Renting a U-Haul in a small town

U-Haul rental trailers and trucks have been part of the American scene since the mid 20th century and nearly everyone has rented one at some point in their life.

Years ago I was making cast resin N Scale U-Haul trailers.  It all started with me making replicas of our Ntrak club's trailer and giving them to the members after finding out that it was a retired U-Haul.  After that I made several different versions of U-Haul trailers shown in the photo below and and also painted and decaled cast resin trucks and vans from Lineside Models.  I sold many of these on ebay but kept a few for myself.

From left to right: 5x8 in the older paint scheme, our Ntrak club trailer was like this one. 6x12 in the older paint scheme.  6x10 in the super graphics scheme that started in 1988.  And 5x8 in the super graphics scheme.

On a club module I had built a U-Haul rental center using several of these trailers plus some of the Lineside Models cast resin trucks.  Rental centers like this are common and larger cities and towns.

In smaller towns where there might not be enough business to support a rental center, various types of existing businesses are authorized U-Haul dealers.  The most common types of businesses that become U-Haul dealers are gas stations and self storage facilities and tool rental centers.  So, on this layout the Sinclair gas station in Carlin has become a U-Haul dealer.  

As I have both the pre and post 1988 versions, I will use the older models in the two earlier eras of the layout and a mix of those plus the 1988 super graphics versions in the 1988 to 1996 era.