Waffle-sided Boxcar ? - Classic Toy Trains Magazine

Well first off, I've seen the real thing within the past couple weeks, in CSX, Norfolk Southern and CP Rail.

My understanding of the Waffle Box Car is that the real railroads and industries they served were looking for a quicker way, more cost effiecient way to load box cars - or more specifically to secure the loads inside. Normal box cars required extra labor using various devices inside the cars to secure loads. The Waffle style box car was a result of stronger, better steel... the waffle indentations made for much easier securing of loads inside the car. This was a big advantage to the automotive industry. Wrapped and secured pallets could be fork lifted into the box cars and then more easily secured to prevent damage. This, to my understand, was the real motivation behind the development of the waffle side box car. Most of the real ones were at least 50 feet in length.

Lionel introduced their semi-scale waffle box car in 1995, similar in size to the traditional 6464 style box car, reflecting more of a 40 ft. box car. Lionel has made these in Seaboard (early Seaboard scheme), Denver & Rio Grande, Chessie System, Louisville and Nashville*, Seaboard (SCL Family Lines scheme)*, Green Bay Route, Chicago & Northwestern, CSX, D&H, Santa Fe (from add-on pack) and the current New Haven. All have plastic trucks except * which have sprung die-cast truck.

I personally love the Lionel Waffle Box Car for its modern look (no roofwalk, shortened side ladders) and have nearly all of the above, some custom repainted into Norfolk Southern, CPR, Lehigh Valley and Conrail. No other company has introduced any kind of modern looking box car for the tradtional market. Although the K-Line 765-series modern welded steel box car (done in EL, MILW, SOU, D&H, I love NY D&H scheme by K-Line) is more scale proportioned, it still looks very good in a consist of 6464 sized box cars. It nicely mimics a high cube box car on a smaller layout. There's also the Lionel MPC developed Hi-Cube box car.