An Athearn “Blue Box” tank car, conclusion

I began this project under the inspiration of a new decal set from National Scale Car, set D-245 for Shell Chemical Co. tank cars. The set can do two cars, one of them an anhydrous ammonia car. 

The size of that car was quite similar to the Athearn “Blue Box” tank car that Athearn terms a “chemical” car, though there is no such category; it is simply a model of a high-pressure insulated tank car of about 11,000 gallons. I showed the prototype photo in the first post (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/07/reworking-athearn-blue-box-tank-car.html ).

In the succeeding posts, I described my upgrades to the deficiencies of the Athearn model, most recently showing all the parts ready for assembly (covered in my post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/04/an-athearn-blue-box-tank-car-part-4.html ). 

Installing Kadee #158 couplers, adding trucks with InterMountain wheelsets, and temporarily putting together the rest of the car (except for the handrails, which will be added after decal application), the car looked like this:

The decals are well designed and taken directly from the prototype photo, and accordingly are quite easy to apply in the correct locations. Here is the car with the decals applied and protected with a coat of clear flat.

Next, I assembled the handrails, then added the dome platform with ladders, in the position shown in the upper photo above, attaching them with canopy glue.

A drawback to the use of the Broadway Limited tank car platform and ladder is that it is for a smaller (6000 gallons) tank car, so not only are the ladders too short, but the ladder rungs aren’t correctly located — note that there is not a rung at the level of the handrail, and there is one right below the handrail which should be removed in favor of a new one at the handrail level.

The ladder stiles are matched by styrene scale 1 x 3-inch strip, and the rungs by 0.015-inch styrene rod. I attached both with canopy glue, and when glue was set, painted them black.Then I lightly weathered the car, using washes of acrylic tube paints, as I’ve described and illustrated in the “Reference pages” linked at the top right corner of this post.

The car was now ready for service, and I’ve spotted it at its natural destination, the Pacific Chemical Repackaging Company in my layout town of Ballard, delivering a load of anhydrous ammonia. 

This has been an interesting project, yet another upgrading and conversion of one of the Athearn “Blue Box” tank cars, taking advantage of its accuracies and correcting its inaccuracies.

Tony Thompson