Civil Engrg Wife,



I had bookcases on the second floor filled with books and 3-ring binders of photos that found a loadpath to floor-joist in the basement to crack it at a knot on tension-side.  Our f irst floor door-opening went paralleling to one side.  Had to jack-up the basement beam and sandwich in two good 2 x 12s on both sides of the cracked one.  I was then forced to also distribute my books (my wife had another name for my railroad- stuff) to multiple rooms.



True story . . . Al Kresse

http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/instruc.htm


About 2/3 down on the page, there are links to assembly instructions for the various Kadee cars.  I had bought a L&N PS-1 and needed to switch it out to scale couplers.  The pages were very useful.  The cars can be a Rubik's Cube when putting back together.

Aaron

Don Valentine wrote:
"I do know that with so many books behind me in the bookcases that my wife, with a Master's in Civil Engineering, worries about the weight of them on the floor, and many photos in file cabinets elsewhere here, that I have seen very few photos of
N&W, Virginian or C&O hoppers in Maine, New Hampshire of Vermont.
In fact I cannot recall a single one of a C&O hopper though a very few
N&W and a few more
Virginian hoppers have been noted."
 
Of 1,251 cars in the data that I've pulled from Armand's collection, there are 5 N&W, zero VGN, and 3 C&O hoppers.
 
"On both the Rutland and the Central Vermont the most common hoppers seem to have always been B&O hoppers, at least in the late 1940's. To a lesser extent this seems to be true of the B&M as well. In the case of the CV in particular, I believe the coal used by the CV's steam power arrived in B&O hoppers for some years, having several photos of B&O hoppers being unloaded as CV coal tipples in St. Albans, White River Junction and Palmer. Pennsy hoppers certainly were present, both twins and quads, as were NYC, D&H, Reading and Lackawanna."
 
276 B&O
272 PRR
213 Total NYCS (123 NYC, 53 P&LE, 36 PMcK&Y, 1 B&A)
47 D&H
53 RDG
14 D&LW
 
 
"Less commonly seen were CNJ or CRP and very few LV, L&NE or other coal haulers."
 
4 CNJ
9 CRP
35 LV
9 LNE
 
"Some years ago, when I began to realize what the B&M, MEC, BAR and even Rutland and CV hoppers were
actually used for, and began paying more attention to them, it became clear that home road hoppers
were usually the most prevalent."
 
Surprisingly from these Rutland data, just barely: 163 Rutland hoppers and 117 Rutland hopper-bottom gons and side dump gons, giving a total of 280 cars - on par with the B&O and Pennsy.
 
One interesting outlier: 39 cars from the Montour.  Elden Gatwood theorizes that this indicates that the Rutland was buying company coal from the Pittsburgh area, which is supported by the large number of B&O, PRR, NYC, P&LE, and PMcK&Y cars.
 
The huge number of B&O and NYC cars makes modeling problematic - while "standard" cars (ex: USRA HM, AAR Offset twins and triples) have long been available for these roads, they actually make up a relatively small portion of these fleets, and there are many common car classes for both these roads that are simply not available (ex: B&O Class N-12 and subclasses, NYC "non-standard" offset twins).
 
 
Ben Hom

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Years ago when they first came out I purchased several 40-ft.
undecorated InterMountain PS-1's each one destined for a specific
model and one 50-footer to be done as a Southern model. At some point
Des Plaines did the Black & Silver Central of Georgia 50-ft. car
which at the time I knew I would have to work on it since it was for
a car built in 1956 and I needed the 1954 delivery. At the recent
NMRA Convention in Atlanta I attended Todd Horton's very fine clinic
of CofG boxcars that featured their 50-footers and then purchased
several in-service photos of the 1954 cars at the CofG booth. Thus
inspired I took out the painted kit box to see what was ahead of me
beyond having to change the car number, which I was now better
prepared to do since I has also purchased a Microscale set of CofG
covered hopper decals that had the proper black numbers at the CofG
booth. I knew I was going to have to change the sill as the CofG
examples had a tabbed sill rather than the continuous sill on the
InterMountain molding. I wondered if the old Robin's Rails molding
had the tabbed sill or maybe the Kadee version. If so, I thought I
might prevail upon someone in this group to do a tracing so that I
could create a template to do the cutting. While looking at the Kadee
site I saw that they had offered the CofG version with the correct
sill profile, although again in the 1956 version.

