After reading through the responses to Andy's original post, it seems the situation illustrates the value of this group. I hope Andy encourages his contact to join the group and learn more.

I see discussions here about the nuances of PS-1 box cars, AAR 1937 design box cars, and many other car designs that many consider as standardized. It makes us understand the car designs are of a standard but many hardware components are determined by railroad preferences. Hence we see different running boards, doors, and hand brakes applied to a variety of freight cars.

Moving back a few decades to the 36-foot box cars, we see something similar as railroads had embraced a type of design but technology was advancing with steel components that enabled the freight cars to withstand the forces of longer trains. While the box may look nearly the same across many railroads, there were differences in center sills, door movement (left or right), side sills, trucks, roof, ends, and more. Add in the automobile box cars and ventilated box cars, and your variety ever increases. Yet the basic box design may look the same. 

It's these nuances we tend to embrace and discuss here. Adding or subtracting details to our models to reflect specific prototypes is what drives many of our modeling projects. Here's the link to access the four summaries of the prototypes Accurail has announced for the initial road names on the new 36-foot box car models. Paging through one of these summaries will show the variety of prototype car detail in an era of non-standardization.

http://designbuildop.hansmanns.org/accurail-prototype-data/

I hope Andy's contact comes on board to experience the conversations and knowledge shared here. I came on board before the list moved to YahooGroups and have learned a great deal. I don't always use the details, as my 1926 modeling focus limits my desire to learn about later prototypes. But I do absorb stuff like a sponge and often pass along info or a link to answer a question for another modeler. Sharing the info with others is one of the best things we can do for our hobby.

Eric Hansmann

El Paso, TX