I had a John Teichmoeller moment the other day. Ever since getting his
book on PRR steel hoppers, I've been ignoring the foreground of published
photos (especially those diesels) and looking at car types...

On page 317 of Pennsy Power III, there is a photo from 1966 of Altoon PA,
with no less than 4 PRR H31c war emergency twin hoppers! Now since only
500 H31 were originally built and many had been scrapped by then, the
likelihood of randomly catching 4 together has to be pretty slim! Several
conclusions are possible, but the one I keep coming back to is that these
cars may be headed for class repairs (unlikely) or scrap... Why else would
there be 4 congregated at the same location?

Happy Rails
Bruce

Bruce F. Smith V.M.D., Ph.D.
Scott-Ritchey Research Center
334-844-5587, 334-844-5850 (fax)
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" - Benjamin Franklin
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Train Miniature had a NH wood box car (forty feet instead of 36 feet) with a
slogan like
"New England's Vacationland" on the door. The car was in the pre-'41
pre-script scheme. I would guess they got this part right, but does anyone
know when it was used, and was it widespread or just on a few cars? - John

Al - On the Life-like model, 1.24 inches, measured with a caliper. 1.22 if
you take the tie down lugs into account. - John

Al, my Sunshine measures about 8'8" vs 9'2" for the P2K model. Margin of error
+/- 2" due to measuring with a ruler.

At 11:11 PM 2/7/01 -0600, you wrote:

OK, so now I'm getting familiar with the gons. Turns out both Erie and
Nickel Plate used them for containers. Unfortunately, the Sunshine version
is much too narrow (8'10" vs 9'6" for the prototype). Can anyone measure up
the width of a Life Like? I don't have one. Thanks.
Westerfield

Timothy O'Connor <timoconnor@mediaone.net>
Marlborough, Massachusetts

OK, so now I'm getting familiar with the gons. Turns out both Erie and
Nickel Plate used them for containers. Unfortunately, the Sunshine version
is much too narrow (8'10" vs 9'6" for the prototype). Can anyone measure up
the width of a Life Like? I don't have one. Thanks.
Westerfield

John, regarding the date when the WM ball herald was adopted, there's a
photo of a WM mill gondola (WM 50701) in the 1940 CBCyc which was delivered
with the ball herald in 3-37.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

I've just uploaded two JPEG images of an in-process tank kitbash
built from Mark Fedderson's DuPont tank car article, to the <Files>
section of the group's web site. It's from my distressingly large
supply of unfinished projects.

Tom M.

There is a c. 1919 photo of a USRA-like WM hopper in one of the Nimke
Rutland books, with no herald. The ball herald was being used by the late
'30's. Can anyone pin down the date it was adopted a little closer? - John

In the Aug. '49 Model Railroader, the review of a Utah Scale Models Col 65
foot mill gon said "The sides are sprayed
authentic Western Maryland white and lettered in red. The lettering is
perfect."

Is this true? (the color of the prototype that is) - John

Ted Culotta said:

For all of you tank car kitbashing masochists, there was a great article in
Mainline about 15 years ago by Mark Feddersen...
By the way, I rank Feddersen's article as one of the top kitbashing articles
I have ever read, along with Don Munson's (also from Mainline) about using
two Athearn composite hoppers to make a N&W H-4.

Ted is exactly right about Feddersen's article. Can't comment on the
Munson piece, as I really don't speak "hopper."

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

If I had caught up with my email before posting, I would have seen this.
Shawn's description is the Feddersen article (so I was wrong... it's a 104
instead of a 105 :-) )

For all of you tank car kitbashing masochists, there was a great article in
Mainline about 15 years ago by Mark Feddersen about how to kitbash the
Athearn chemical tank car into an accurate prototype (ICC-105, I believe -
unlike Richard, I actually need to have the reference material in front of
me to speak with any authority about tank cars, and not very well at that).
At any rate, it was a really good drill into how to kitbash the cars. At
the very least it's a great modeling article. The issue had a picture of a
gray DuPont tank car on the cover (and no, I don't have the date in front of
me - can someone else furnish that info?)

By the way, I rank Feddersen's article as one of the top kitbashing articles
I have ever read, along with Don Munson's (also from Mainline) about using
two Athearn composite hoppers to make a N&W H-4.

