model train set on track

Oh no!!! Not another @#$%^&* # 6464 Variation!!!

e*Train Issue: Apr 2010   |   Posted in: ,

by Bob Mintz


In the 6464 re-issue Series VI of 1997, there was a 6464-425 boxcar # 6-19295.

Lionel issued # 6-21763 in 2000 a New Haven Freight Set, part of the Postwar Celebration Series. Well, celebrate I did not, since this set did not include the engine, selling separately as # 6-18319 New Haven EP-5. The freight set, as the original Postwar set, included a 6464-425 New Haven boxcar

Although I have the original Postwar version and the re-issue in Series VI, I hedged and purchased the New Haven Freight Set, hoping that the freight set’s particular boxcar would be different from the one issued in 1997

My instincts proved correct as there was a slight, but significant difference between the two.

The variation in the NH Freight set, which I later discovered to be numbered # 6-29293, says “BUILT 1999 BY LIONEL” with a “PW” beneath the number; while the version in Series VI says “BLT 1-97 BY LIONEL”, sans the “PW”.

To add insult to injury for my find, it turns out that Lionel was “blowing out” the 1999 Freight Set version of the 6464-425 at its’ factory liquidation sale last year. In fact, since the doors were interchangeable, several were either sold or rebuilt with red and other door colors.

Perhaps not as significant a variation as the #6464-300 Rutland solid shield or the #3435 Aquarium Car with the “Tank 1/Tank 2 and large circle “L””, it remains a unique variation nevertheless, especially in the Modern Era.