The various Kadee releases were long sold out but they have a data
base for finding dealers with their releases and I found a dealer
that had two in stock. As I contemplated all of the work required on
the sill of the InterMountain model sanity set in and I ordered the
Kadee version. To be clear the model I will have will never achieve
exactly the 1954 CofG version since it had 8 panels on each side of
the door which is why Kadee will never do this group. But by painting
the black roof with a galvanized looking paint mix and changing or
painting the running board too, along the number change and altering
the reweigh and lub data, I will be pretty close. I am also going to
re-detail the u/f as I don't like the look of the rods and the brake
components look undersized to me.

I know the Kadee models snap together. Is the underframe attached by
any of the screws or is it snapped into place. I assume I can gently
pry off the running board system. What about the supports at the
ends. Do they fit into small holes. Any tips for disassembling will
be helpful as the Kadee cars are totally new to me. Thank you!
Bill Welch
2225 Nursery Road; #20-104
Clearwater, FL 33764-7622
727.470.9930
fgexbill@...

A word to all. Don't forget the Archive for things like this. Type in "chameleon" and you will find various messages including my 115284 about how I ruined two UP Resin models using it.

Bill Welch

A word of caution on testing strippers - I bodged a paint job on a Smoky Mountain Model Works Tennessee Central box car. Into the Chameleon it went...the body casting had no issues but the resin doors and running board curled up into little resin blobs. Colorful language ensued.

Craig Zeni
"Bother..." said Pooh as he chambered another round.

Now we're getting somewhere, as we enter the realm of "even more statistically insignificant." Good term, Armand.

Tony Thompson

On Sep 2, 2013, at 4:00 AM, "Armand Premo" <armprem2@...> wrote:

Gentlemen,Remember this data is from just one train.There are some other very surprising anomalies that would be even more statistically insignificant.Enough to generate a touch of realism for those Doubting Thomas's.Armand Premo
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim O'Connor
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2013 12:33 AM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: New InterMountain C&O hopper

Ben, it would be nice to know the DEC/JAN/FEB data -- coal
in small volumes is most likely to be consumed for heating
in the winter, and the only N&W cars listed here are in March
and October, which are colder months in Vermont -- but not the
coldest months! :-)

I assume this is all hopper car data we're looking at? If so,
what could have caused that burst of hopper cars in July?

Tim O'

Here's some more data pulled from shifting lists from Armand' collection for 1950:

Month/ # of days/ # of cars/ # of N&W hoppers

Mar 1950 7/ 62/ 1 (N&W 80753)
May 1950 1/ 3/ 0
June 1950 3/ 18/ 0
July 1950 22/ 143/ 0
Sept 1950 3/ 10/ 0
Oct 1950 18/ 181/ 2 (N&W 4867, 70839)
Nov 1950 28/ 244/ 0

Admittedly, a limited sample size (it's like looking through a straw); however, 3 cars
out of 661 is decimal dust.

Ben Hom

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&nbsp;TESTING the font and formatting tools...

&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; 7-54&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 4-55&nbsp;&nbsp; 10-55&nbsp;&nbsp; 10-56&nbsp; 10-60
--------------------------------------------------- DT&amp;I 17000-17999&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 686&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 607&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 302&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 198&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 66
FtDDM&amp;S
11000-10066&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ...&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ...&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ...&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; 50&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 66

Folks,



I seem to remember a regular summer mine shut down for vacations which resulted in vast coal stockpiling as  a buffer.  Coal would be piled up i n the yards to keep their locomotives and car ferries  running, etc.  The C&O would even use the ballast hopper cars to move coal prior to the shut downs.  The trick would be to get the open-top cars sitting at the user end still full back to fill up the slack.



Al Kresse

Could one then assume that the major players would be the B&O,Pennsy,and NYC?Armand Premo

--- In STMFC@..., Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:

Ben, it would be nice to know the DEC/JAN/FEB data -- coal
in small volumes is most likely to be consumed for heating
in the winter, and the only N&W cars listed here are in March
and October, which are colder months in Vermont -- but not the
coldest months! :-)

I assume this is all hopper car data we're looking at? If so,
what could have caused that burst of hopper cars in July?

Tim O'



Here's some more data pulled from shifting lists from Armand' collection for 1950:

Month/ # of days/ # of cars/ # of N&W hoppers

Mar 1950 7/ 62/ 1 (N&W 80753)
May 1950 1/ 3/ 0
June 1950 3/ 18/ 0
July 1950 22/ 143/ 0
Sept 1950 3/ 10/ 0
Oct 1950 18/ 181/ 2 (N&W 4867, 70839)
Nov 1950 28/ 244/ 0

Admittedly, a limited sample size (it's like looking through a straw); however, 3 cars
out of 661 is decimal dust.

