B2 40' 12 panel box car, Big Sky Blue HO scale

HO scale, with trucks and magnetic couplers. Six car numbers available.

These models of Great Northern 12 panel, 40’ 6” inside length box cars by InterMountain are numbered in series 10900 to 11874. This lot, built in 1948, was 10’ Inside Height and provided 3715 cubic feet of space. When built, these cars were painted mineral red.

When production of the 12 panel box cars ended in 1951, the 3,975 cars of this design were 19% of the box car roster. Most of them lasted to and beyond the BN merger. If you are modeling 1950-1970, you should have a significant number of these cars in your fleet.

The models are correctly painted Big Sky Blue color with a large Rocky herald to the right of the door, a paint scheme applied from May of 1967 to 1970. They correctly have no running board. This paint scheme is available in six different car numbers.

Actual cars were 10’ IH, models are incorrectly stenciled 10-2 IH.

See GNRHS Reference Sheet 61 and Modelers’ Pages 97 and 98. 

SHORT HISTORY OF GN 40 FOOT SINGLE DOOR BOX CARS

Boxcars dominated the Great Northern’s car fleet for decades. They were used to haul anything that had to be protected from the weather. Grain was the traffic that paid the GN’s bills and grain was hauled in boxcars. Grain originated from Montana east of the Rocky Mountains eastward along the entire railway to Minneapolis, and from central Montana and Eastern Washington to export elevators on the Lower Columbia River and Puget Sound. Lumber moved eastward from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana in box cars. Lumber was long haul traffic that generated good revenue per carload. Less than Carload and carload merchandise was an important commodity group due to its high revenue. Boxcar loads of merchandise moved predominately westward on the GN.

Great Northern began to build its fleet of 40-foot box cars at the turn of the Twentieth Century. By 1917 the railway had purchased 22,666 40-foot wooden underframe box cars of 80,000-pound and 2,687 cubic feet capacity. Of these, 8,860 had drop bottoms for transportation of bulk coal. Side doors were 5’ 5” wide.

After the United States entered WW I in April 1917, American producers flooded the ports of New York and New Jersey with supplies for England and France much faster than water carriers could remove them. Up to 180,000 cars, including many tens of thousands of boxcars, plugged the ports and the rail lines leading to them as far west as Pittsburg and Buffalo, creating a car shortage in the rest of the country. Rather than help unclog the ports, the Federal Government took over the railroads on December 26, 1917 and created a new bureaucracy, the USRA, to operate them.

Great Northern received 1,500 USRA box cars in 1919, numbered 23494 to 24993. These were GN’s first steel under fame box cars. Inside length was 40’ 6” compared to GN’s previous cars that were 40’ IL. Doors were 6’ wide, rather than GN’s previous 5’ 5” standard. The 40’ 6” IL and six-foot-wide doors would become GN and industry standard dimensions until the end of production of 40-foot box cars.

Beginning in 1937 and continuing through 1942, the Great Northern bought 8,000 ARA design cars of 10’ 0” inside height and 3712 cubic feet capacity with tongue and grove sides from commercial car builders. Capacity of these cars was nominally 100,000 pounds.

Then in 1944, 1945, and 1947 the Great Northern built 1,875 plywood sided cars of 10’ 0” inside height and 3727 cubic feet capacity at St. Cloud. Capacity of these cars was nominally 100,000 pounds.

Great Northern built its first all steel box cars at St. Cloud in 1948, cars 10900 to 11874, and express box cars 2525-2549. Great Northern was the last major railroad to adopt all steel box car construction. All 4,975 40-6 Inside Length box cars built from 1948 to 1953 had 12 steel panels per side, tabbed side frames and inside height of either 10’ or 10-2. Great Northern built another 1,500 12 panel cars 1955-1959. These cars were 10-6 IH and had straight side sills, which made them visibly different from their tabbed sill predecessors.