2 CONTENTS
Many years ago WM. K. Walthers introduced the āWaļ¬e
Sideā Box Car in O Scale and subsequently my Grandfather
purchased and built this kit. Fortunately, his model is still in
my collection. There were two prominent features that made
this ABS plastic mold injection kit so appealing. Obviously, the
detailed waļ¬es on the car sides gave it a unique modern box
car look of the 70 ton capacity. The second feature was the
extended couplers (also known as a longer draft because of the
length of freight cars ever increasing) on a real working center
beam simulated draft gear utilizing springs in the car center in
the center beam on the underside of ļ¬oor. Operationally, it was
one of the more interesting with respect to slack one would see
in the prototype when starting the train, switching or stretching
the slack out and implemented in a model.
The box car kit is relatively rare to come across and may be
considered a collectible item today. I always have said that if you
are going to build a model, choose something that is unique, rare
or totally unavailable. One of the goals of Conductor Railway
Hobbies is to reproduce the old kits for preservation purposes.
After all, another master model builder designed, developed and
manufactured these kits years ago. So that is exactly what we
are trying to do with the Waļ¬e Box Car utilizing 3D Printing
technology where the goal is to perhaps improve upon the original,
but also make these very aļ¬ordable for the beginner model builder
in O Scale. Faithfully reproducing this kit may not be absolutely
perfect and might deviate slightly from the original prototype
as did the original kit from Walthers, but it leaves the model
builder with the opportunity to make modiļ¬cation on a solid
base or framework. So today we can print oļ¬ the parts to build