Group Members,

This whole discussion including manufacturers has been intriquing. My
personality is one that puts the locus of control on me, not just the
bad manufacturers. I, like many, have suffered because no one bothers
to get it "right". I choose to believe I am responsible for this and
am trying to do something about it. I can sit back and complain or
try to pry the imformation from others who have done the research or
do the research myself. Doing it myself is good, but is only worth a
flip if I publish it somehow and share it with others. Many of you
are doing this through this list and I say thanks. If you are not
sharing what you find with everyone in a free and caring way, you are
hurting us all and preventing the preservation of our heritage. Find
a publishing outlet and write up what you have discovered. If you
don't it all dies in the next few years. Again those thanks to those
you share their knowledge freely.

Regards,
Bruce D. Griffin

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "benjaminfrank_hom" <b.hom@w...> wrote:

John Huey wrote:
"Seriously, I probably have too many Eastern cars like, NYC and

Pennsy,

Denny Anspach wrote:

Mike Brock opines-

Very few USRA engines were NOT
modified by the late 40's early '50's time period. Hence, most USRA models
aren't really well suited to the serious prototype modeler...unless they
intend to bash it.

Mike has THAT exactly right. I would judge that most railroads with
USRA engines soon modified them in significant ways to conform to
company culture and patterns of operation.

Ted Culotta (yes, that Ted Culotta - mandatory freight car reference) is
in the process of modifying a Spectrum USRA Light Mountain to duplicate
NH #3330 as it appeared in 1947. He has a clinic on this, which I have
seen, and the final product is going to be outstanding. He had the work
in progress to show at the clinic. If I understood him correctly, it may
appear in print someday. I understand he is taking the clinic to
Naperville this year.

Regards, Spen Kellogg

Fortunately for NYC freight car modelers, there have been several
books produced in the last few years that help to overcome the
sluggish response from the NYCSHS. Jeff English has just brought out
VOL 2 of NYC freight and passenger cars. And Tim, you are correct.
There are some very nice NYC lines that are just made to model. I am
modeling the St Lawrence Div in 1958. The northern part has large
industries [ALCOA, Reynolds and GM] plus interchanges with CNR,Massena
Terminal, Rutland and Norwood&StLawrence. Tim Gilbert would chastise
me for my 50% roster of NYC freight cars, but you have to keep those
big industries supplied. NYC had as diverse a freight car roster as
the PRR, and I am having fun and some frustration duplicating it. Now
back to Terry Link's Canada Southern site for more info on NYC freight
cars. Dick Murray

John:

I'll take 4 please. Thank you for taking this on.

Regards,
Ted

Speedwitch Media
645 Tanner Marsh Road, Guilford, CT 06437
info@speedwitch.com
www.speedwitch.com
(650) 787-1912

On Friday, September 23, 2005, at 04:04 PM, bierglaeser wrote:

The fellow at Märklin who developed the Märklin/Trix freight cars is
a friend of mine.  He just totally doesn't get it.  Nice guy but not
a clue.  Believe me, I've tried to wise him up as to where to go to
get accurate information.  I don't wish to malign a fine gentleman
but you all would be astounded to learn to whom Märklin went for the
information to do the UP box car.  Märklin/Trix is a toy manufacturer
and they can't think outside that box.

BTW, as far as the Germans know, apparently the UP is the only RR in
the US.

Gene,
I probably dealt with your friend when helping Trix with the AC&F Type
27 chlorine tank car. Being totally naive as to what would follow, I
energetically provided the company with prototype drawings from the
AC&F collection at the Museum of Transportation, many photographs, and
paint specs from the original bill of materials. After seeing the
pathetic excuse of a model that was ultimately created, I wrote a
letter stating they should quit pretending (and deceiving the buying
public) that they make scale models in HO and stick to making "toys."
Never again!
Regards,
Ed Hawkins

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

I think with the good photos of the end and simmilar number of stake pockets The Lehigh & New England flat Car #719 converted in the early 1930's from a 1908-1913 era boxcar is the best car to convert the Ulrich models made in 1950's truss rod flat car model to with minimal work and considering the exotic alloy the kits are made of.
read the history and see all the modern in color photos at

http://www.jeff-z.com/wks/cabfrtroster/719/719.html


Sincerely

Tyler Turpin




---------------------------------
Yahoo! for Good
Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

All,

It's been a while since I update you about this
project. As you recall, I asked John Hitzeman from AMB
if he'd be willing to make custom wood running boards
for Sunshine's HO SAL B-6 box cars. Reason: I think
the actual wood looks better, is easier to install,
and is easier/much more realistic to weather.

