John Nehrich writes:

....it appears Mantua copied the Walthers decal set for Mobilgas, with two
flying horses, in bright red on a silver car. The car reporting marks is
SOVX, which aren't listed in '40 - my '24, '27, and '32 ORER's are at home.
But has anyone seen a prototype car so lettered? - John

John, I've puzzled about where Walthers got the idea for these decals for
many years. The decal set dates back at least to 1941, as I have a
Walthers O gauge catalog from that year in which a model tank car is shown
lettered with that set. But I've never found SOVX reporting marks in any
pre-1940 ORER, so I've concluded that the art work is entirely bogus -
unless it was used on a single display car at some event like the NY
World's Fair that never ran in revenue service. Mantua isn't the first
model RR manufacturer to copy the set; the evil that men do lives after
them. Of course, you have to remember that Walthers also produced a decal
set for an SP overnight merchandise car with a big orange winged emblem and
other embellishments which never existed except in someone's overheated
imagination. No doubt the tinplaters (forerunners of today's train set
bozos -I CAN say that here, can't I?) thought these fictional paint and
lettering schemes were hot stuff. Bottom line: don't trust any of
Walthers' decal sets unless you've got prototype documentation.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520