Larry and others

I Googled "#15 or #12C scalpel blade" and found several sources. Does anyone have a favorite source? Also what other handle sizes and blade types have people found helpful?

Bill Welch

Hi Steve,

one of these mornings when the mood is right I plan to use a new #15 or #12C scalpel blade in a size 3 handle. Much sharper than X-Acto, you can controllably remove as little as a few thousandths at a time, even on acetal plastics.

Larry Hanlon.
Bend, OR

great! thanks Richard. Now just a matter of finding some good choices for car numbers in 1946.

Rob

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Richard Hendrickson" <rhendrickson@...>
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 1:35 PM
To: <STMFC@...>
Subject: Re: [STMFC] BLI New York Central System Box Car Models

On Dec 29, 2011, at 12:52 PM, Rob Kirkham wrote:

I'm wondering what are the most obvious changes required to back
date these
cars to 1946? Do I need to change the roof? I'm reading plenty of
older
e-mails in the archives, but they tend to use vague language about
dates
when the roofs started to be replaced, - hence my doubts. I
suppose the
re-building was done over a period of time, so would need to get
some sort
of handle on the earliest number series converted as well. If this
has
already been discussed, I'd be pleased to re-read the old e-mail if
I could
find it!

Gents,
 
My model arrived at the local shop today. One side of the car has a flat/matte-painted panel to the left of the door. Does anyone else's have that feature? It is only on one side, the other is fully 'satin' finish. Odd (and probably a production flaw), but might it represent the 1 1/2 door 'rebuild' in some way? The door was loose on that side, so I'm guessing that it covered that panel when the satin finish was applied.
 
Andy L.
South Bend, IN

Hi Steve--I slipped a new single edge razor blade under the running board laterals to slice off the protrusions. You could use flat brass strips to fashion supports for the ends of the laterals, but I used styrene strips. I attached small pieces of styrene to the underside of the laterals with CA, then touched the styrene with a small amount of styrene cement. This softened the styrene pieces so they could be bent downward and attached to the edge of the roof. I found that the bottle of Floquil Boxcar Red I had on hand was a close match on these small pieces.

Steve Hoxie
Pensacola FL

Interesting. One of the NP guys measured some boards on an NP box car
as 5.5" wide with a V groove in the middle. Do you or anyone have more
information about ARA standards for siding, and the years in which the
standards were in force? At some point, judging from photos and from
some drawings, it seems that the milled boards were replaced with plain
T&G boards.

Tim O'Connor

There used to be an online photo of WABASH 78138, an overhead
wedge shot of the B-end in New Orleans around 1920. I snagged a
copy for my hard drive; the original came from a LSU collection
but the link no longer works. (We discussed it here 9 yrs ago.)

Tim O'Connor

Dennis

The use of non-standard siding came up recently on the NP list. The
NP milled its own "beaded" boards in Tacoma at least before 1920; I'm
not sure when the practice stopped. Someone produced a case where the
C&NW refused to pay for a car repair because the NP had applied
non-standard siding to their box car!

Tim O'Connor

Steve,



I started to "disassembe" my cars tonight to prep them for the layout (grit blast the trucks, change out the couplers with Kadee "scale" whisker couplers, weather, etc) .  I used a Xuron "angled head sprue cutter" and lifted the lateral and then cut off the "support" with the sprue cutter.  I only did this on one car tonight but it looks pretty good; some "touch up" paint will be required.  I'll use either flat brass strip or Evergreen styrene to add the lateral supports.



I was disappointed to learn the InterMountain semi-scale wheelsets have too long of an axle length to use in the BLI trucks; it looks like the BLI wheelsets are .0975 but it was late when I was fooling with this; my Reboxx "Samples" package contained a .0980 axle length wheel set and this seemed to work okay.  I'm sure others will chime in with the correct axle length to use.



Jim Brewer

Glenwood MD

Mark, the 28 hour law required a 5+ hour rest period after 28 hours in the
car. Animals had to be unloaded, feed watered and rested a minimum of 5
hours, unloading and loading was in addition to the 5 hours. The 36 hour
exception required a rest period be extended to 8 hours. The owner or
shipper had to sign the waiver for the 36 hour exception. In the Midwest it
was usually used to get to the final destination without needing a feed/rest
stop. Hogs were the exception, they could be fed and watered in the car, and
allowed to rest. The car had to be stopped for the required time. Sheep
could not be unloaded during the night, if the 28 hours expired during the
night, the car was stopped but the sheep were not unloaded until daylight.



