Re: Rod's milk car questions
Donald B. Valentine <riverman_vt@...>
Hello Rod,
Now that you have posted photos of your milk car I can answer your questions a bit more definitively. 1. The conduit found on the roof and ends is strictly for head-end lighting, as a couple have suggested. It was found on some of the Abbott's Alderney Dairies cars that ran into Philly, on the Reading if memory serves, and also on some Freeport Dairy cars that ran into Chicago. These were among the earliest such cars constructed, however, all being built in the mid-1920's. 2. The steam line along the side sill was, as I noted earlier, another early feature limited to certain dairies and roads. Those known to have utilized suah a line were the Seminole Milk Co. of Jacksonville, Fla., the Cloverdale Creamery, of New Orleans. LA and the Wetern Dairy Co. and Hammond Dairy, both of which shipped into Chicago. 3. As noted previously, I doubt you could find the jacketed steam lines still in place on any of these cars after the mid-1930's, if not before. I believe the same could be correctly stated for the electricl conduit. Thus you might consider removing them for you 1950's era modeling if the collector value of the model does not matter to you. 4. If you choose to make such modifications there is another you might consider as well. This is the removal of the roof lifting lugs above the edge of the roof. I have done this on my HO models as well as it was found within a year or two after the prototypes utilizing this feature were constructed that the tanks and other equipment within the car body were so trouble free that there was no need to remove the roofs. Thus the original brackets were replaced with only a plate that did not extend above the roof attached with the same bolts that held the original brackets. I don't believe any cars constructed after 1928 utilized the brackets at all and they disappeared with the first rebuilding in almost ever case. Hopefully this further clarification is helpful, Don Valentine --- In STMFC@..., "railsnw1" <railsnw@...> wrote: appears that those are plugs at the end of the car.http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/web/index.htm lfiles
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