Just the other day a friend mentioned to me that the Walthers model has more of a rounded "casting" look which is appropriate for the GSC, compared to Tichy's. When they were new I took a look at both and thought the two products had been mixed up... Walthers seemed to get it right!
In the not-too-distant future I plan to do a Walthers as an Atlantic Coast Line car, with Dennis Blake's help.
Scott Pitzer

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Schuyler G Larrabee" <SGL2@i...> wrote:

Try finding someone to do that job today!

SGL
----- Original Message -----
From: "almabranch" <harper-brown@j...>
To: <STMFC@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2003 8:55 PM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Coal Docks and Coal Cars

On Santa Fe's Alma District in eastern Kansas the coaling tower
consisted of a gondola parked next to the tender on an adjacent
track. The engine watchman spent much of his evening shoveling

coal

from the gondola into the tender.

Jared Harper

Some one is still loading coal into bags. On a recent trip to

Ireland I saw a flat bed semi loaded with 40 lbs. bags of Polish coal.
Bob Weston

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In a message dated 5/26/2003 4:13:27 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
djmiller@bucknell.edu writes:

I've found that there is a very poor fit between

the slope sheets and sides and the slope sheets around the center
beam that runs down the center of the car. These are not just thin
spaces that could be filled easily with shims of styrene- in several
cases there are noticeable gaps of as much as 1/16". Even if I did
fill the gaps with styrene, the cars are wood, and it might look odd
to have smooth styrene filling spaces between wood components. <<

Other than the easy option, which is to model the cars loaded then you will
have to shim the slope sheets. Don't worry too much about the discontinuity in
the surface finish on the underside of the slope sheets since this is
invisible with the car on its wheels it's about the darkest area of the car and well
inside the side panels -- you'd need a dentist's mirror and lamp to see what
was going on down there. On the insides you can simply sand the joint clean
before scribing the lines

Also, what's a good way simulate wood inside

these cars?  <<

For the insides I simply score the castings to simulate the planks - the wood
effect is easier to achieve with paint rather than by trying to engrave grain
in the castings

If you really want wood grain then work a piece of fairly rough (say 120)
wet-and-dry gently along the length of each plank in turn. To be honest the
effect on the outside is generally rather overdone in my view and a smooth surface
with the odd split or gouge showing is more in keeping.

Aidrian Bridgeman-Sutton
Willows, CA




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

Don Valentine stated:

Neat little road, the M&StL. Sort of like a granger Rutland.

But what

other than possibly a boxcar of grain can be used to justify a M&StL

car in

northern New England in the late 1940's?

Todd Horton replied:

This would depend on how much on line industry the M&StL had. Assuming
that
since they were building the flat cars there likely was some customer
that used
these cars for shipping.

In the late 1940's, well over 95% of the loads in M&SL boxcars were
originated on foreign roads. If those boxcars were inbound to Northern
New England, the overwhelming majority (95%) were loaded on roads other
than the M&SL. When unloaded in Northern New England, a hefty percentage
of these M&SL boxcars were reloaded by the Northern New England roads to
points throughout the US & Canada. If no reloads were available in
Northern New England which necessitated an empty movement towards the
M&SL, it was quite likely that the boxcar would be reloaded before it
reached the M&SL - such was the demand for boxcars in a boxcar-short
era.

There was a similar shortage for General Service Flat Cars which meant
that there is no reason to believe that the same "reloading processes"
of general service flats were any different than for boxcars.

Regarding my earlier estimate about the odds of a M&SL boxcar in
Northern New England, the one in 300-325 chance did not include
Canadian-owned boxcars. With Canadian boxcars included, the odds that a
M&SL boxcar was in Northern New England was about one to every 400-500
boxcar on Northern New England lines.

Tim Gilbert

Mont Switzer writes:

I RECALL AROUND 1960 MY DAD AND WENT TO CONSUMER'S COAL AND ICE (WHAT A NEAT
NAME FOR A TRACKSIDE BUSINESS) IN NEW CASTLE, IN...

Consumers must have been a chain. There are photos of Consumers
facilities all over the country. Anyone know more?

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 http://www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@signaturepress.com
Publishers of books on railroads and on Western history

There was, and is, a lot of manufacturing done in Iowa. Farm equipment as
well as consumer goods. Not just corn and hogs and, yes, sheep.

Don Lodge

Brian, please go to

http://sunny16.photo.tntech.edu/~richard/Freightcars/archive/search.ph
p3

and search on keywords GSC and FLAT. You will see 111 messages which
contain a wealth of information on GSC flat cars.

