6800 Flatcar with Airplane

Production: 1957 - 1960

History
The 6800 Airplane Car is an attractive and popular freight car and was produced for four years in the late 1950's. Like most postwar Lionel flatcars with loads, the value with this freight car is the airplane. Locating the flatcar is easy, but locating a complete and undamaged airplane is difficult.

Features
Standard features of this car include: unpainted flatcar with white lettering, a brakewheel stand and brakewheel, corner footsteps, operating couplers and an airplane. Other features include:

• Trucks - Bar-end trucks -- with tab couplers -- mounted to steel plates were standard in 1957 Beginning in 1958, all flatcars converted to AAR trucks.
• Number - Flatcars with bar-end trucks have the number printed to the right of the word Lionel. Those with AAR trucks have the number printed to the left of the word Lionel. There are reportedly some rare examples of flatcars having AAR trucks with the number printed to the right of the Lionel lettering.
• Airplane - The aircraft is modeled after a Beechcraft Bonanza airplane. Original airplanes have a black upper surface on both wings and fuselage and yellow lower surfaces and yellow propeller -- or the exact opposite. Additionally, an original airplane has No. 6800-60 Airplane, The Lionel Corporation, New York NY, Made in U.S. of America molded on the bottom of the fuselage.

Additional Detail, Photos & Box Information
The length of this flatcar is approximately 11 1/4" long (coupler to coupler).

Bar-end Trucks - Shown in first photo above - A one year only item and is harder to locate than the AAR truck version.
AAR Trucks (Second photo above) - Produced for three years and easier to locate than the bar-end truck version.

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