My roster of modern cars expanded somewhat recently with the arrival of these two boxcars.

They were made by the late Bill Johann, converted from Con-Cor HO 60’ boxcars to approximate OO 50’ boxcars, a conversion featured in August 1993 issue of The OO Road. He introduced the conversion as follows:

Tired of looking at 40’ Boxcars from the 1930s in your closet, collection, or on your RR? Have I got a Project for you! It’s done using the CON-COR KITS which are plastic. PLASTIC? (please don’t faint) Plastic is neat to work with. It also saws well; can be snapped apart, after scoring, & drills & taps great.

These two specifically are what he calls in the article the -3 and -4 versions of these conversions. The car with the more peaked roof (-3) was made from one Con-Cor car and the other (-4) was made from two cars. The conversion is described in detail in the article but in short the -3 car has a new roof and ends and the -4 car uses the original roof and ends. They are on the Johann converted roller bearing trucks that he made/sold. I think both look good but the -3 car looks slightly better. This basic conversion can be applied to many other makes of large modern cars, something to consider for expanding the OO roster.

This is the first of three posts (this one posted on 5/28) on modern cars for OO that I prepared as drafts the Monday before hitting the road from Arizona to Illionis for a conference and to visit relatives. Seeing very similar cars in trains on the way yesterday has me itching to make more modern OO cars.