John's a very busy guy, hence the delay. But at the
St. Louis RPM RPM meet last month, John brought three
copies per my instructions and they are beautiful.
I've installed them on three of my cars and they look
great. They're thin, have the self-adhesive backing
(similar to the #294 r/b kit) and have the rivit marks
in the appropriate locations. John said each copy
would run about five bucks, less shipping and
handling.

So...if you're interested in getting a few of these
custom running boards, here's what I need from you:
Please e-mail me off-line at Golden1014@yahoo.com with
the total number of running boards you'd like to
purchase. I'm going to take your number as a firm
committment. Once I get a total number, I'll go back
to John and order that total number and pay for the
total run myself. I don't intend on ordering any
extras--just the exact number that we require. John
will send them bulk to me, then I'll send them to you.
I don't intend to make a cent off the deal, but I will
require some extra bucks to cover shipping. Don't send
any checks to me until I have the r/bs in hand and I
can figure shipping. It might be a month or two for
him to get everything to me, so I ask that you be
patient until he can get the work done. Sound fair?

BTW, I previously mentioned to John that I thought the
Red Caboose HO X29 needs a quality wood running board,
and he was nice enough tot cut a few samples and bring
them to the RPM meet as well. I gave one to Ben Hom
since Ben is "Mr. X29". All I can say is Wow! They're
a great improvement over the RC r/bs. I'll try and
post some pictures to my PBase site tomorrow. I
recommended to John that he offer the X29 r/bs as part
of his regular line because I don't have the time to
handle 10,000 orders!

Thanks for your consideration in this matter. It's
great that John is willing to do this for us. He's a
great guy and really goes the extra mile to satisfy
his customers.

John



John Golden
O'Fallon, IL
http://www.pbase.com/golden1014

On Friday, September 23, 2005, at 04:13 PM, Brian J Carlson wrote:

How long did the Soo Line "dollar sign" (ok, probably not the right
term,
but since I was a kid, I've called it the dollar sign scheme) scheme
last
into the mid-late 1950's? I know the larger "SOO LINE" started to
appear in
the mid-fifties wondering how quickly older cars were repainted.

Brian,
I'm pretty sure this subject has been discussed before on this list.
The billboard SOO LINE began to appear in the very early 1950s. An
early example is a George Sisk photo of box car 137190, built new
11-51. A later example of a car still having the "dollar sign" emblem
is a Paul Dunn photo of box car 136802 with a reweigh date of 1958.
Regards,
Ed Hawkins

Justin Kahn wrote:

There is a Peterbilt plant here in Denton TX that is owned by the PACCAR
conglomerate, which one of our members, who works there, confirms is the
successor to PC&F, so perhaps PC&F records are still in existence within the
corporate organization.

As one can quickly discover via Google, PACCAR is indeed still in existence. I have checked with my friend, now retired from Peterbilt, but he believes the stored stuff is still in the Seattle area.

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

Richard Hendrickson wrote:

. . . I sent them some general information, a copy of the AC&F
drawing in the CBCycs, and scans of a whole bunch of photos. I didn't
hear anything more for several weeks, and then I got a peremptory
e-mail from an R&D guy in Germany demanding detailed drawings at once,
as he was traveling to China in a week to contract for the production
of the models.

Ah, the old classic "keep 'em in the dark and throw BS on 'em . . ."
I'm forced to confess I know a few Germans who are so much in the mold of Central Casting Germans that I occasionally wonder if they are putting me on. Of course that's how these stereotypes get started.

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

Tim Gilbert wrote:

RAILWAY AGE would publish almost any shipper complaint. Was there a
significant difference between SP or other Northwestern road boxcars and
those owned by foreign roads?

It was, of course, before the ICC, so it wasn't just "any complaint." The ones I was recently reading were complaining that traffic had increased on all the roads serving the Northwest, but they had increased their car fleets much less, and the result, as they saw it, was increasing delays in car supply. I didn't read the statistics too carefully, but SP was typical of the numbers shown, with something like a 6% increase in cars over the time period quoted, and 30% increase in traffic. What interested me was that they wanted less reliance on foreign-road box cars, presumably only because the home road could control its cars and (in their minds) get them the cars they needed. (Possibly also a bit of the attitude PFE encountered, which was that most foreign reefers were in much poorer condition than PFE cars).