Ted

Tony Thompson wrote:

You are thinking of a tank like an ICC 104, Shawn,
not the pressure tank of the ICC 105 type which
the Athearn was apparently aimed at. In these high
pressure tanks, there is no expansion dome as such.
The part that sticks up is, as Richard mentioned,
really a valve casing, with controls inside for
loading and unloading operations.

I understand your point, Tony, and I too feel that the
Athearn kit is a crude attempt at an ICC-105 pressure
car. But if I'm interpreting Richard correctly(and who
knows, I may not be)what he was suggesting was to try
and turn the kit into an ICC-104 insulated car by
discarding the valve casing and shortening the tank.
Granted, the tank may be too large in diameter anyway.
I don't know how many 11,000 gallon tank cars were made
out there in the real world, insulated or not. Making
the proper dome might not be so hard, but if the tank
is too large, all that effort would be for nothing.

Shawn Beckert

Shawn B. asks:

What needs to be done for the dome? Without pictures in
front of me, I'll guess it needs to be somewhat larger,
maybe 60", and have an edge or "lip" around the top...
I imagine the next step would be
to fabricate the correct safety valves and associated
hardware.

You are thinking of a tank like an ICC 104, Shawn, not the pressure tank
of the ICC 105 type which the Athearn was apparently aimed at. In these
high-pressure tanks, there is no expansion dome as such. The part that
sticks up is, as Richard mentioned, really a valve casing, with controls
inside for loading and unloading operations. The Athearn version of this is
at least double the correct size (yet another sign that they just blew up a
6000-gal. or some other smaller size prototype to fit their 40-ft.
underframe).
Probably the simplest fix is to replace the Athearn part with something
around half or less of its size. Frank Hodina made patterns for these some
years ago, and I've converted a few Athearns this way. But serious problems
remain. The Athearn tank has a riveted-car bottom sheet; it is the
equivalent of about an 11,000 gallon jacketed tank, a peculiar size with
few if any prototypes; and the platform and railing are as grossly out of
scale as is the valve casing. At the very least, I'd sand off the bottom
sheet rivets and scratch a new platform and railing. The size remains an
issue.

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

Richard chides me:

Damn, Shawn, the glass is only half full...

Yes, I know...I'm the quintessential Baby Boomer.
"I want it all - and I want it now." Living here
in La La Land probably has had an influence as well.

We've already talked about the Tichy/IM kitbash to
produce models of the War Emergency USG-A class
cars; I know this works because I've already done
one.

I somehow missed this exchange, so I'll have to bug
you for a crash course on how to do the kitbash. I
seem to recall there's a way to turn this combination
into one of the SHPX series of tank cars as well?

Athearn's "chemical" tank can be shortened(getting
rid of the grotesquely oversize valve casing)and
made into a tank for an insulated ICC-103/ICC-104,if
a suitable insulated dome is fabricated for it.

Now this is something I'd like to see happen. I bought
more than a few of the Athearn kits back when I had no
idea there was no prototype. I'd like the opportunity
to salvage at least part of my investment on those. The
tank length I can probably find out with some serious
research. Cutting the tank down to size would best be
done with a mitre box, no?

What needs to be done for the dome? Without pictures in
front of me, I'll guess it needs to be somewhat larger,
maybe 60", and have an edge or "lip" around the top. Can
this be done to Tichy's dome from the detail pack? Or
maybe accomplished with a wrap of very thin sheet plastic
around an existing dome. I imagine the next step would be
to fabricate the correct safety valves and associated
hardware. Hmmmm, I can see myself seriously pursuing this,
since I've got the raw materials sitting in the closet.
More updates on this as events unfold....

Shawn Beckert

Larry Kline wrote:

My one car turn per month was off the top of my head, and low for the early
1950s. An article in the Jan 7, 1950 Railway Age gives the following numbers
for October 1949: All car types, 19.87 days, boxcars 13.94 days, gons
23.63 days and hoppers 36.89 days. The gon and hopper numbers were higher
than usual because of steel and coal strikes. For 1952 there were
approximately 36.4 million car loadings and 2.1 million cars so there were
17.3 turns per year, or 21.1 days per turn.

I'm interested in these numbers because of my familiarity with similar
numbers for reefers in the 1950s. Because of their specialized usage and
short produce seasons in many parts of the country, the national average
was about 6 reloadings per year. PFE was very proud to accomplish 12 or 13,
but compared to other car types, this clearly was not very high. (OTOH,
most PFE cars traveled quite long distances per load, so this may not be
QUITE as bad as it looks.)

