In a message dated 08/14/09 12:42:55 Eastern Daylight Time, eric@... writes:
Well, this fool bought a few Yardmaster kits at about $8 each and thought they were a pretty
good deal. The word on this list was that Branchline was striving for prototype paint and
lettering on their models - Blueprint and Yardmaster models. My DL&W effort can be seen at the
bottom of this page:
http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/73

More foot-in-mouth -- I didn't mean to imply that anyone who bought one was a fool. I didn't buy one. The molded on ladders would have kept me away as well though I liked that Branchline was offering sides, ends and roofs separately.

Interesting blog, by the way. Might see if I can post some photos in a similar venue to provide links.


There were five lots, yes, as far as modelers are concerned. The railroad considered all 10' IH cars as one group, so there were more lots than that listed in DL&W recordkeeping. The 49000-series cars had poling pockets, the 51000-series and up did not. The 49000-series were delivered pre-Phoebe billboard, the 51000-series were the first cars delivered in the Phoebe billboard, in 1942. The 51750-51999 had Superior doors, the rest Youngstown. The 52500- and 53000-series cars had modern and modern-improved dreadnaught ends, respectively, the latter group represented by the ELHS cars.

Black ends didn't begin until the 54000-series and 55000-series of 10'5" and 10'6" IH cars. And on the 50-foot cars of 1956, 12000-series. Looking through some photos, I see that a couple of repaints of the latter series have brown ends.

....Mike Del Vecchio




I note there were five different lots of these cars built for the DL&W. There must have been at
least one car from one of these lots that were painted with black ends and roof and
photographed for posterity. Seems that a compamy like Branchline, that corrected a mold for a
wrong length box car, would be double-certain of their data early in production. Documentation
for the five DL&W lots of these cars can be found on this PDF:
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/prototype/frtcars/1937aarpdfmain.html

An additional four Branchline Yardmaster upgrades can be seen here:
http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/74