All-Nation Line #A-110

Last week a post war freight car kit in scale 0 arrived here and I am very pleased with it. The brand is "All-Nation Line" which was unknown to me, but several friends on the TCAMG forum explained me that it was a hobby shop in Chicago owned by Bob Colson that produced wooden-metal kits from the 40's up to the 70's of the last century. This kit has the first address (La Salle street) printed on the instructions and hence must originate from before 1961. Here in Europe such a kit is truely rare and it pleases me to share it with a wider audience.



The box itself is thick high quality folding carton with a dark-red top-paper of 7.5 x 7.5 x 31 cm size. The kit is mostly composed of wooden parts, of which one triplex wooden side panel is missing, but that can easily be remade (9.2 x 4.5 x 0.3 cm). The metal trucks have functional springs and several other details are also made from metal (feels like a tin alloy): brake wheel, brake cilinder, door handles, nut and washer casting, turnbuckle, steps...



The instructions are concise and contain some pretty American English train-words (eaves, facia boards, Queen pests, turnbuckle, etc.) ensuring that it will be an instructive kit for me.


The model is a 36' box trailer of the C&LE traction. Or in more plain English it is freight car of the interurban electrical tramway company named Cincinnaty and Lake Erie. This was a pretty amazing transport company that run high speed streetcars through most of Ohio and Indiana in the years of the great depression. The website of the Indiana Historical Society has an essay devoted to this company and it is a pleasure to read it. When passenger traffic declined they started to run also freight streetcars and this model is a freight car that would be pulled by an electrical engine or streetcar. Two old pictures from internet are included that show how the interurban freight car should look like when finished. More pictures can be found at for instance the Trolleystop and Don Ross website.