Recently I saw on eBay a freight car that was misidentified as being by Eastern. They only made three models, which are all pretty easy to recognize.

The Eastern Model Railroad Co. was run by A. W. Rinck and began selling OO out of Hackensack, NJ, in 1946 (with the gondola being introduced in 1948). According to RMC publisher Harold Carstens in his editorial in their March, 2000 issue, Arno Rinck had the bodies for these cars produced for him by Westbrook, the pioneer O gauge manufacturer. The bodies are different than Picard bodies and very nicely made.

By the 1960s Rinck had relocated way out west, to Hungry Horse, MT, where he was in business until 1980, also selling TT gauge models under the name Craftsman Kits. He advertised for years and years with a small monthly ad in Model Railroader. Some of the residual stock of parts for these kits continues to be seen on eBay to this day.

Eastern produced freight cars with wood bodies, painted and lettered (printed) card sides and card ends, with a cast frame and details. The trucks were equalized Bettendorf trucks of exactly the same design used by Famoco as were the stamped roof ribs. In short, the car sides and many parts of their box car and reefer kits are identical to those marketed by Famoco. They also produced a Gondola, a 40′ steel car.

The first photo shows a reefer and box car built up, both are cars I built from fresh kits, and the second photo the gondola kit and the bottom of the reefer. The frame is very easy to recognize, it is die cast and has the word “Eastern” right there on it, and there is a nice K type brake cylinder as well of their own design.

This advertisement is from 1946, when the Eastern line was launched.

The big flaw of kits of this type is it is really difficult to match the color and sheen of the boxcar red sides when painting the other parts. The black is somewhat easier; flat black is close, but a matte black closer. And the reefer as a unique problem as well, the car body itself is a bit too tall. They corrected for this by adding extra blank space above the doors in the printing of the sides, which leaves the overall proportions off.

Still, I know I really enjoyed building that first Eastern box car kit (my first OO gauge model) and I will always have a warm spot for their products. They do, with care, build up into sharp models and the boxcars in particular are among the best produced in American OO, it was a good solid product for the time.

UPDATED 2021. For more information on Eastern see my book.