In message 50906 Pat Wider links to photo of an Air Force PS-1 box car.

Is that car lacking the characteristic bow tie shaped reinforcing
stampings on the roof?

I thought I'd seen these carlines-only roofs in photos of some of the
earliest PS-1 box cars. I don't think I've ever seen a discussion of
this in this this group.

Any else think this car is lacking bow ties? Comments?

Ed

Hello All,
I have a freight car question!
I am abuilding F&Cs F33 in HO scale. Is there an air line that runs along
the side from about bolster to bolster? It looks like it in the grainy
model photo, but no mention in the instructions.
This is a really slick one piece molding, along with nice resin trucks(we
willl see how tehy last under operations)
TIA,
Joe Binish
New Hope(!) MN
Fly over country to you coasties

Tony,

I can't remember all that they told us when we toured at C&H (it was over 30 years ago!), but your scenario is essentially correct, AFAIK. C&H had a special ship (or ships) that brought in sugar stock of some sort from Hawaii (granular or liquid, I don't know, but raw granular is more likely). Work at the plant was timed to the ship's schedule, with a campaign lasting 10 days, then four days off for most of the workers. C&H made turbinado, brown, white and powered sugars. Although their boxes all said "Pure cane sugar from Hawaii", this wasn't true of their brown sugar. Their tour guide told us it was beet sugar, since cane doesn't make good brown sugar. This implies that (a) C&H had this sugar made by some other company; (b) they had another plant somewhere; or (c) or they also processed beets at Crocket (which I don't think was so). Talk about truth in advertising!

By the time I visited the plant in the late 1960s, most dry bulk sugar was shipped in Airslide covered hoppers. Packaged goods probably went by RBL, though this is beyond our timeframe.

By the way, I mentioned the Holly plant at Dyer. In the early 1950s, the WP shops in Sacramento rebuilt to 1945 AAR boxcars as bulk sugar covered hoppers which went under lease to Holly to serve this plant. The WP cars were well covered in the railway press at the time. (These were the inspiration for the sadly inaccurate WP "Bulk Sugar" cars offered by Train Miniature and Athearn.) The cars were moderately successful, and according to the article two more cars were built for the SP under contract. Tony, do you know if the SP cars were actually built? I have a photo in my collection of a converted SP car, but I don't know if this is part of the same group.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff


Anthony Thompson wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., "David Karkoski" <karkoskd@l...> asked:>

Anyone have any examples of tank cars hauling molasses.

John LaRue has some negatives showing tank cars owned by companies
with molasses in the car owner's name.

Ed

Garth Groff wrote:

Tim,

At the risk of getting a Mike Brock no-no, I will say that your
description of the sugar refining process is essentially correct. The
cane or beets are crushed, then cooked to drive off a highly
concentrated sweet liquid. This is then centrifuged, probably more
than once, depending on desired product, to remove the water and
impurities.
The intermediate steps are (IIRC from my tour of C&H 30 years ago)
raw or turbinado sugar, brown sugar, and finally table white sugar.

Garth, I thik a return trip might be called for! 8-)

Taking sugar beets as the example, the process is:

- wash the beets
- slice them
- hot water extraction of sugar
- filtration (different steps using coke (pure carbon), mother of lime, and
SO2
- creation of a supersaturated solution
- first crystal extraction -- white
- repeat crystalization -- the color turning browner with each repeat
extraction
- molassas extraction

The color in sugar is nothing more than impurities they couldn't filter out.
These impurities are various compounds from the sugar bearing plant itself,
cell walls for instance. When they're finally done extracting as much sugar
as they can the residue - molassas -- is still about 50% sugar.

Both the spent beet slices and molasses are used as cattle feed -- the
former often consumed at or near the refinery and the later mixed with
things like alfalfa to make feed pellets. Coke, limestone, and sulphur for
the filtration steps were usually rail delivered in the steam era. And
somewhere in the process you can create MSG but I don't recall how.

For those who enjoy a good how-to book I can recommend _The Manufacture of
Beet Sugar_ made available by the Great Western Sugar Company ca 1921. It
was handed to each new mgmt employee as their introduction to the business.

Dave Nelson

Tom, I remember that photo! Further back in the train was one of those
flat cars with a pair of wooden pickle tanks on it. Yes, I'm pretty sure that
CF&I in Pueblo occasionally shipped hot bottle cars to Geneva Steel over
the UP. Can't recall where I read that right now...

Tim O'Connor

Garth Groff wrote:

The cane or beets are crushed, then cooked to drive off a highly concentrated sweet liquid. This is then centrifuged, probably more than once, depending on desired product, to remove the water and impurities. The intermediate steps are (IIRC from my tour of C&H 30 years ago) raw or turbinado sugar, brown sugar, and finally table white sugar.