Also consult Jim Eager's study in the December 1992 Railmodel Journal.
Another study was in the March 1989 Model Railroading. If you want to
see some great photos, study pages 326-333 of the 1961 Car Builder's
Cyclopedia.

Tim O.

I should have clearly stated that I was attempting to do some weathering

with the airbrush using these paints.

Jim Brewer

Jim,

In that case try thinning with clear poly scale, or another way of thinking
of it is tint the clear coat. You may find that you have less problems
mixing it with the clear than with very high thinning ratios. I would still
thin it, as I thin everything, but just not so much that you have problems.

An added benefit is you will be spraying more paint so you will get better
adhesion. I found that when I sprayed highly thinned acrylics that when the
thinner evaporated all that was on the car was a light dusting (of course
this is the effect I wanted) but that light dusting just didn't bond to the
surface well. My understanding is that acrylics hold by forming a film and
essentially shrink wrapping the part. An incomplete film equals an
incomplete bond.

Ned
PS this is all theory let me know how it works <G>

Don Valentine stated:

Neat little road, the M&StL. Sort of like a granger Rutland. But
what
other than possibly a boxcar of grain can be used to justify a M&StL
car in
northern New England in the late 1940's?

About one in 300-325 were the odds overall for all commodities.

Tim Gilbert

Hello,

I'm trying to find information on California Dispatch Lines tankcar CDLX
222. I think the car was built by General American Tank Car in 5-29 or maybe
'28 but not sure. Would someone who has equipment register books from that
period look up and see when the car shows up and also when it drops off,
probably sometime in the mid 30's or so. I'm also looking for photos of
similar tank cars for CDL. This one was lettered on the side of the tank
near the top "CALIFORNIA" on the left side and "DISPATCH" on the right side
in about 12" tall letters with "SAN FRANCISCO" in smaller letters below
dispatch. In later years the car was sold to a petroleum company in Medford,
Oregon where it was painted silver with black lettering about 2' tall that
said "PETROLEUM" on the left side of tank and another name to the right
which might be "SUPPLY" or "SURPLUS" or something like that with smaller
lettering centered below that said "MEDFORD OREGON".

Also looking for general history of CDL, assuming it serviced the petroleum
industry.

Thanks for the help.

Richard

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Beckert, Shawn" <shawn.beckert@d...>
wrote: <snip>

In looking at the many photos of grain elevators at the society
web page, it appears that they were set up to load one boxcar or
hopper at a time. Was that really the case? <snip>

Thanks,

Shawn Beckert

Shawn and others,
It was certainly the case in the area of northern Iowa in which I
grew up. Box cars were loaded one at a time. As the grain hoppers
slowly came into use they, too, were loaded one at a time.

On related information in this thread, one must distinguish between
grain elevators for storage - usually temporarily until the price is
right to sell and ship - and feed mills which ground grain or rolled
oats and performed other operations for the local production of
livestock feed. My experience in northern Iowa was that these were
mutually exclusive enterprises most of the time.

Here in Franklin county, Iowa grain was stored in federal government
owned large quonset huts. Most of the grain stayed there until
rotten and then was removed. The storage facility in Hampton, Iowa
had no rail access.

Corn was stored on the cob in corn cribs here in Iowa when I was a
kid. Mostly this corn was intended as livestock feed but sometimes
farmers just held corn until a better price was available. When
delivering corn to the elevator the farmer usually shelled in a a
separate operation before hauling it to the elevator.

The "canning factories" in Hampton and Ackley were extremely busy for
the brief period when sweetcorn was ready for picking which occured
earlier than the field corn picking season. The corn was canned and
stored in cartons. As the canned corn was sold throughout the year
it was removed from the cartons, labeled, placed in new cartons and
shipped by rail in box cars. I can't recall any inbound loads to
canning factories but surely they must have received at least the
cans and cartons by rail in advance of canning season.

Gene Green

Quoting Gene Green <willibecher@juno.com>:

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Brian J Carlson" <brian@b...> wrote:

<snip> Which roads owned this flatcar?

Brian J Carlson
Cheektowaga NY

I'll kick off the "who had 'em" with the M&StL which had 15 assembled
in the Marshalltown shops by the RR in No. series 16201-16229, bright
red paint, white lettering, built April through July 1959, Ajax hand
brake, NSF steel deck the pattern of which was different that mere
wooden planking. Cut down the bulkheads one section. No known
decals.

