Arnold van Heyst wrote:

In a magazine there is a photo of a GARX box car with car number 50439
and U.P. herald.
Branchline has released this (1950 build) plugdoor car,
but not with this number and herald.
Now i will like to know from what year the U.P. had this car (one of a
kind) and which decals can i use to make such a car.

General American built a whole fleet of "DF" cars to lease to
railroads that either weren't ready to invest in such cars themselves,
or needed more than they could afford to build at the time. (All were
in the 50,000 series, IIRC)
As Ben Hom already answered, an upcoming article in RPCYC
should answer many questions about this lease fleet. I can report that
SP leased some as early as 1955 and were still leasing them as late as
1963, despite building hundreds of its own cars of this type, so I'd
assume the lease terms were favorable. Like many roads, including UP,
SP was allowed to paint its own emblem on the cars, though they kept
their GARX marks and numbers.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history