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

I took a quick look at the intermountain type 27 unterframe and the Tichy
tank. It looks very doable - perhaps even "quick". Can you point me in
the directions of photographs, drawings, measurements to do this? In
particular, I would like to see the "cradle" area supporting the tank.

Richard - don't want to step on your toes if you're planning on writing
this up...I'll be happy to see how it goes and send you what I cobble
together for review/critique as an aid in developing your article

Bruce, my toes are not easily stepped on, since I have far more ideas for
articles than I have time to build the models and write the articles. I
don't have, nore am I aware of, drawings for the USG-A class cars, but I
have several builder's photos I can scan for you. However, I'm leaving
town for several days and won't time to do so until next week.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Garth Groff wrote:

As Richard has pointed out a number of times, the Tichy tank with the
small dome can be placed on the Type 27 underframe to give us a fair
representation of some cars built during WWII. Richard has promised for
several years to do the conversion and write it up, but has apparently
been trapped by mundane non-railroad activities, like putting a roof
over his head (only important if it protects his trains). I am sure
there are many other possibilities. What is lacking is shared
information. Richard noted recently that the magazines generally don't
want articles unless there is a kit to go with them, but perhaps the
Hawkins-Wider CYC would be a good venue for prototype photos and
thoughts on kitbashing. A possibility, Richard? Others?

Getting such an article published isn't the problem, Garth. Finding time
to build the models and write the article is the problem. For almost two
years, I've had hardly any time for either modeling or writing, and now
that I'm back to doing some of both, the editors I work for have their own
ideas about priorities.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Allen Ferguson wrote:

I would be delighted to help make the decals happen. I have modified a
Intermountain 8000 gal type 27 and created the artwork and printed
decals for a NSOX 352(North Star Oil) tank car.(written up in CRM) For
larger runs I've worked with Railgraphics ( CNR 1956 piggyback
trailer) and Microscale (CNR cab unit supplement).

Thanks for the offer, Allen. I can provide photos showing the lettering
styles and print-outs of the data but I can't do the artwork, so a joint
effort might be just the thing. I'll get back to you on this.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Fellow Prisoners,

Going through the ACF book this weekend - blissfully
ignorant of the turmoil I caused with my questions of
last week - I couldn't help but notice, once again, the
sheer variety of tank car shapes and sizes. We've only
scratched the surface with the handful of accurate kits
that are on the market....a new tank car kit seems to hit
the shelves only once every decade, or so it seems....

Damn, Shawn, the glass is only half full. In the past five years we've
only gotten 10K ICC-103Ws from RC, 8K and 10K Type 27s from L-L, and 8K and
10K Type 27s from IM. And more and different models are coming soon -
trust me. Before that, we had, let's see, tank cars from Tichy and Athearn
(no prototypes) and Walthers and Mantua (urp, gag). So what's with this
sour note about "once every decade"? You remind me of my wife's favorite
mantra: God grant me patience - and I want it RIGHT NOW! Seriously...

....what can we do with
the various kits that now exist? Take, for example, the
underframes from the P2K, Red Caboose, and Tichy kits.
Can they be used as a starting point to make any other
kind of tank car? Can the tanks themselves, or even the
domes, be swapped around to create something new but
prototypical?

Yes, yes, and yes. We've already talked about the Tichy/IM kitbash to
produce models of the War Emeregency USG-A class cars; I know this works
because I've already done one. And though I haven't tried it, I think
Tichy's underframe combined with an 8K IM tank will make a pretty plausible
model of the 8K cars built by SSC in sizeable numbers for NATX in the
1920s. The AC&F tanks modeled by IM are quite close in design and
dimensions to the tanks of the same size built in the 1930s/'40s by GATC,
so it should be possible to do some underframe mods and model the GATC cars
of that era. Athearn's "chemical" tank can be shortened (getting rid of
the grotesquely oversize valve casing) and made into a tank for an
insulated 1CC-103/ICC-104, if a suitable insulated dome is fabricated for
it.

What part, or parts, would be needed to
open up some kitbashing opportunities?

We can do a whole lot with what we already have (except for lettering, and
I'm working on that). All it takes is some time. So many models, so
little time. Meanwhile, I've got several models to finish for magazine
articles I'm already committed to. But if you want to have a go at any of
the ideas outlined above, I can scan photos and suggest ways of going about
it.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520