I wonder if there was a couple of other factors. I'm not sure of the NKPs
state financially or otherwise at the time, but there were other roads that
bought obsolescent equipment about the same time. Leaving aside good old
mechanical conservatism I think there are a couple of other possible
explanations.



First if you have car shops that were experts in repairing wooden cars you
would have had a pretty significant retraining period if you went to all
steel construction. Hiring new workers with new skills is a costly business,
and not all areas of the country were equally blessed with an abundance of
skilled metal workers. I'm not sure but this seems a plausible reason for
Southern Railway to rebuild many of its steel hopper cars as composites
about the same time.



Secondly all-steel cars were more expensive. If you are trying to re-equip a
railroad in a short period of time you'll be paying close attention to the
number of new cars you can get for your money. No they won't last as long
and will need more frequent repairs, but if you need 20,000 cars and have
budget for 20,000 composite cars but only 15,000 steel cars then you buy
composite cars and pay for the extra repairs out of the revenue they
generate



Aidrian

Tony
I worked at the N&W's 38st car shop in Norfolk, Va. The cars came to
the shop straight from the coal pier (just unloaded). All of the
unpainted surfaces had a dull rust brown color, there was no bright
steel showing on any of the cars that came through that shop which
only worked open top hoppers, about 200 a day.
Jeff Coleman

--- In STMFC@..., Tony Thompson <thompsonmarytony@...>
wrote:

Jeff Coleman wrote:

That is interesting as I worked on hundreds of N&W hoppers in

the

70's & 80's and all of the interiors had a rust bloom and some

coal

dust.

Of course there is SOME coal dust. I'm sure many of the

empties I

saw were freshly picked up and thus still freshly abraded from
unloading. Sitting around in humid or rainy weather would quickly

make

the rust bloom you mention. The modeler has to decide what to

model: a

car sitting on a siding or in a yard for days or weeks, or one

fairly

freshly unloaded. If you operate with a car distribution system (so
that unloads don't sit) and have removable loads, I'd recommend the
freshly unloaded car look.
I have a friend who's a coal-region modeler and he observed

that

the coarser the coal, the less efficient the scouring on unloading.

One

could then look at one's loads and see what kind of coal is being
modeled.

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

In a message dated 9/22/06 10:09:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
mlaughlinnyc@... writes:

The generic term used by the railroads, which you will see in the ORER and
car service directives, is "load-protective device". That term also

applied

to the vertical inside door type devices, pne of which was the tradmark "
Compartmentizer".

The brand name reffered to by the DF on the doors was "Damage Free." Evans
Damage Free loaders was a pretty commonly used term by people dealing with the
cars in the 1960s. One of the ad salesmen at Railway Age during my time there
used to be a freight car parts salesman, and he used the term pretty fluently
when I'd bring up the grand old days of selling freight components.

As an aside, he related that Pullman was tough on freight car parts salesmen
because it made and sold all of its own details and parts -- doors and ladders
and running boards and outlets, etc. Other builders allowed customers to
specify third party details. One of his biggest volume items were nailable steel
floors, and Pullman had those, too.

Mike Del Vecchio

On Sep 24, 2006, at 7:11 AM, Scott Pitzer scottp3212000 wrote:

Is there a pattern (chronological or ???) to whether a Swift wooden
car with red sides would have red ends or "box car red" ends?

When Swift went to the all-red scheme in the 1950s, the entire car body was red - sides, ends, roof.

Richard Hendrickson

Jeff Coleman wrote:

That is interesting as I worked on hundreds of N&W hoppers in the 70's & 80's and all of the interiors had a rust bloom and some coal dust.

Of course there is SOME coal dust. I'm sure many of the empties I saw were freshly picked up and thus still freshly abraded from unloading. Sitting around in humid or rainy weather would quickly make the rust bloom you mention. The modeler has to decide what to model: a car sitting on a siding or in a yard for days or weeks, or one fairly freshly unloaded. If you operate with a car distribution system (so that unloads don't sit) and have removable loads, I'd recommend the freshly unloaded car look.
I have a friend who's a coal-region modeler and he observed that the coarser the coal, the less efficient the scouring on unloading. One could then look at one's loads and see what kind of coal is being modeled.

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

Tony
That is interesting as I worked on hundreds of N&W hoppers in the 70's
& 80's and all of the interiors had a rust bloom and some coal dust.
Jeff Coleman

Bob Karig wrote:

One of the reasons that these builders chose wood over steel was over fears
of the corrosive effects that impurities in coal might have upon steel.

Surely this wasn't true by 1923, the era of the NKP cars IIRC. By then there were tens of thousands of all-steel hoppers in service, some with two decades of service.