I believe the reuse of stock cars depended upon the location. Your examples
along the UP may have been typical in UP territory, esp at isolated
locations where the only cars available may have been the ones that brought
the rested animals. In the Midwest, ie along CB&Q, C&NW, etc. where feed and
rest stations esp those just outside of Chicago, saw a larger number of
trains and thus a wider variety of cars were available, esp per diem cars
from other roads. The railroads quickly cleaned and moved cars back west
where they were needed. Then when animals were ready to be reloaded
different cars were used and sent east. The large feed/rest stations outside
of Chicago were also used for extended rest periods, ie a farmer might hold
animals at the feed/rest station for a week while waiting for prices to
increase. No railroad would leave a car sit for that long of a period.



Doug Harding

www.iowacentralrr.org

I've never seen a real car with that board size.

Rob Kirkham

--------------------------------------------------
From: "soolinehistory" <destorzek@...>
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 7:10 PM
To: <STMFC@...>
Subject: [STMFC] Re: True Line new "Fowler" pictures

--- In STMFC@..., "Dave Evans" <devans1@...> wrote:

List,

There may be cause for optimism. The TRL site shows three cars - a stock and two different box cars. The painted CP model has a steel door that is clearly narrower than the panels - so a 5' door. The undecorated model has a wood door (vertical boards), that is clearly wider than the adjacent panels - likely a 6 foot door.

Any of the Canadian experts care to comment on the width of the boards on that wood door? They appear to be the same width as the side sheathing, which would make them 5-1/4" wide. The ARA did have a standard section 5-1/4" wide T&G car siding, but it was milled with an extra V grove in the middle of the board, so gave the appearance of 2-5/8" wide boards. Train Miniature missed this point about forty years ago, as have others since. Did the Canadian roads really use a non standard car siding, or has TLT misinterpreted the drawing call out that says the doors are 5-1/4" T&G?

Dennis



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

I've never seen a real car with that board size.

Rob Kirkham

--------------------------------------------------
From: "soolinehistory" <destorzek@...>
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 7:10 PM
To: <STMFC@...>
Subject: [STMFC] Re: True Line new "Fowler" pictures

--- In STMFC@..., "Dave Evans" <devans1@...> wrote:

List,

There may be cause for optimism. The TRL site shows three cars - a stock and two different box cars. The painted CP model has a steel door that is clearly narrower than the panels - so a 5' door. The undecorated model has a wood door (vertical boards), that is clearly wider than the adjacent panels - likely a 6 foot door.

Any of the Canadian experts care to comment on the width of the boards on that wood door? They appear to be the same width as the side sheathing, which would make them 5-1/4" wide. The ARA did have a standard section 5-1/4" wide T&G car siding, but it was milled with an extra V grove in the middle of the board, so gave the appearance of 2-5/8" wide boards. Train Miniature missed this point about forty years ago, as have others since. Did the Canadian roads really use a non standard car siding, or has TLT misinterpreted the drawing call out that says the doors are 5-1/4" T&G?

Dennis



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

--- In STMFC@..., "Eric" <eric@...> wrote:

Fenton,

Well, that depends. First, it depends upon what is being displayed at the TTL website. As the only painted models are of Canadian Pacific cars, then I assume these follow the design with the five-foot wide doors. I do not know if the Canadian National had any of these narrow door cars or kept to the six-foot wide door cars.

The US roads seemed to have rostered cars with six-foot wide doors. These included the Erie, NC&StL, and Grand Trunk. Many are illustrated at the Westerfield Models site:
https://id18538.securedata.net/westerfieldmodels.com/merchantmanager/index.php?cPath=39

A few other lines rostered the 36-foot Fowler/Dominion design box car. The NKP absorbed a batch when it bought up the Toledo, St Louis & Western. I also found this Wabash car that seems similar. Can anyone confirm that this followed the Fowler/Dominion design?
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/acfx/wab75699asw.jpg
snip<

Eric,

I have never compared the Wabash cars to the Fowler/Dominion design
to see how close they are. The Wabash purchased a total of 3200 cars from AC&F and Haskell and Barker in 1912, and AC&F in 1916-17. The cars were listed with a 36'- 5 5/8" IL, 8'- 6" IW, and 8' - 0" IH.
They had 6' door openings. They had wood ends, although some of the later cars had steel corrugated ends. Cars were numbered in the 75000 -78199 series. All of the cars were removed from revenue service by the late 1930's, although many were used in company service for several years. A few lasted into the 1950's as part of the company supply train.