Maybe you can correct me, Garth, but my understanding is that C&H (in the time period of this list) received raw liquid concentrate from first processing of cane (from both Hawaii and elsewhere) and refined it into various sugar products. These included not only the dry or "table" sugar products listed above, but liquid sugar for other food processors. It was the case in the 1950s that most refined dry sugar was shipped in cartons (containing either supermarket box containers, or the little packets Garth mentioned), with some bulk shipment in bulk in converted box cars. Early in the 1960s, the advent of "Airslide" and related covered hopper technologies took over the bulk dry shipping, but that's off the end of this list.
Several kinds of liquid sugar, different syrup densities and possibly different degrees of refinement, were shipped in bulk in tank cars. There are photos from around 1960 of those SP tank cars in long strings at the C&H plant in Crockett, and if you pass there today on the "Capitol Corridor" train to and from Sacramento from the Bay Area (how I get to CSRM: required research content), you will still see tank cars and covered hoppers being loaded, along with box 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@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Rod Miller wrote:

<http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/%7Esmithbf/>

Page 52 of Gene Deimling's Southern Pacific Steam Switchers of the
Pacific Lines shows SP 0-6-0 1293 switching DT&I hopper 1437. The
location given is Tracy, CA; the date given is 1948.

Rod,

Would you consider this 1948 sighting of DT&I Hopper #1437 in Tracy CA
to be "on a tether," or a "stray" using the criteria I have provided?

Tim Gilbert

Tim,

At the risk of getting a Mike Brock no-no, I will say that your description of the sugar refining process is essentially correct. The cane or beets are crushed, then cooked to drive off a highly concentrated sweet liquid. This is then centrifuged, probably more than once, depending on desired product, to remove the water and impurities. The intermediate steps are (IIRC from my tour of C&H 30 years ago) raw or turbinado sugar, brown sugar, and finally table white sugar.

At C&H they even poured the mop water from the floors back into the centrifuges (so we were told). They also noted that turbanado sugar, which is popular in the health trade, is the chemically the same as white sugar. It just has more dirt and rat droppings than the white stuff you get in the cute little packets with the train or sailing ship pictures on them.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

timboconnor@... wrote:

Thanks Garth & Tony, I didn't know that. I think molasses is the first step
in sugar processing, whether cane or sugar beets (or wood pulp). I think
when it is evaporated its becomes "brown sugar" (not the kind you buy in
the Safeway, which is refined white sugar with molasses added back) and
then it takes further refining to clarify it and crystalize it as white sugar.
I can see why the canneries would not want to use molasses in their
canned fruit, since the molasses has color and flavor that would not go
well with peaches or pears!

Tim O'Connor

[snip]

There were no H21's reported by UP Conductor Fraley in either his Fall
1947 or Spring 1949 Wheel Reports. Aberration? What was so special
about
coal mined on the Pennsy which would appeal to coal users west of the
Rockies in view of the high transportation costs?

Not necessarily anything... given the huge size of the fleet and the
fact that cars DID go off-line, there is certainly the chance that an
H21 would stray in much the same manner as say an N&W hopper... and
end up loaded with company coal headed over Sherman Hill. Since we
have been down this road before, I would also remind you that
individual mines did produce grades of coal that could be highly
sought after for industrial processes and there is the _potential_
that coal on the Pennsy might indeed be desired by a customer on the UP.

Regards
Bruce

Bruce F. Smith
Auburn, AL
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/

Page 52 of Gene Deimling's Southern Pacific Steam Switchers of the
Pacific Lines shows SP 0-6-0 1293 switching DT&I hopper 1437. The
location given is Tracy, CA; the date given is 1948.

Rod Miller

Richard Hendrickson wrote:

And, as someone has
pointed out, USAFX are non-conforming reporting marks in any case.

The "non-conforming" part may not be serious. Remember that railroads were permitted to spell out their name in place of initials. If it was "conforming" to spell out "PENNSYLVANIA" I fail to see a grave problem with "USAFX." On the issue of initials only, let's don't forget D&RGW and NC&StL.

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

On Feb 1, 2006, at 6:32 AM, Clark Propst wrote:

We had a sugar beet processing plant north of town on the CGW. The
M&StL (my RR) would interchange beets directly with the CGW, but all
plant products were interchanged through the MC&CL trolley RR on the
south side of town.

My question is: If my feed mill were to order a car of molasses from
the sugar plant is there any special type of tank car this would have
been shipped in? Anyone have any examples of tank cars hauling
molasses.

Typically, molasses was shipped in conventional ICC-103 or ICC-203 tank
cars equipped with heater coils. Bear in mind, also, that the
proximity of the sugar beet plant to the feed mill did not guarantee
that the feed mill would obtain molasses from it. For any one of
several reasons, price being the most obvious, the feed mill may have
gotten its molasses from a more distant supplier. In fact, if the
local sugar plant did supply the feed mill with molasses, it would
probably have been transported over such a short distance by motor
truck rather than by rail.

Richard Hendrickson

On Feb 1, 2006, at 6:01 AM, Gene Green wrote:

Sure looks like a car that could be used in interchange service to me.

Could those who have ORERs in the 1950s please look up the Air Force
therein to see what if anything is listed.  I'd like to know. 
As I said earlier, my collection jumps from July 1954 to January 1961.