Ben Hom

To me this has all been very interesting even if it will not justify the inclusion of more than one or two of the expected InterMountain C&O hoppers on my car roster. Thus the comments of Ben, Mike, Tim, Jerry and Armand are all appreciated, as is the fact that I had fogotten that Armand had shared his wheel reports with the folks at RPI some years ago. As the old expression goes, "there is a prototype for everything" but I like to keep it within the realm of what could reasonably be expected even if Mike sometimes disagrees with me on that score. I do know that with so many books behind me in the bookcases that my wife, with a Master's in Civil Engineering, worries about the weight of them on the floor, and many photos in file cabinets elsewere here, that I have seen very few photos of
N&W, Virginian or C&O hoppers in Maine, New Hampshire of Vermont.
In fact I cannot recall a single one of a C&O hopper though a very few
N&W and a few more Virginian hoppers have been noted. On both the Rutland and the Central Vermont the most common hoppers seem to have always been B&O hoppers, at least in the late 1940's. To a lesser extent this seems to be true of the B&M as well. In the case of the CV in particular, I believe the coal used by the CV's steam power arrived in B&O hoppers for some years, having several photos of B&O hoppers being unloaded as CV coal tipples in St. Albans, White River Junction and Palmer. Pennsy hoppers certainly were present, both twins and quads, as were NYC, D&H, Reading and Lackawanna. Less commonly seen were CNJ or CRP and very few LV, L&NE or other coal haulers. some years ago, when I began to realize what the B&M, MEC, BAR and even Rutland and CV hoppers were actually used for, and began paying more attention to them, it became clear that home road hoppers
were usually the most prevalent. Indeed, Armand has shared many stories over the years of the Rutland dropping coal from foreign road hoppers into home road hoppers and antiquated hopper bottom gons on a trestle formerly located only a mile of so from his home.

The Northwestern Vermont Model R.R. Society offered custom decorated Accurail twin hoppers to satisfy the need for Central Vermont hoppers in HO scale a few years ago and NERS did the same with the B&M offset panel series of twin hoppers some years ago when it was found that the Athearn offset side hopper was so close that even the rivet count was nearly a match. Others have used the Athearn
quad hopper for the B&M's #8000 series quads and all are very close.
I believe all of these are still available from diffferent sources.
The Accurail USRA twin hopper is available lettered for the Rutland, as is a Bowser twin hopper. These two are not quite so close but can certainly be altered a bit to become more so. Thus our primary needs in modeling the roads in Northern New England (That's just southeast and east of Montreal, Canada, eh Mike! And well northeast of Neu Yawk as well!) have been served in that manner.

Thanks to all for an interesting discussion, Don Valentine

Guys,
E-mailed Clare Gilbert at Sylvan and he tells me that he uses their
Resin Prep cleaner for cleaning and stripping pint. Claims to have used it on
various brands without a hitch.
Chuck Hladik

Tim O'Connor wrote:
"...it would be nice to know the DEC/JAN/FEB data -- coal
in small volumes is most likely to be consumed for heating
in the winter, and the only N&W cars listed here are in March
and October, which are colder months in Vermont -- but not the
coldest months! :-)

I assume this is all hopper car data we're looking at? If so,
what could have caused that burst of hopper cars in July?"
 
It would be nice to know the data, but unfortunately, this is all I've got.  (Hence my comment about looking at this through a straw.)  This is indeed all hopper car data - as for the "burst" in hoppers in July, look again at the number of days covered.  The "burst" is simply more data points.
 
 
Ben Hom 

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Gentlemen,Remember this data is from just one train.There are some other very surprising anomalies that would be even more statistically insignificant.Enough to generate a touch of realism for those Doubting Thomas's.Armand Premo

And then there is Sherman Hill.<VBG>Armand Premo

Tim, How do you download photos in the new format?

It's quite horrible --

1. Find the album that you want to see
2. Choose the photo order (I use Latest First)
3. Click on the photo

Here's where it gets fun

4. In FIREFOX, which I use, open the Tools pull down tab
5. Click on Page Info
6. In the popup, click on Media
7. Scroll down the list of URL's for graphic images on the page -- there will be MANY!!

