Rare Finds and Variations—6464-500 or not?
By Bill Meyer

In 1970, then Lionel Service Station dealer Glen Uhl of Akron, Ohio, in an effort to get his customers’ more, approached Lionel/MPC and placed an order for the Timken boxcar. It seems Lionel/MPC had some decals left over from their move from New Jersey.

Timken Roller Bearings had their main office in Canton, Ohio and the real Timken car was orange.

There was very little out there in the marketplace at that time and boxcars were in heavy demand.

Personally, I am a bit surprised that Glen Uhl didn’t order an AC&Y (Akron, Canton and Youngstown) boxcar, which was made many years later by Lionel LTI. (#16234 Akron, Canton & Youngstown Yellow/red from the #11733 Feather River Service Station Set in 1992.

There was a total short run of 1,946 cars made, of which there are regular 4 variations and one a few made as a personal favor as follows:

1)Yellow car, yellow doors, metal door guides, metal trucks and blank numberboards . 516 made.

2)Orange car, orange doors, metal door guides’ metal trucks and blank numberboards. 600 made.

3)Orange car, orange doors, metal door guides and Timken plastic trucks, with Type VI body mold and blank numberboards. 600 made.

4)Orange car, orange doors, metal door guides and Timken plastic trucks with Type VII body mold. 230 made. The last 50 had “9200” on the numberboards.

5)Green car, green doors, metal door guides with white/gold/red heat-stamped lettering

None had the white stripe as the Postwar ones did, and all had black lettering. Built date on car reads “BLT 1-71”.

{6464 Series Boxcars 7th Ed 1998 version #29212}