Chet French
Dixon IL

--- In STMFC@..., "Dave Evans" <devans1@...> wrote:

List,

There may be cause for optimism. The TRL site shows three cars - a stock and two different box cars. The painted CP model has a steel door that is clearly narrower than the panels - so a 5' door. The undecorated model has a wood door (vertical boards), that is clearly wider than the adjacent panels - likely a 6 foot door.

Any of the Canadian experts care to comment on the width of the boards on that wood door? They appear to be the same width as the side sheathing, which would make them 5-1/4" wide. The ARA did have a standard section 5-1/4" wide T&G car siding, but it was milled with an extra V grove in the middle of the board, so gave the appearance of 2-5/8" wide boards. Train Miniature missed this point about forty years ago, as have others since. Did the Canadian roads really use a non standard car siding, or has TLT misinterpreted the drawing call out that says the doors are 5-1/4" T&G?

Dennis

--- In STMFC@..., "Don" <riverman_vt@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., "Eric" <eric@> wrote:

This view looks north:
http://www.hansmanns.org/images/canton_industry_1.JPG

...what REALLY interests me in the photo is the car door seemingly sealed with some sort of heavy paper. Presumedly this was to keep the lading as clean as possible but other than newsprint what might the lading have been???? I have seen examples of this use of what I presume was a heavy paper for years but never in a photo good enough to post and raise question about. Thus the value of this one to me. In all the carloading manuals I have looked at, or have
acquired, over the years not one bit of documentation of this practice has been found. Blocking for pipes, tractors and such I have plenty of but not doors sealed with paper in this fashion. What do we
(collectively) really know about the practice.

I would have mentioned flour, either bulk or bagged, but since it's been pointed out that the car is at a brewery, most likely malted grain.

Dennis

I am wondering whether anyone has come up with a good approach to removing the unprototypical roof protrusion under the running board laterals without damaging the running boards? Then, I assume some flat brass strips can be supplied.

Thanks,
Steve Hile

Not to mention the livestock quarantining requirements in that time period.

Rich Orr

Don, wasn't paper put around doors that like for loads like bulk flour? Ie
loads that could not be contaiminated.



Doug Harding

www.iowacentralrr.org

Tim O'Connor wrote:

You should watch the PBS show on Prohibition. Very interesting . . . I think imports from Canada probably increased significantly in this era, albeit not by box car...

Tim, you might like the detailed history book on Prohibition, "Last Call." It explains the dominant scam for those Canadian imports: waybill them as sealed freight cars or highway trucks for delivery in Mexico (thus getting them admitted to the U.S. "for transit only"), then "arranging" certificates of delivery in Mexico to hand over to the U.S. authorities--meanwhile the cargo could be delivered wherever desired. This continued until the late 1920s.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Hi Hugh,

Just a small, sad dash of reality to sprinkle on your optimism, unfortunately...and I'm sure others on this group can share similar horror stories, too;

Having Technical and/or Modeling Committees is a definite benefit compared to the alternative, but..

Not all manufacturers or publishers make use of such committees and even more frustrating is the case when manufacturers and publishers sometimes make use of the Committees; Con-Cor is doing an admirable job working with the NHRHTA Tech Committee (and others) to develop an HO scale model of the "Comet", but at the same time they are releasing a non-trolley-pole equipped PCC trolley in a New Haven paint scheme worn only by a group of Mack railbusses...go figger! Several Morning Sun books published on the New Haven (not only those authored by the late Dave Sweetland) were in conjunction with caption review by members of NHRHTA but we are all scratching our heads over the two most recent "Facilities" books which had no review and the errata list is long indeed...

To bring this all back on topic, at the moment I am eagerly awaiting the IM release of the 10' IH post-war boxcars which will first be released in the NYC Pacemaker scheme with a subsequent planned New Haven release; I believe the NYC cars had riveted 3/4 IDE's like the New Haven but I am less certain about the roof type (Hutchins - rectrangular panel), handbrake (Universal), trucks (some "Bettendorf" some ASF A-3) and running boards (Apex Tri-Lok). IM did work with NHRHTA on the artwork but I am unaware they worked with anyone on the car itself.

In summary, historical groups' committees can set the bar as as they like but it is still dependent on manufacturers' and publishers to decide to make use of these groups. To my knowledge, almost every time a Technical or Modeling Committee has been involved the product has been of very good quality. One exception to the rule was the True Line Trains F-M CPA 24-5...I believe several Tech Committess were involved but the manufacturer made compromises from their business perspective depsite the cooperation. It happens, but to their credit, TLT did not tout the product as "approved" by any historical group when it was launched.

Regards,
Peter Ness