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

On Sep 23, 2005, at 7:05 PM, Ed Hawkins wrote:

On Friday, September 23, 2005, at 04:04 PM, bierglaeser wrote:

The fellow at Märklin who developed the Märklin/Trix freight cars is
a friend of mine.  He just totally doesn't get it.  Nice guy but not
a clue.  Believe me, I've tried to wise him up as to where to go to
get accurate information.  I don't wish to malign a fine gentleman
but you all would be astounded to learn to whom Märklin went for the
information to do the UP box car.  Märklin/Trix is a toy manufacturer
and they can't think outside that box.

BTW, as far as the Germans know, apparently the UP is the only RR in
the US.

Gene,
I probably dealt with your friend when helping Trix with the AC&F Type
27 chlorine tank car. Being totally naive as to what would follow, I
energetically provided the company with prototype drawings from the
AC&F collection at the Museum of Transportation, many photographs, and
paint specs from the original bill of materials. After seeing the
pathetic excuse of a model that was ultimately created, I wrote a
letter stating they should quit pretending (and deceiving the buying
public) that they make scale models in HO and stick to making "toys."
Never again!

Ed's account is only part of the story. Before he became involved in
the research for the chlorine tank cars, I was asked to provide
information about these cars (sooner or later, I would have asked for
his help in any case, since he has ready access to the AC&F archives).
It was my understanding from the American Märklin/Trix reps that they
were still in the process of deciding whether to go forward with the
project, so I sent them some general information, a copy of the AC&F
drawing in the CBCycs, and scans of a whole bunch of photos. I didn't
hear anything more for several weeks, and then I got a peremptory
e-mail from an R&D guy in Germany demanding detailed drawings at once,
as he was traveling to China in a week to contract for the production
of the models. I decided at that point that I wanted no more to do
with it (a wise decision, as it turned out) and referred them to Ed
Hawkins. What happened after that is described above. Word of these
events has spread among those of us who commonly do research and
consulting for manufacturers, and by now I would be very surprised if
M/T could get any well qualified prototype researcher in North America
to do any work for them.

Richard Hendrickson

In a message dated 9/23/2005 11:30:04 PM Central Standard Time,
stefanelaine@yahoo.ca writes:
In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "bierglaeser" <bierglaeser@y...> wrote:

Märklin/Trix is a toy manufacturer...

Obviously a long standing issue in the hobby. The one piece of logic that
always eluded me was this; Since it costs about as much to cut a die incorrectly
as it does correctly, and, since many knowledgeable people have been willing
to provide accurate prototype information nearly gratis, why bother doing it
wrong?

I'm not talking about scale size compromising such as grab iron thickness,
but rather molded on blobs that are completely gross or misplaced or dimensions
that are WAY off. I can understand the economies of sharing some existing
parts, but, why cut the new parts wrong to begin with?

Reminds me of the old "Herman" poster the Apache YAH -64 project manager I
worked for had in his office. It's caption read "why can we never find time to
do it right the first time, but always find time to do it over again?"
Unfortunately in this hobby, the "do it over again" process rarely passes approval
of the bean counters.

The recent Trix entries are a good example of a recent outbreak of this
malady, an earlier example that comes to mind is the C&BT Shops SFRD ice reefers
with some serious dimensional errors. Thankfully IM choose to do the same
prototype dead-on correct. You can have one easy guess which one I have purchased
tens times more of.

Tom Casey

Anthony Thompson wrote:

This makes me wonder why, in the early 1950s, the Northwest
lumber shippers repeatedly complained to the ICC (as liberally covered
in Railway Age) that their local railroads, including SP, did not
provide enough home-road box cars, but relied excessively on foreign
box cars. Comment?

In the Fall of 1947 when the shortage of boxcars was increased even more by the demands of the seasonal grain rush, gons, auto cars and stock cars were used for eastbound lumber loads over Sherman Hill from the Northwest.

RAILWAY AGE would publish almost any shipper complaint. Was there a significant difference between SP or other Northwestern road boxcars and those owned by foreign roads?

Tim Gilbert

On Sep 23, 2005, at 2:31 PM, buchwaldfam wrote:

Does anyone make 50's era decals or transfers for SLRX cars?

Yes. Clover House Set 9266-04.

Or does Sunshine make a kit?

Yes. Kit #24.28.

One 4000 series car shows up in a photo of
the Milwaukee's "Roller Coaster Track" from early 50's. Considering
that Schlitz and AB were competitors, either the Milwaukee brewery was
catering their business parties with "Brand X", or they were making
good use of a homeward bound empty, even if it DID represent a
competitor.