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

Steve Hile writes:

"There is a problem if, like Mike, you want to be able to duplicate the extreme anomaly of 40 SP boxcars in a single UP train (or whatever.) The choice to be made is where to "bend" the theory in terms of the layout's car population. There is no argument that the train in question was far outside the "predicted" distribution. But the question is, really, would there be one of these consists on a regular basis in your period of interest? If the answer is yes, then the population must be "bent" to allow the consist generator to create that consist when appropriate."

A rather distinct surprise...at least IMO...is how the consist of individual trains on the Wyoming UP mainline was so unique as far as car populations were concerned. IOW, there were fruit blocks of PFE cars, blocks of tank cars [ largely made up of Sinclair cars ], lumber trains comprised of many SP box & auto cars, merchandise trains with few if any SP box cars and merchandise trains with many SP box cars. Add in a bauxite train of only box cars...none of which were UP or SP. The presence or lack thereof of SP box cars seems to be dependent on the train's identity...its purpose. Trains to the northwest had much fewer SP box cars than trains going to SP tracks at Ogden. The modeler, it seems to me, wishing to produce a similar train simulation needs to be more aware of these factors as opposed to simply the makeup of frt cars on the entire RR for a long period of time...say a year. Again, if one does wish to produce trains representative of the actual trains, one has to know what they were and what they looked like. No easy task given the scarcity of information.

"There really isn't a good reason why the "national" distribution of certain car types shouldn't be used in conjunction with anecdotal information, such as movies, photographs and individual train lists and knowledge of scheduled freight trains, including their blocking scheme to create realist and believable, and therefore ultimately satisfying, consists for our model freight trains.

To me it is not an either/or situation. It is better to use every tool."

I agree. One thing that seems obvious is that whatever RR might be modeled...even a fictitious one...having a small number of any RR's box cars in one's fleet is just fine. It's not rocket science...and that from a rocket scientist.

Mike Brock

The slope sheets on the O&W car were constructed of boards (probably about 10" wide) mounted longitudinally. The twin type hopper doors were each constucted of two boards mounted laterally.

The slope sheets on the NKP car were constructed of 5 1/4" boards mounted longitudinally. The vertically suspended hopper doors appear to be made of steel with a Type C, Enterprise door operating mechanism.

One of the reasons that these builders chose wood over steel was over fears of the corrosive effects that impurities in coal might have upon steel.

Bob Karig

Is there a pattern (chronological or ???) to whether a Swift wooden
car with red sides would have red ends or "box car red" ends?

Scott Pitzer

Gentlemen,Permit me to dip my oar into the discussion.......You can only
photograph what is on a wheel report.Photographs are extremely valuable in
the absence of a wheel report on a given day or of a given train.Armand
Premo

I think that the "theories" about car distribution really aren't intended to be applied to individual trains or, perhaps, even a given yard scene. Where they are most useful, in my opinion, is in selecting a population of cars to use on a given layout and its intended operation scheme. We hear regularly from members of this list who say that they are going to have 500, or some other number of cars and they then use the "theory" to select those cars that will make up that population.

From there, any of the operational programs can then simulate the individual trains with reasonable, prototypical appearance. Even the most basic single diorama with staging at either end can have reasonable looking trains traversing it with random or rule based consist generators. In fact, a rule based consist generator could be devised, based on the chosen prototype's basic schedule. For example, train 99, the east bound perishable could have rules that state that 70-80% of the cars must be ice reefers, while the westbound drag consist would have only 20-30% reefers (now empty), etc.

The above presumes that we are willing to do a fair amount of hand fiddling of the train consists prior to their appearance "on stage." To my mind, this is an acceptable small layout alternative to the detailed local switching, making up of trains in the yard, etc. that are possible with the larger layouts.

There is a problem if, like Mike, you want to be able to duplicate the extreme anomaly of 40 SP boxcars in a single UP train (or whatever.) The choice to be made is where to "bend" the theory in terms of the layout's car population. There is no argument that the train in question was far outside the "predicted" distribution. But the question is, really, would there be one of these consists on a regular basis in your period of interest? If the answer is yes, then the population must be "bent" to allow the consist generator to create that consist when appropriate.

There really isn't a good reason why the "national" distribution of certain car types shouldn't be used in conjunction with anecdotal information, such as movies, photographs and individual train lists and knowledge of scheduled freight trains, including their blocking scheme to create realist and believable, and therefore ultimately satisfying, consists for our model freight trains.

To me it is not an either/or situation. It is better to use every tool.

Regards,
Steve Hile

On Sep 23, 2006, at 1:43 PM, Schuyler Larrabee wrote:

Hand me that lame story, Schuyler, and (unsuccessfully trying
to suppress a superior smirk) I'll point out that "home" for
the MWR's Mather cars wasn't Muncie, IN, but - as for all
Mather cars - Chicago Ridge, IL.

