Micro-Trains - 39090 - Boxcar, 40 Foot, Double Wood Sheathed - Missouri Pacific - 45231 CT

Prototype History: Double sheathed all-wood boxcars in 34', 36' or 40' length were built with trussrods into the 1900's. By about 1910-15 cars often were being built of wood but with steel underframes. BTW many early boxcars were only about 8-1/2' high, though taller 10' cars were beginning to be built by the WW1 era (like the USRA wood boxcar) but that didn't become the norm until the late 1930's.

Later in the 20's-30's, some cars were built with double or single sheathed woodsides but steel underframe, roof and ends. In the later 30's into the 40's some older cars built with wood except for the steel underframes were rebuilt with steel ends and roofs. Some of these cars with steel roof and ends (either new or rebuilt) lasted into the 1960's.

During WW2, steel was in short supply, so some new boxcars were built with steel roof and ends, but wood sides. These too sometimes lasted into the "diesel era", although many were rebuilt with steel sides after the war.

Road Name History: The Missouri Pacific Railroad (reporting mark MP), commonly abbreviated MoPac, with nickname of The Mop, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers, including the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway (SLIMS), Texas and Pacific Railway (TP), Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad (C&EI), St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway (SLBM), Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway (KO&G), Midland Valley Railroad (MV), San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad (SAU&G), Gulf Coast Lines (GC), International-Great Northern Railroad (IGN), New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway (NOTM), Missouri-Illinois Railroad (MI), as well as the small Central Branch Railway (an early predecessor of MP in Kansas and south central Nebraska), and joint ventures such as the Alton and Southern Railroad (AS).

In 1967, the railroad operated 9,041 miles of road and 13,318 miles of track, not including DK&S, NO&LC, T&P and its subsidiaries, C&EI and Missouri-Illinois.

On January 8, 1980, the Union Pacific Railroad agreed to buy the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Lawsuits filed by competing railroads delayed approval of the merger until September 13, 1982. After the Supreme Court denied a trial to the Southern Pacific, the merger took effect on December 22, 1982. However, due to outstanding bonds of the Missouri Pacific, the merger with Union Pacific become official only on January 1, 1997.

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Brand/Importer Information: Micro-Trains is the brand name used by both Kadee Quality Products and Micro-Trains Line. For a history of the relationship between the brand and the two companies, please consult our Micro-Trains Collector's Guide.

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.