--- ian clasper <ianclasper@...> wrote:

Hi Guys

I am building a Pennsy G29c/d steel gondola from a
Sunshine composite
G29a/b.
I am using Model Master Red Putty, Plastic Cement
and NWSL "The Detail
Sander" to remove the plank detail.

I have checked the internal dims of these cars and,
as part of the rebuild,
the IW increased as expected when the wooden sides
were replaced with steel,
however the IL didn't change. I presume from this
that the ends remained
lined, however what were they lined with ?

Is my presumption correct ?

I believe that they continued to be lined with wood.
For those of you following along, the reason that the
ends on some (or all- I haven't yet determined) of
these cars were lined with wood is because many of the
cars used chopped up box cars ends, due to wartime
material shortages (the New York Central's 41' War
Emergency gons had the same issue). Box cars ends are
thicker steel on the bottom section than the top
section. When the top section of a box car end was
used for a gon end, it required additional material
(wood, in this case) to bolster it. One of the series
of builder's photos of the wartime G29s shows one end
with 3 Dreadnaught corrugations and the small
'teardrop' corrugations by the sides of the end and
above the third rib have been pounded flat, while the
other end has only two Dreadnaught corrugations. I
guess they used whatever they had available.

The Sunshine kit includes a rectangular rib end,
rather than the Dreadnaught end. I don't know what
made Martin settle on this. Nor do I know what type
of end was most common as I have not found any
documentation that spells out what ends were used on
what cars. I'm still looking, though!

I built one of these cars several years ago. The
castings are really, really nice, as are the ones for
the steel versions of these cars, the G29. The link
to a photo of it is at:
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/modeling/models/culotta/prr349357main.html

Regards,
Ted Culotta

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