North American Railcar Corporation's 25th Saskatchewan Grain Car is Born
Attention all N Modelers: since the first announcement of the Hawker Siddeley Saskatchewan Grain Car, North American Railcar Corporation (NAR Corp) has said that there would be 12 CN-assigned road numbers and 12 CP-assigned road numbers. In addition to these cars, there would be a Special 25th Car which would be made available to those customers who ordered a minimum of 12 cars.
Well, that 25th car is now traveling the rails somewhere in North America.
Here is the story: "How Car SKNX #397199 Came to be the 25th Car"
(A story that could be titled: "Should Art Imitate Life...Or Should Life Imitate Art?")
Pacific Western Rail Systems (PWRS), the parent company of North American Railcar Corp., was offered an exclusive arrangement with the Saskatchewan Grain Car Corporation that we felt we couldn’t pass up. If PWRS produced an accurate model of the Hawker Siddeley Cylindrical Hopper car, we would have exclusive rights to the current paint scheme, as well as any new schemes. This gave us the opportunity and incentive to produce a very accurate, highly detailed model of the HS version of the “Canadian” 4550 Cu Ft 4-bay covered hopper.
We at PWRS are very proud of our new SGCC Four Bay 4550 cu ft Cylindrical Hopper car due for release in early December and rightly so. It represents the most colorful paint schemes on any 4 bay cylindrical hopper car anywhere.
On September 27th NAR Corp got word that one of these beautiful cars was spotted in Abbotsford, British Columbia - not far from our warehouse and it was looking a little worse for wear (it had been ridden hard and put away dirty). So what else would a company with pride in their product (or model there of) do but go out and give it some TLC to spruce it up.
We contacted the Southern Railway of British Columbia, and they were kind enough to move this particular hopper to a location where we could clean up this soon to be Special 25th Car.
The first thing that we had to do was to clean several thousands of miles of dirt off the car.
Fortunately we came prepared to do the job!
A couple of very dedicated employees with the help of alot of Windex got the job done.
Now that looks a whole lot better!
With a clean palette, we could now create the Special 25th Car saluting the Model Railroading Industry.
(To make sure the job got done right, we flew in a person from Regina who professionally applies graphics to railcars and other media and she applied our special graphics to this car)
Just in case you can't see it clearly...
On both sides of the car, we have added...
On one side of the car, we have added...
and on the other side of the car, we have added...
North American Railcar Corporation, with our commitment to "Accuracy and Detail in Scale", firmly believes that art should accurately imitate life.
With our Special 25th Car, we wanted to make life accurately imitate art.
N.B., All the graphics that were added to this car had the full permission and blessing of Kadee, Micro-Trains and the Saskatchewan Grain Car Corporation.
We hope you will join with us in thanking Kadee, Micro-Trains, SGCC and Southern Railway of BC for their help and support in making this Special 25th Car a reality.
(By the way, if any of you see this car and photograph it, we would love to see your photos.)