Not everyone in Milwaukee drank the local beer. A-B shipped beer to Milwaukee in SLRX cars, just as to other parts of the country, so the car in the photo was probably either delivering Budweiser to a Milwaukee distributor or en route home empty after having done so.

Richard Hendrickson

On Sep 23, 2005, at 7:17 PM, jaley wrote:

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFPH/files/P1010072.JPG

Regards,

-Jeff
Deputy Moderator, STMFC

Would the old Urich (sp) kit be equal to this car?
thank you
Larry Jackman
ljack70117@adelphia.net
Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFPH/files/P1010072.JPG

Regards,

-Jeff
Deputy Moderator, STMFC

--
Jeff Aley jaley@pcocd2.intel.com
DPG Chipsets Product Engineering
Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA
(916) 356-3533

How long did the Soo Line "dollar sign" (ok, probably not the right term,
but since I was a kid, I've called it the dollar sign scheme) scheme last
into the mid-late 1950's? I know the larger "SOO LINE" started to appear in
the mid-fifties wondering how quickly older cars were repainted.

Brian J Carlson P.E.
Cheektowaga NY

On Sep 23, 2005, at 2:25 PM, shaystark wrote:

I have uploaded a file in the STMPH list of one of my UCR GS
Gondolas.
These cars have been scratch bashed from the Details Associates
composite GS Gondola. This particular car does not have the doors in
the floor as I was trying to find a way to speed up the process to
create a small fleet of these cars. The two other cars I have built
have drop doors in place but took substantially longer to build and
from the side, the doors don't show. I am currently working on four
more without the drop doors. The photo location is:
http://f2.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/oEI0Q3beP-
aNEEiTUsjFU2CRPYLsU15i9SxEIxsBadLBo_bf1sOiHc4ivVff
o7m2LIJ1yzHdjJ7uPEAZq
ecqQEYAdOpqyYod/P1010072.JPG

Shay Stark

The URL does not work
Thank you
Larry Jackman
ljack70117@adelphia.net
Shin: A device for finding furniture in the dark.

Richard,I don't think that is necessarily so.When I started in the hobby
most model railroaders were free lancing largely because the choices were
so very limited.Practically everyone had a Varney Dockside or a Mantua
Roundhouse Goat.John Allen influenced most of us.HO Monthly was a very
popular with most articles directed to free lancing.Few of us had much more
than a 4'X8' layout which also limited the size of the locomotives we were
likely to purchase.Like most modelers of that era the availability of a
greater variety of locomotives and rolling stock as well as acquiring more
room for larger layouts.The emergence of clubs like the RPI group had a
major influence on many model rails.
----- A major factor, not to be overlooked was the availability of a
plethora of reasonably priced models that made prototype modeling more
appealing and achievable.It was then when modelers tried to capture in
miniature what they had experienced at an earlier stage of their life.Armand
Premo Original Message -----
From: "Richard Hendrickson" <rhendrickson@opendoor.com>
To: <STMFC@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 6:02 PM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: Attitudes of kit producers, was:Wine car ops

On Sep 23, 2005, at 12:02 PM, Gatwood, Elden wrote:

Jeff, Richard, and all;

Is it your impression that those RRs that are developing and/or keeping
large followings are also those that have more RR-specific products
offered to them?

Is this a chicken and egg thing, or an egg and chicken thing?

Is it your impression that certain RRs are picking up more followers
while others seem to be stagnant? Why?

Is it your impression that the variety of RRs that folks are pursuing
seriously (i.e., as the "theme" for their layout) is dwindling?

Elden, I think you're asking the wrong questions. Almost all of us who
are currently active modelers of the steam era formed our preferences
about the railroads and regions we model decades ago, when the RRs we
model actually existed and we had direct personal experience with them.
The market for steam era freight car models consists largely of aging
gents who are nostalgic about an increasingly remote past. Almost all
of the (relatively few) younger guys who enter the hobby for the first
time these days are modeling either the current railroad scene or the
railroads they remember from their youth in the '80s and '90s.

As for the historical societies, do they play a role in influencing
modeling decisions? Sure, they do. One of the main reasons the
Pennsy, Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, etc. are popular RRs with modelers
is that their historical societies are strong and effective and produce
first rate publications. The NYC historical society, on the other
hand, has been dominated for years and years by a handful of aged
elitists whose main objective seems to have preventing anyone else from
having access to historical photos and documentation about the NYC. In
that environment, prototypically accurate modeling of the NYC is a
difficult and frustrating endeavor, as Jeff English and others can tell
you from personal experience.

Richard Hendrickson





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