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It's junk. After it was retired from passenger service in the late 60's it was relegated to MoW service for whatever they wanted to use it for. Eventually it was parked and left on an abandoned spur close to what was left of the Leesville roundhouse machine shop and there it was sitting when I came to Leesville in 1970. The machine shop and what was left of the roundhouse were torn down in the late 70's or early 80's but the old spur tracks were left. Besides the baggage car there was a track tester and a couple of old diesels. Those are long gone now. The baggage car and it's spur sit on what is now private property currently occupied by a gravel and rock supplier. Over the years it's seen it's share of vandals, taggers won't touch it as paint doesn't stick well to rust and it's survived two or three grass fires which are the cause of some of the rust. Mush of the paint along the lower edges is burned off and much of the rubber lines underneath were burned. At present I know of no plans to save it.
So that's what was odd looking about the model picture.
I couldn't figure it out until you posted those prototype pictures. It's a great modeling job, but it just didn't have an "abandoned" look and I think now it's because it's not sitting in a patch of weeds!
My wife and I got rid of the kids for the weekend and stayed in a cabin at Mt. Rainier in Washington state. I saw these in the town of Elbe and had to take some photos. Typical Washington weather.