GN Baggage Car Kit - MOW

GN Baggage Car Kit - Maintenance of Way - HO Scale

The cars represented by this kit were delivered to the Great Northern by Barney & Smith in October and November of 1907 as Nos. 1050-1074. Those cars still on the roster in 1926 and 1927 were then renumbered as 300-315.

In the early 1930’s some of the cars began entering maintenance service, though four cars still in revenue service were renumbered as 214-217 in 1943. The last two cars in revenue service were renumbered as maintenance equipment in March 1950.

Many of the cars lasted in maintenance service until the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, but three were still on the roster at the time of the BN merger and were not retired until the 1980’s.

Up until the early to mid-1950’s, the maintenance cars were painted in the gray scheme with black roofs and lettering and mineral red trucks and under frames. Those that remained on the roster after the mid-1950’s were painted in the mineral red maintenance scheme with white lettering.

The kit

HO scale laser cut wood kit produced for the GNRHS by Bethlehem Car Works. Includes detail parts and appropriate Maintenance of Way decals. Trucks and couplers to be added by the modeler.

More info

These cars are described in GNRHS Reference Sheet 261 (Great Northern Head End Cars: Part VII, Wood-sheathed Baggage Cars, June 1998) and a diagram, roster and as-built drawings for them are provided. It might be noted that most if not all of the cars did receive steel center sills in the 1920’s, and the model reflects this. An article published in the August 1960 issue of Model Railroader had a number of prototype photographs of one of these cars, O3292, in maintenance service. There is also a nice photograph of O3294 in the gray maintenance scheme in the November 1996 Mainline Modeler.

Model and photos courtesy of Ken Middleton.