If you click on any URL link the Media Preview shows you the image.
Yahoo uses a naming style that gives you a clue -- I am looking at the
Jim Kinkaid collection on MFCL, and he names the picture files with the
reporting marks of the freight car. Here are the URL's for CGW 7102 --
note that the /tn/ name means "thumbnail" and /or/ means "original".

http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/195297/tn/529263233/name/CGW+7102.jpg
http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/195297/or/529263233/name/CGW+7102.jpg

( Note that the above URL's may not work for you as you read this email.
I do not know how permanent or long-lived individual URL's are in Yahoo.)

8. When you have found the image you want, the Page Info popup has a "Save As" button.
Click that button while the image is in the Media Preview pane, and you can save it
as a file on your hard drive.
9. Close the Page Info popup.
10. Hit the Back button to take you back to the album to select the next photo.

Now, wasn't that fun and easy? Mr. Kinkaid loaded over 3,000 freight car images
in the MFCL photos area, and I have to repeat Steps 3 through 10 for EVERY ONE
of them.

Tim O'Connor

Ben, it would be nice to know the DEC/JAN/FEB data -- coal
in small volumes is most likely to be consumed for heating
in the winter, and the only N&W cars listed here are in March
and October, which are colder months in Vermont -- but not the
coldest months! :-)

I assume this is all hopper car data we're looking at? If so,
what could have caused that burst of hopper cars in July?

Tim O'



Here's some more data pulled from shifting lists from Armand' collection for 1950:

Month/ # of days/ # of cars/ # of N&W hoppers

Mar 1950 7/ 62/ 1 (N&W 80753)
May 1950 1/ 3/ 0
June 1950 3/ 18/ 0
July 1950 22/ 143/ 0
Sept 1950 3/ 10/ 0
Oct 1950 18/ 181/ 2 (N&W 4867, 70839)
Nov 1950 28/ 244/ 0

Admittedly, a limited sample size (it's like looking through a straw); however, 3 cars
out of 661 is decimal dust.

Ben Hom

Tim O'Connor writes:

"However, if I understand Mike's unusually
obfuscated argument,"

Odd, I thought it was rather clear. And, I'm not arguing anything. Just reporting on something Richard Prince argued.

"...these cars could have been routed via Maryland
(Hagerstown etc) or Washington D.C. -OR- they could have been
routed "west" through interchanges that resulted in the cars
travelling along either side of the Ohio River into PA and NY."

They might even have been routed through Memphis for all I know.

"So I'm guessing Mike does allow for a small number of N&W cars to bring
coal directly to New England states."

Actually, Mike doesn't allow much of anything except possibly that when all this happened [ 1948 ] Mike was MUCH more interested in Sharon East than N&W hopper cars. Richard Prince, however, had, I guess, never heard of Sharon so I can understand his interest in N&W coal traffic.

"Three hoppers in 30 days is one
hopper every 10 days -- worthy of modeling IMO if your operations
can accomodate regularly irregular visitors."

And, to be sure, I don't care if a modeler uses nothing but N&W hoppers painted blue. My reason for replying was to inform those interested that N&W coal traffic was NOT simply that to New England [ wherever that is ] and tide water [ Norfolk ]. Incidentally, there are some nice photos of complete trains of N&W hoppers being pulled by Santa Fe 2-10-4's on the Pennsy and trains of N&W hoppers being pulled by NYC diesels. Both of these were northbound to the Great Lakes.

Mike Brock

Armand Premo wrote:
"For the record Mike, of 249 hoppers on Rutland train #9 in December of 1950 there were actually three N&W hoppers. All were triples."
Tim O'Connor replied:
"Three hoppers in 30 days is one
hopper every 10 days -- worthy of modeling IMO if your operations
can accomodate regularly irregular visitors."
 
Here's some more data pulled from shifting lists from Armand' collection for 1950:
 
Month/# of days/# of cars/# of N&W hoppers
March 1950/7/62/1 (N&W 80753)
May 1950/1/3/0
June 1950/3/18/0
July 1950/22/143/0
September 1950/3/10/0
October 1950/18/181/2 (N&W 4867, 70839)
November 1950/28/244/0
 
Admittedly, a limited sample size (it's like looking through a straw); however, 3 cars out of 661 is decimal dust.
 
 
Ben Hom

A strong caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) solution will work very
efficiently on enamels. It is safe on many/most resins and plastics, but
ensure that the solution is cool before you dunk the model as mixing the
soda and water gives off a lot of heat.

Not knowing which resin Sylvan are using I would suggest dunking a scrap
section in the solution before risking the whole model.

Aidrian

Beer has no effect on concrete, but unless the concrete is specially
treated the taste of the beer could be affected. (Military Engineering Vol
XIV, Concrete, WO Code No 8626, 1952.)