There are no entries for the United States Air Force in the 1/55 ORER
(on disc from Al Westerfield), nor are there any USAFX reporting marks
under the U. S. Army entry or anywhere else. And, as someone has
pointed out, USAFX are non-conforming reporting marks in any case. On
Gene's evidence, a few Air Force cars made a brief appearance in the
ORERs ca. 1953-'54 and then disappeared, which suggests that they
probably weren't in interchange service and weren't even acceptable in
interchange service for very long. All branches of the military owned
freight cars which were used exclusively on-site at various supply and
ammunition depots, weren't in the ORERs, and were not interchanged.
Though such cars may be of interest as curiosities, it would obviously
be pointless to model them.

Richard Hendrickson


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

"Patrick Wider" <pwider@...> wrote:

I've just loaded a builders' photo of a U.S. Air Force (USAFX) PS-1 box car.
Pat Wider

I don't see any sign of hinges on the roof. How did they fire the missles out? <VBG>
--
Richard Townsend
Lincoln City, Oregon


__________________________________________________________________
Switch to Netscape Internet Service.
As low as $9.95 a month -- Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register

Netscape. Just the Net You Need.

New! Netscape Toolbar for Internet Explorer
Search from anywhere on the Web and block those annoying pop-ups.
Download now at http://channels.netscape.com/ns/search/install.jsp

On Feb 1, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Anthony Thompson wrote:

Larry Jackman wrote:

You are right on Carbon Steel bits. They would not make them if some
body did not have a use for them.

I agree with Larry's comments on drilling speed. But the statement
above is silly. Would you agree, Larry, that they would not make those
crappy cheap Chinese tools for 99 cents if somebody did not have a use
for them? and would any such use match with the word "quality" in this
thread's subject line?

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

No I do not think it is silly. You can buy US of A made carbon steel bits. There are some tools made on speculation but are sold through tool companies to shops manufactures that study the cost use the carbon steel bits because it is more cost efficient. All the shops i work in had carbon steel, HSS and carbide in stock and used as needed.
When I worked in Dexter Wilson we had one Item that was plastic filled with class. A carbide bit would drill 3 holes at most. Then you needed a new one. I solved this problem by reworking the injection mold and no need to drill any more.
So if there is no need for it, they will not make it. They do not make Selectic typewriters any more do they.
Thank you
Larry Jackman
ljack70117@...

Tim O'Connor wrote:

Ordinary ICC 103 tank cars could be used for molasses. Usually
they would have heater pipes installed to warm the molasses to
unload it. The Southern Pacific had a number of tank cars in
this service, marked with a large "S" on the dome for "sugar".
The cars were originally built for fuel oil service and most
of them were used for fuel anyway regardless of the "S".

Not correct, Tim. Molasses is not the same as sugar syrup. The SP cars were modified to accommodate, and were used by C&H Sugar of Crockett, CA for, shipments of sugar syrup. Google both and you'll see the separation.
But it is true that both CAN be made from either sugar beets or sugar cane.

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

Tim,

I'm not familiar enough with the PRR in that area to know. According
to a map I have, the Van line to Vincennes is only 15 miles south of
the Monon mines at Midland IN., so it is likely there were mines that
the PRR served. In case I wasn't clear (a persistant issue!) the
"online" I was referring to was for the Monon on their Midland branch.

Regards,

Mike Aufderheide
Chicago

--- In STMFC@..., Tim Gilbert <tgilbert@s...> wrote:

Mike Aufderheide wrote:

Tim,

Thanks to the work you did on the Monon Query conductor logs I can
offer a midwest perspective on how prevalent these cars were. I was
surprised that half of the 28 HTs recorded off the log so far were PRR
cars: 10 H21s and 4 H25s! About half of these were cars loaded at
online mines. As an aside, 10% of the HMs that are recorded so far
off of this log are GLa s. This on a road clogged with SOU and LN
twins. Given that the number of H21s was several times the entire
roster of the Monon, I should not have been surprised. I am easily
surprised.

Mike,

Did the Pennsy serve any mines in southern Indiana? I don't think they
did in Illinois, but I could be wrong. Still, Indiana is a thousand
miles closer to PRR's coal belt than Sherman Hill. Both those PRR
hoppers "tethered" and those that had "strayed" should be much

higher in

Indiana than across the Rockies.

Tim Gilbert

Larry Jackman wrote:

You are right on Carbon Steel bits. They would not make them if some
body did not have a use for them.

I agree with Larry's comments on drilling speed. But the statement above is silly. Would you agree, Larry, that they would not make those crappy cheap Chinese tools for 99 cents if somebody did not have a use for them? and would any such use match with the word "quality" in this thread's subject line?

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

Tim,

The SP tank cars with the "S" on the dome were often seen at the C&H can sugar refinery in Crockett, California. They might have also been used at Holly or Spreckles refineries, but of that I have information. I used to work across the street from the Holly beet sugar refinery at Dyer (actually Santa Ana, IIRC), and can't remember any tank cars. It is my understanding that the cars carried sugar syrup to various fruit canneries.

Doesn't commercial molasses usually come from sorghum, not sugar can or beets?

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff



Tim O'Connor wrote: