On Sep 21, 2005, at 2:30 PM, Gatwood, Elden wrote:

.... does anyone have either the outside dimensions to one of the Type
30 GATC cars, or alternatively be willing to measure one of the WA Drake
cars to see what the frame length, tank length, tank diameter, and dome
diameter are?

Except for dome diameter, these dimensions are given in the 1931 and 1937 Car Builders' Cyclopedias: U/F length 36'8-1/2", width 9'3", 8K gal. tank 78" ID X 31'3-1/4" IL, 10K gal. tank 87-1/2" ID X 30'9-1/4" IL. FWIW, tank dimensions were identical with AC&F Type 27 and U/F dimensions were quite close.

Richard Hendrickson

Tim O'C. wrote:

Larry, the F&C War Emergency gons are still available, and the steel-side
rebuilds are good for SP (and probably Wabash as well). I've seen many
photos of the ex-T&NO cars all over the SP well into the 1970's... They
were a major car group on the SP in the 50's and 60's. Some lost their
wood sheathing and were used as log gondolas.

The steel-siding came during 1959-1961 and was only done to about half the cars. Some lost sheathing to be pipe gons, originally (for more on both points, see my Vol. 1).

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@signaturepress.com
Publishers of books on railroad history

Tom, I do not remember what exactly is wrong with the Sunshine under frame, but it is substantially wrong, as best I recall. I haven't done one of these in awhile, but the simplest thing to do is to cut the floor out of a Proto 2000 undec. Mather stock or box car kit and use it along with the under frame piece. It is my understanding that they are correct. I also use the roof and roof walk out of the donor as they are far superior to the resin pieces. These changes turn these early Sunshine kits into pretty nice models. I still have not figured out a really good material and a good way to add the "legs" to the reinforcing channels on the sides. In my opinion, these channel legs not being part of the side castings is the real shortcoming of these kits. I hope you are doing one of the "tall" cars that can't be done with the LL kit.
Paul Lyons
Laguna Niguel, CA

Another vote for the Wine car!!!

Before someone makes a 6-dome wine car will someone PLEASE make a GATC

ICC-103
single-compartment 8,000 or 10,000 gal. uninsulated car???? PLEASE?????

Pat Wider

SECONDED!

BTW, does anyone have either the outside dimensions to one of the Type
30 GATC cars, or alternatively be willing to measure one of the WA Drake
cars to see what the frame length, tank length, tank diameter, and dome
diameter are?

Thanks!

Elden Gatwood





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Pat Wider wrote:

If I have a car who's tare weight is 50,000 lb. and I load
it with 100 lb. of pillow feathers, I'm hauling 50,100 lb. If I have a car with a tare weight
of 45,000 lb., the same shipment would require hauling 45,100 lb. over the road. 100 lb.
would be well under the load limit of the car. But with a 100-car train of pillow feathers, I
would need less helpers going up Sherman Hill with the lighter cars or I could run maybe a
110-car train of pillow feathers using the same amount of helpers hauling the lighter cars.

Sure, as I said, Pat, the operating guys bought into this. Some did say, as you can read in Railway Age, that rolling resistance was not a strong enough function of weight to make it worth saving a few hundred pounds. The real point was, how did you achieve the saving? and what did it cost?

Also, most of the RME and RA articles on new car designs usually specified the light weight
to cubic capacity ratio of the freight cars. . . It seems the railway mechanical engineers of the
time thought that lighter was better.

Sure, everything else being equal. The question which isn't so easy is, what if lighter is achieved by using a material that corrodes easier? or is thinner and requires extra posts in construction? The mere fact that the burst of "lightweight" box cars after WW II soon died out ought to tell you something. OTOH, of course everyone bought into welded underframes, which save a bunch of weight. I simply dispute the notion that everything to save weight was good.

By the way, ads often state the obvious - Wonder Bras do wonderful things!!!!

No argument, but they also may state unessential things; and they certainly often state things they wish you would believe.

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@signaturepress.com
Publishers of books on railroad history

I recall seeing multiple compartment wine car in Pennsylvania during the
1940s. Don't recall reporting marks, etc. but the stuff was rebottled as "Virgina
Dare" by the Brrokside distilling Co.

Chuck Y
Boulder CO

Guyz,

In this topic, does anyone recall a soon to be finished book on FGE, that was explained as being the size & scope of the PFE research volume by Thompson, Church, and Jones??

Fred Freitas

Larry, the F&C War Emergency gons are still available, and the steel-side
rebuilds are good for SP (and probably Wabash as well). I've seen many
photos of the ex-T&NO cars all over the SP well into the 1970's... They
were a major car group on the SP in the 50's and 60's. Some lost their
wood sheathing and were used as log gondolas.

Tim O.

Pat, depending on how many you need, Red Caboose imported brass
8,000 GATC ICC-103 tank cars a few years ago. I heard a rumor that
these were going to be produced in either plastic or resin... They fetch
about $100 on Ebay when they show up; very nice little models.

Tim O'Connor

Pat, although the physics of moving freight cars is real and had real
operational consequences (e.g. more fuel, more power) I don't think
the Return On Investment for lighter cars was ever as compelling as
say, increased car capacity, or roller bearings, or cushion underframes,
and so on. So while railroads dabbled in lighter car designs I think the
primary focus was on overall operating cost reduction. Nowadays (if I
may be permitted) considerable sums have been spent on lighter coal
cars, but it has to be pointed out that due to wind resistance, empty
coal cars going back to Wyoming require almost as much power & fuel
as the loaded coal cars! Railroads once again have discovered that
greater capacity (to 286,000 lbs) has a faster payoff than worrying
about fine-tuning the tare-to-weight ratio.

Tim O'Connor

Marcelo, Rule #1: Don't produce limited-run resin/brass kits for cars
that are eventually going to be produced in plastic. There are hundreds
(thousands?) of cars which might sell just a few hundred copies. Any
list would include mechanical reefers (esp a 40 footer), oddball gondolas,
the Utah Coal Route gondolas :-) , small tank cars (PLEASE), and so on.
If you're all set on a hopper car, how about the 3-bay War Emergency
cars? I believe a nice set of drawings exists from a magazine article...
Alternatively, one of the varieties of 4-bay offset hoppers.

Tim O'Connor

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Miller" <atsf@i...> wrote:

Which do you think would sell more: the GA-Pfaulder milk

car, or a 6-dome wine tank car?<
I'll vote for the wine car. Not sure how many paint schemes could be
had however! But the Easterners just love the milk cars<VBG>.

Jon Miller
AT&SF
For me time has stopped in 1941
Digitrax, Chief/Zephyr systems, JMRI user
NMRA Life member #2623
Member SFRH&MS

Before someone makes a 6-dome wine car will someone PLEASE make a GATC ICC-103
single-compartment 8,000 or 10,000 gal. uninsulated car???? PLEASE?????

Pat Wider

Tim,

I was going to say the same thing but Richard beat me to it... 3^) Just save your pennies...

Greg Martin

Larry Jackman asked:
"Can any one tell me about Rensselaer resin Gondola kits?"

During the early 1990s, the Rensselaer Model Railroad Society
established a small hobby shop operation to raise funds for the
club. As part of this venture, the club commissioned Funaro and
Camerlengo to produce a series of exclusive HO scale resin freight
car kits. Many of these kits are still available in Funaro's line.
The gon kits are as follows (Funaro stock number and link provided if
kit is still available):

NGD-F001 Rutland 36 Foot Composite Gon
[Funaro 6480]
http://www.fandckits.com/Images/6480Large.html

NGD-F005 Maine Central "low side" Gon
[Funaro 6330-6331]
http://www.fandckits.com/Images/6330Large.html

NGD-F015 Rutland Drop Bottom Gon
NGD-F016 Rutland Drop Bottom Gon, Distressed
[Funaro 6220-6222]
http://www.fandckits.com/Images/6220Large.html

NGD-F024 Wabash 40 Foot War Emergency Gon
[Funaro 6260]
http://www.fandckits.com/Images/6260Large.html

