After buying the Locomotive I looked for some freight cars. I have absolutely no experience with models of american freight cars. Additionally I will do my very first steps into weathering with these cars, thus I looked for the least expensive cars that were available at RD-Hobby. I didn’t want to wait too long, so availability was another parameter. After some fiddling through the online shop, I have ordered this batch of cars:

Canadian Pacific Railroad 79998. It wasn’t so expensive and I like the design. After unpacking it I wondered about the roof walks. I did not notice them while placing my order. I did some googling and learned, that roof walks were deprecated in the 1960s and had to be removed by 1970. Keep or return? I decided to keep it. I will use it to learn weathering, so it doesn’t matter that is a little “outdated”. In the meanwhile I learned that the Quebec Gantineau Railroad used units like this one until 2011, so it is not as outdated as I thought.

SOO Line 199690 is an Accruail Kit. I am very interested in the quality of these kits and their assembly, so I gave it a try. The print quality is a little poor. The black logo is a little pale in the upper parts. It has the roof walk. I will keep it too. I saw some pictures of beautifully weather SOO Line Cars, like these at Mellowmike.com. This is a great inspiration. I have to learn a lot.

Another Accurail Kit. The print looks good and I like the “boring” common boxcar color. This is a modern 50ft boxcar whiteout roof walk. Obviously I was able to get something that fits into the modern era plans I have. So I am not a complete fool.

The most expensive piece in this order: Bachmann Railbox RBOX 32416. It has moveable doors, yeah!

To add some variety to my roster I got a gondola and a flatcar. Open freight cars like these are very versatile and creating some custom loads adds some interest to the layout.

BM 9080 from Atlas. I learned that the Boston & Main is not existing any more. To bad. But I found some recent photos of this unit that show that is still in use.

A TTX Flatcar. It is yellow and can carry bulky and heavy loads. Perfect candidate for a team track or metal processing industry on the layout.

So far I am happy with my purchases. As these cars are some the lowest priced units I could find, I am satisfied with the amount of detail. They will serve well as a training ground for weathering and to have some cars to switch on my little layout.