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sbenny
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 Posted - January 03 2010 : 12:04:27 AM
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OK, here's the question. I always assumed that the Tyco billboard cars (boxcars, hoppers, center flows) were just fanciful cars that didn't exist in real life. I never saw one (that I can recall) in another scale. (Although weren't one or two beer boxcars produced by other manufacturers in HO?) But over Christmas I visited a relative with a fair amount of O scale, and there, in the original box, was a "Blue Coal" hopper car that looked like a match for the Tyco hopper car. So was this a real car? And were other hoppers (Bethlehem, Purina, Revere) real too?
Thanks,
Scott
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 Posted - January 03 2010 : 01:32:25 AM
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I have seen that same O scale car, I think I mentioned it years ago here in fact. It too got me wondering at the time. But the nearest I could find is it's a pure fantasy scheme... there was no mention of a real one in any of the Reading RR history sites I found, even though both cars had Reading reporting marks. The Reading doesn't seem like the kind of road that ever had time or funds for any "fun" besides. But it sure is a nice scheme - one of my favorites.
As for the Tyco "billboard" cars that DO have a basis in reality, here's a short rundown as I can remember off the top of my head:
Reefers:
-Baby Ruth - the original (metal) all-red one is accurate. The common one is nowhere close.
-Gerber - A real scheme, slightly simplified, but should have been blue. Blue ones were made by almost everyone else, so Tyco obviously tried to give little Girls their due. Incidentally, the Bachmann clone of the Tyco reefer is available in a blue Gerber scheme, in a sequential road# to Tyco's.... very interesting....
-Budweiser and Miller Beer - real cars existed for them, but nothing at all like what Tyco made.
Covered Hoppers:
-Boraxo: There was a real car in the early 2-bay PS1 days... as I understand it Tyco's hopper is a reasonably accurate representation of this paint scheme, but of course on their 3-bay car.
-(C&H, Planters, Ajax, Budweiser, Jello, Tide, A&H - all fake to my knowledge)
-Domino Sugar: Domino Sugar owned/leased several cars in real life. One of them is on display at the B&O Museum in Baltimore. That said, their hoppers were all of the smaller, PS2 design, and while they had a nice billboard aspect to them, were not at all as flashy as Tyco's.
-(Maxwell House, Sanka, Morton's Salt, Kellogg's - all fake)
Boxcars:
Not a single one of them in any size rings a bell as being real or close to it. Well, the Old Dutch car might be considered close, as their were real Old Dutch cars in very similar schemes... but they were reefers. Ironically, Tyco had a perfect reefer to use. But they chose a 50' boxcar and 55' hopper instead.
Open Hoppers:
Of the four made, I don't think any were real.
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Posted - February 05 2011 : 6:05:52 PM
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Blue Coal was a specific, trademarked brand of anthracite coal which was mined by the Glen Alden Coal Company in Pennsylvania. They sprayed with a blue dye at the mine before shipping to its Northeastern U.S.A. markets to distinguish it from its competitors.
The paint scheme is totally apocryphal whatever the scale. There were never hopper cars painted in such a scheme, as the comany did not own railroad equipment.
quote:OK, here's the question. I always assumed that the Tyco billboard cars (boxcars, hoppers, center flows) were just fanciful cars that didn't exist in real life. I never saw one (that I can recall) in another scale. (Although weren't one or two beer boxcars produced by other manufacturers in HO?) But over Christmas I visited a relative with a fair amount of O scale, and there, in the original box, was a "Blue Coal" hopper car that looked like a match for the Tyco hopper car. So was this a real car? And were other hoppers (Bethlehem, Purina, Revere) real too?
Thanks,
Scott
Originally posted by sbenny - January 03 2010 : 12:04:27 AM
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Posted - February 05 2011 : 6:40:11 PM
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if you want a accuruate billboard boxcar look for the wooden boxcar types made in the 1910s-1930s 
The Doritos car & Champion Spark Plugs are fake but Hey idc still love to collect them 
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