I was recently able to obtain this car, a modern RailBox box car.

It was built by Bill Johann. When I saw the listing I thought it might be a HO conversion; actually it is beautifully scratchbuilt on a Picard body. When I got it I realized that this car looked familiar somehow and I found why; it was depicted on page 5 of the May, 1990 issue of The OO Road. There we find this model was made in 1980, confirmed by the markings on the bottom of the model, WCJ 8-80.

It is still in very good shape. One thing of note are the trucks, which are modified Lionel trucks. This is actually the only notable damage to the car; he modified the trucks to have roller bearings but most of the bearing caps have broken off. The wheelsets are the ones by Ultimate and the car tracks great. Paint, decals, everything very nice! While “modern” trains are not my primary interest (my layout is set in the postwar period) I do have enough modern cars to run a train of them and will enjoy this car.