New Product Express September 14th, 2021

Mainline Open Bi-Level Auto Racks 910-8001 - 8028

Meet the newest member of the WalthersMainline® HO freight car fleet in this week's New Product Express!

While railroads have moved new vehicles in specialized cars since horses ruled the roads, a lot of this business was being lost to trucks throughout the 1950s. A major reason was the increasing time and labor needed to load or unload, and the limited capacity of the special automobile service boxcars that were standard equipment. Borrowing the basic idea of the drive-on/off highway trailers, flatcars equipped with large open racks soon appeared. Bigger flats allowed bigger racks and much greater payloads, and by the 1960s, 89' auto rack cars were increasingly common. The racks were wide open to allow easier access and visibility during loading/unloading, and were built in both bi-level for larger vehicles such as vans and trucks, or tri-level styles used for automobiles.

Making their debut as WalthersMainline models, numerous upgrades have been made to the original tooling for these cars, including a new die cast metal underframe for improved performance, swinging coupler pockets for operation on 24" radius curves, 70-ton roller bearing trucks with 33" RP-25 turned metal wheelsets, new cross braces on the racks and modeler-applied, separate bridge plates for early or late cars. Finished in seven period paint schemes from the 1960s and 70s, look for them at your dealer this fall.