

The company produced a model of the Boston & Maine P4 class Pacific steam locomotive which incorporated a cast zinc alloy base and thermoplastic resin superstructure. It had a worm drive and all power pickup was through the bipolar trucks that carried the tender. This item was discontinued after the Wilson motor was no longer available, and was not redesigned for a more technologically advanced motor.

Athearn's car fleet included shorter-than-scale interpretations of passenger cars of Southern Pacific and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad prototypes. The company also offered a variety of scale-length freight cars with sprung and equalized trucks. The cars could be obtained in simple kit form, or ready-to-run in windowed display boxes. The comprehensive scope of the product line contributed to the popularity of HO as a model railroad scale, due to the ready availability of items and their low cost.

Irv Athearn died in 1991. New owners took control in 1994, but continued to follow Athearn's commitment to high-quality products at reasonable prices. Athearn was bought in 2004 by Horizon Hobby. Athearn was then moved from its facility in Compton to a new facility in Carson, California. In mid-2009, all remaining US production was moved to China and warehousing moved to parent Horizon Hobby. Sales and product development was relocated to a smaller facility in Long Beach, California.

Read more on Wikipedia and Athearn website.