Lanes Trains S Scale Railgon Gondola

By the Don Winter Company

Borrowed from the NASG Website

The kit only includes a simple one-page instruction sheet. Don Winter was an O-scale manufacturer, and this was his only S-scale kit. G&W Models announced their release of the Railgon decals at the time of the release of this kit (used on the models in the photos)

History of Railgon is here - also from the NASG Website

The Railgon Company was formed in 1979 as a subsidiary of the Trailer Train (TTX) company, to produce a unique-design gondola. These were built by five different companies, namely Bethlehem, Berwick, Greenville, Pullman-Standard, and Thrall (calling these Thrall gondolas is, therefore, not necessarily accurate). Between 1980 and 1981, 4,000 cars were built. While the "pool" consisted of 135 railroads, by 1982, these cars were mostly stored and not used due to an economic downturn. Railgon went bankrupt in the late 1980s, but many railroads continued to use the cars.

This is a rather rare S kit in a few ways. First it is a “modern” car in terms of era the prototype car was built, especially since the kit was released in 1980 which was still the dark ages in S. No American Models yet or any brass models. Almost complete transition era only modeling with heavy scratchbuilding and kit bashing going on. It definitely was a “man’s man” kit requiring significant effort and skill to complete. Most cars like gondolas and hoppers are light to run in the long trains I usually have. While parts of it are plastic there are many metal parts making it heavy enough to run empty. I thought it was all metal when I got my first car but saw the kit when rediscovering the build articles below. Again given the era of when the real car was made and kit was released likely not many kits were sold.

There is a how to build the kit PDF article by Jim Kindraka part 1 here and part 2 here.

I did not build my cars shown below. They were bought as is. If I did see a kit for sale I am sure I would not assemble it. I might try and reverse engineer it for 3D printing.

I never knew this car existed before an early morning eBay search in October 2022 and instantly bought it for $15.00. It is a stunning looking car that sticks out as being “modern”. It was from the late Dick Cataldi collection. He built 310749. Dick must not have liked truck screws. If you picked the car up the trucks stayed on the track. I had to fix that.

Car 310163 was purchased in April 2025 for a LOT more than $15.00. But average the costs of the 2 cars out…. I do not know who built 310163.

Updated 5-1-25