The Freight Yard - 2611A - Boxcar, 50 Foot, PS-1 - Southern Pacific & Santa Fe - 48120

Specific Item Information: Previously released in the 2362A-F series.

Model Information: This particular body style represents the Pullman Standard PS-1 50 foot boxcar without a roofwalk.

Prototype History: 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.

The original PS-1 measured 40 foot in length, but Pullman Standard also offered 50′ and later 60′ boxcars – also with the PS-1 designation.

Road Name History: In the 1980s, The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (SF) and Southern Pacific Transportation Company (SP) attempted a merger. It began with the merger of holding companies Santa Fe Industries and the second incarnation of the Southern Pacific Company on December 23, 1983 to form the Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corporation (SFSP), which held the SP shares in a voting trust. After the Interstate Commerce Commission denied the merger, SFSP sold the SP to Rio Grande Industries on October 13, 1988, and was renamed Santa Fe Pacific Corporation on April 25, 1989.

The merger was opposed by the Justice Department in 1985 and denied in a 4–1 vote by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) on July 24, 1986, who ruled that such a merger included too many duplicate routes and was therefore monopolistic. The Commission denied SFSP's appeal (again in a 4–1 vote) on June 30, 1987.

The holding company, ordered to operate the Southern Pacific at arm's length until it sold it, disposed of it on October 13, 1988 to Rio Grande Industries for $1.02 billion and the assumption of SP's debt, which consolidated the SP with its Denver and Rio Grande Western railroad under the Southern Pacific name. The holding company retained all the non-rail interests of both predecessors and shortened its name to Santa Fe Pacific Corporation (though all of the California real estate holdings were consolidated in a new company, Catellus Development Corporation, becoming the State's largest private land owner. Catellus subsequently purchased the Union Pacific Railroad's interest in the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal).

In 1995, the Santa Fe railroad merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), and the SP was bought out by the Union Pacific Corporation the following year.

From Wikipedia

Brand/Importer Information: The Freight Yard was a hobby shop that did custom decoration and special runs of other manufacturers' N Scale products. It sold its custom products under several brands or collections: Premiere Editions, by The Freight Yard and Dreams Design.
It was located in Anaheim, California and then moved to 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Established in the late 1980s, it stopped business under this name by the end of the 2000s.
The Freight Yard was owned and operated by Darren J. Cohen. Darren is now operating North Valley Trains.
The Freight Yard / Premiere Editions runs are usually available in series of two to twelve different numbers (suffixed A to M, with I not used).
The first two digits of the stock number correspond to the release year (9x being 199x, and 2x being 200x).

Manufacturer Information: Micro-Trains Line split off from Kadee Quality Products in 1990. 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.

Micro-Trains Line Co. split off from Kadee in 1990 to form a completely independent company. For this reason, products from this company can appear with labels from both enterprises. Due to the nature of production idiosyncrasies and various random factors, the rolling stock from Micro-Trains can have all sorts of interesting variations in both their packaging as well as the products themselves. When acquiring an MTL product it is very important to understand these important production variations that can greatly enhance (or decrease) the value of your purchase.

Please consult our Micro-Trains Collector's Guide