Neat little road, the M&StL. Sort of like a granger Rutland. But what
other than possibly a boxcar of grain can be used to justify a M&StL car in
northern New England in the late 1940's?

Thanks, Don Valentine

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Brian J Carlson" <brian@b...> wrote:

<snip> Which roads owned this flatcar?

Brian J Carlson
Cheektowaga NY

I'll kick off the "who had 'em" with the M&StL which had 15 assembled
in the Marshalltown shops by the RR in No. series 16201-16229, bright
red paint, white lettering, built April through July 1959, Ajax hand
brake, NSF steel deck the pattern of which was different that mere
wooden planking. Cut down the bulkheads one section. No known
decals.

The MP and UP had a bunch. Can anyone supply original # series and
dates built?

Gene Green

I RECALL AROUND 1960 MY DAD AND WENT TO CONSUMER'S COAL AND ICE (WHAT A NEAT
NAME FOR A TRACKSIDE BUSINESS) IN NEW CASTLE, IN, TO BUY A BAG OF ICE. IT
WAS ABOUT 0500 ON A SATURDAY MORNING AND WERE TO GET THE ICE FOR OUR GROUP
HEADED TO THE INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY. CONSUMERS HAD SOME SORT OF
VENDING ARRANGEMENT BUILT INTO THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING CLOSE TO THE STREET.
DAD MANAGED TO GET HIS ONLY QUARTERS INTO THE WRONG SLOT AND WE ENDED UP
WITH A NICE BAG OF COAL! I LEARNED SOME NEW WORDS THAT MORNING AS WELL AS
THAT COAL COULD BE PURCHASED FROM A VENDING MACHINE AND THAT I CAME IN PAPER
BAGS STITCHED CLOSED AT THE TOP. I WISH I HAD LOOKED THE BAG OVER A LITTLE
BETTER. IF THE COAL WAS BAGGED THERE IT WOULD HAVE ARRIVED IN A HOPPER CAR.
IF BAGGED OFF SITE IT WOULD HAVE ARRIVED IN A BOX CAR. MONT SWITZER

Brian J Carlson wrote:

I was wondering how the Tichy GSC flatcar measures up to it's prototype.
The compromises of the Tichy USRA 2 bay hopper have been discussed on this
list before. ==========================================


Brian,

I do not know the extent of roads that used this car, but I have built a couple of these kits. I found the weight Tichy suggests and supplies is a problem with this kit. I built a car as per the instructions and found it sat too high. After major work on the bolsters, I was able to lower the car, but it still sat a bit too high. I noticed the weight Tichy supplies is too thick for the assembly. My second kit was done without the supplied weight, and all was well with the world. I glued lead shot to the underframe for the weight.

No brake gear comes with this kit, except for the brake wheel and staff. I bought pre-painted versions, which are a bit more difficult to render the appropriate color of the deck. I also replaced all the plastic grabs with wire parts.

Walthers makes a kit (HO scale) for ths same car. I do not have any experience with this offering, but I did notice separate wood deck pieces some reviews. These separate pieces seem to make it easier to color and weather the deck.

Eric Hansmann
Morgantown, W. Va.

Thanks to Ned and Jay for their replies. I should have clearly stated that I was attempting to do some weathering with the airbrush using these paints.

Jim Brewer
Glenwood MD

Quoting Clark Propst <cepropst@netconx.net>:

Jack,
I can't say for sure, but would assume it was in bulk. Although I
remember
hearing someone say they would go to the elevator (or lumber yard) for a
couple
bags of coal. I think it would have been put in bags for the customer by
the
dealer.

That's been my experience as well, Clark. The dealer would simply put
a 100 lb. grain sack on an old Fairbanks (no pun intended Jace!) scale,
shovel in the coal and tie it off when the 100 lb. maark was reached. Until
the 1970's it always came in by the carload.

Take care, Don Valentine

Quoting Clark Propst <cepropst@netconx.net>:

Jace,
Some of the box cars were reloaded with grain at Fairfax then were on
their way
again. .
Clark Propst

Hope they got a real good car cleaning first! This is the sort of thing
that makes one wonder what the effect of such use on overall business was.

Take care, Don Valentine

In a message dated 5/26/03 7:41:25 AM, willibecher@juno.com writes:

The MP and UP had a bunch. Can anyone supply original # series and
dates built?

Gene,
MP had 50 cars built 8-55 at their Desoto, Missouri, shops assigned to series
8200-8249. In 1959, 14 cars received bulkheads at Palestine, Texas, for use
in plasterboard service.
Regards,
Ed Hawkins