NGD-F025 ACL 40 Foot War Emergency gon
[Funaro 6261]

NGD-F026 ACL 40 Foot War Emergency gon, steel sides
[Funaro 6262]
http://www.fandckits.com/Images/6262Large.html

NGD-F027 40 Foot War Emergency gon, less decals

NGD-F031 CP "Big Otis" 1923 hopper-bottom gon
[Funaro 6280]
http://www.fandckits.com/Images/6280Large.html


Ben Hom

raildata@aol.com wrote:

I recall seeing multiple compartment wine car in Pennsylvania during the
1940s. Don't recall reporting marks, etc. but the stuff was rebottled as "Virgina
Dare" by the Brrokside distilling Co.

Chuck Y
Boulder CO

I have found out that a former customer of "my shortline", Vermont's Barre & Chelsea,
was also involved in a similar kind of activity: Calmont Beverage Co. in Barre, VT
started importing wine from California in 1941 and bottled it in Vermont. They
obviously were the first company to do so in Vermont.

The company website (www.calmontbeverage.com/index.htm) states: "... came up with the
idea to bring barreled wine to Vermont, via rail, and bottle it here under the
Calmont brand name (a contraction of California/Vermont)." Would wine have been sent
in barrels in reefers or would it have been transported in tank cars?

In the "Barre & Chelsea Industrial Guide" issued in August 1953 Calmont Beverage is
listed as having a B&C spur track and the main commodity received was "malt
beverages" (i.e. beer). Could this be an indication that (bulk) wine transport had
stopped by that date? Or was it just an indication of more important beer traffic?

In the past we had been discussing grape shipments to Barre, VT for DIY wine making.
When would these shipments have ended, when the bulk shipment of wine to Vermont
started in 1941? Or did wine (and grappa!) making in Vermont communities with a high
percentage of Italians (like South Ryegate) continue after that date?

Getting thirsty from this topic...

Andreas Kuehnpast

Tony,

Thanks, there was a Hobby Shop in Bell, California
called Jiggs and Robbie's You Make It Hobbies. I
remember going there when I started in the hobby some
years ago (it is long gone now) and that is where i
saw the metal 6-Dome Roma Wine car. I hope that
somene will make a good replica in plastic. I will
buy...

Jim Scott
Lompoc, CA.

--- Anthony Thompson <thompson@signaturepress.com>
wrote:

Jim Scott wrote:

I agree that the 6-Dome wine car would sell very

well.

If I remember correctly, wasn't there a Roma Wine
6-Dome car made in the 60s or 70s that was metal.

i

always wanted one of them but never got around to
buying one.

Jim, you must be thinking of the Thomas HO
car of the 1950s, a
dimensionally accurate model which can occasionally
be found at swap
meets. The AHM abomination unfortunately makes many
modelers think they
already have a wine car, but to an extent which
makes Athearn tank cars
look modest, it is "inflated" with air pressure or
something to almost
double its correct diameter and dome size. AFAIK, it
does not resemble
ANY prototype car, not even close.

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@signaturepress.com
Publishers of books on railroad history

test'; ">




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On Sep 21, 2005, at 10:18 AM, timboconnor@comcast.net wrote:

Let me predict that -someone- is working on a B&O Wagontop in
plastic. How could they not be? :-) The question remains, will anyone
ever wake up and give us the AAR alternate standard offet hopper?

Yes to both.

Richard Hendrickson

Which do you think would sell more: the GA-Pfaulder milk

car, or a 6-dome wine tank car?<
I'll vote for the wine car. Not sure how many paint schemes could be
had however! But the Easterners just love the milk cars<VBG>.

Jon Miller
AT&SF
For me time has stopped in 1941
Digitrax, Chief/Zephyr systems, JMRI user
NMRA Life member #2623
Member SFRH&MS

Tim,
Where can I find the drawings for the AAR alternate standard offset hopper? I want to produce a serie of 200 exact to scale cars ( mix of resin and photoetching and brass castings ) and could start with this hopper or the 6-dome wine car or any other car that you guys could help to choose.
Marcelo Lordeiro
MR Custom service
www.mrcustom.com.br