Richard Hendrickson

One other thing, here, Richard. While "home" for the MWR may well have been Chicago Ridge, I've
seen dozens, at least, of cars from many railroads with stencilled directions on them which say
something to the effect of "Return to agt, XYZ Railroad, West Godforgot, MN" That town is not the
"home" destination of the XYZ, it's simply the place where that car is to go for a specific purpose.

I'll begin by apologizing for my smart-ass "superior smirk" remark, which was ill-considered and unwarranted.

Now, as to Schuyler's observations about special routing instructions, there is a lot of photographic evidence of the MWR cars, as their colorful P/L tended to attract attention; I have nineteen photos of them in my own collection. And none of these photos show routing instructions of that kind, nor is there any reason to think they might. The purpose of the MWR cars was to carry Mason jars from Muncie to wherever they were consigned and return promptly (empty, if necessary) to Muncie to be re-loaded. What's the point in speculatng, much less indulging in far-fetched rationalizations, which are entirely unsupported by the available evidence?

Richard Hendrickson

specifically the NKP 30000-series (built 1923) and the O&W 1500-
series built in 1911 (according to Funaro's & Camerlengo's web site).

Wood.

David Thompson

Dean Payne wrote:

It matters more how I weather the inside of the slope sheet, rusty metal or raw wood, either with a good dusting of coal dust!

Dean, the interiors of steel hoppers in regular use DO NOT show rusty or even coal-dusted slope sheets: they tend to be fairly polished bare metal, except at the top and around the edges. I've looked into many such cars in B&O trains in Panther Hollow, Pittsburgh, where one sees the entire interior easily. These were everything from steam-era twins and triples, through 1980s 90-ton cars, various owning railroads. The reason, I assume, is obvious.

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

What material were the slope sheets on composite hoppers made of?
Wood, or steel? I'm not talking of the "modern" War Emergency hoppers,
but specifically the NKP 30000-series (built 1923) and the O&W 1500-
series built in 1911 (according to Funaro's & Camerlengo's web site).
It matters more how I weather the inside of the slope sheet, rusty
metal or raw wood, either with a good dusting of coal dust!
Dean Payne

Jeff Aley asked:

Huh? I thought that Mssrs. Nelson and Gilbert used wheel reports

to show

otherwise: that at any major point in the U.S., boxcars are

distributed

according to their national percentage.

Well...I don't think tim Gilbert is saying that. The time element has to be considered. IOW, at any major point we don't have a clue what the population of frt cars was or should be at a particular time. It MAY be that over a relatively long period of time...say, a year...the wheel reports suggest the Nelson/Gilbert theory might be a useful predictor. However, we DO know that, in 1949, the theory fails with regard to the UP mainline across Wyoming using information from the infamous 34 UP frt trains. As anyone who has been a member of the STMFC for a year is painfully aware, the number of SP and CB&Q box cars in those trains exceeds their national average considerably. Why this is so doesn't really matter. We are more interested in the way things were since we are interested in reproducing them. I might add that movie photography is not an example of shooting an interesting frt car...at least as seen in the Big Boy Collection which shows entire UP frt trains rather than a particular car or group of cars. And, those frt trains definitely violate the population predictor. What we do know from the population studies is that a RR's box cars went all over the nation whereas other types of cars, particularly coal carrying cars, tended to be more regional in distribution. Stock cars and gondolas [ and the pronounciation of the term doesn't seem THAT important ] seem to be more nationally distributed as well. Now...if you wish to monitor your layout's op sessions on a yearly basis, the population predictor might be very useful.

Mike Brock

Bob Witt wrote:

I offer the suggestion that photographers usually take photos of what interest them. Their mission is not to record a random sample of the freight cars that pass through a given area. Wheel reports and other similar records are the "hard data". Photographs are someone's vision of their "world".

Of course. Who could argue?
But if a photographer takes, say, a thousand images and no bias is obvious; or if we have the work of numerous photographers in an area, none of whose bias is obvious, what "vision of the world" is at stake? Are these photo sets NECESSARILY unrepresentative?
Bob, if you trouble to read the introduction to the NMRA book presenting the Bob Charles collection (unfortunately, the photographer's name is unknown), you will find that the photos in fact ARE rather representative of the statistics Messrs. Gilbert and Nelson have developed for us.
Of course a particular set of photographs may be far from representative; but let us NOT conclude therefrom that ALL sets of photographs are without statistical value.

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

I'm just glad to have the book and I look forward to all future releases in this interesting series.

Jim Brewer
www.pocahontasmodels.com

rwitt_2000 wrote:

I offer the suggestion that photographers usually take photos of what
interest them. Their mission is not to record a random sample of the
freight cars that pass through a given area. Wheel reports and other
similar records are the "hard data". Photographs are someone's vision
of their "world".

Agreed!

Tim Gilbert