elusive and short lived Vulcan end.

<snip>

potential patent. It didn't stay on the market long, but some were
applied to cars built for a few roads.

Do you know who else used these, and for how long? Any ideas as to whether
any were found on cars in interchange in 1952?

On a similar note, I'd be curious about the Van Dorn and the Deco. Who had
cars with these on them, and were they still interchanged in '52?

Recently, a new venture has started making CBC's with newly expired
Copyrights available on CD at a very reasonable price. See:

http://raildriver.com/

I've purchased the 1922 Car Builder's Cyclopedia and am very pleased.

<snip>

I think for $30 plus shipping, you'll find the answers to a lot of
your questions about the P&N freightcars.

I visited the site and went to order one, but they gave only one shipping
option to Canada, and that at $42. Having seen a friend's original copy of
a 1928 CBC, I now have a good idea of how useful having one will be, but
to pay such a high price for shipping - more than the cost of the product!
- ... no. I sent them an email to ask if they have any other shipping
possibilities. I don't need overnight UPS.

Regards,
Frank

Thanks Richard for that great input about Mather cars and their
markings. Didn't know about that info.

I'd just purchased your book today, "Focus on Freight Cars, Vol.I",
through Speedwitch, and am awaiting it's excellent detail content. I
Love SS/OSB freight cars and I can foretell, that I don't think I
will be disappointed.

Thanks again, Paul Hillman
***************************************************************

On Feb 18, 2007, at 1:18 PM, Paul & Bernice Hillman wrote:

Of course it's true that the car's build/rebuild date is highly
relevant to the period one's modelling and has to be considered when
purchasing, painting & building a model car.

To the bottom left of the car's side doors there's a date, IE) C.R.5-
43. What does that literally mean? I presume it's the rebuild date,
as "Car Rebuilt 5-43"?

No, that's a reweigh date. C.R. stood for Chicago Ridge, Mather's main
(and only) shop. Mather cars were sometimes reweighed and restenciled
by the lessors, or by some other RR if the car was required by AAR
rules to be reweighed when off-line, but cars leased from Mather went
back to Chicago Ridge periodically for maintenance and repairs and were
usually reweighed there if they were close to coming due for
reweighing. Since you model 1947, 5-43 is an obsolete reweigh date; at
that time, AAR rules required the reweighing of most cars (except tank
and live poultry cars) at 30 month intervals or whenever repairs to the cars significantly changed their light weight (e.g., truck or wheel
replacement, replacement of K type air brakes with AB equipment).
Standard practice was to paint over the old data and stencil the new
reweigh station symbol and date over it (as well as new light weight
and load limit, if those had changed) – unless, of course, the entire
car was in need of repainting.

Richard Hendrickson

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Allen Rueter <allen_282@...> wrote:

Al,

Thank you very much.



Correction on SAL 7040, should of been 7940 ( 7600-7999, P-S '52-

53.)

With fewer covered hoppers in 1950, would this traffic have been

shipped, bagged in box cars?

--

Allen Rueter StLouis MO

I don't know, but that would be my guess too. Like cement, fertilizer
is damaged by any water leakage into the car; so it would be an early
candidate for shipment in covered hoppers as they became available.

Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.

John Sir,Try Accupaint Rich Oxide Brown.Armand Premo

I opened up my P&LE kit and put a drop of Accurail DARK Tuscan Oxide on
the underside... that's too dark (even after Dullcoating.)
And I can't seem to find my LIGHT Tuscan Oxide.
Scott Pitzer

Al,

Thank you very much.



Correction on SAL 7040, should of been 7940 ( 7600-7999, P-S '52-53.)



With fewer covered hoppers in 1950, would this traffic have been shipped, bagged in box cars?



--

Allen Rueter StLouis MO

On Feb 18, 2007, at 6:31 AM, Bob Karig wrote:

I've posted a PDF file at the address below that compares a number of early
cast-steel trucks with separable journal boxes. For those on dial-up, it's
about 278K.

http://home.sprintmail.com/~karig/separable.pdf

Nice, and useful, photos. However, you still seem to be laboring under some confusion about Andrews trucks. The trucks identified as Gould and Buckeye are, in fact, both Andrews trucks manufactured by the Gould Coupler Co. and the Buckeye Steel Castings Co. ASF developed and patented the Andrews design before the turn of the century, and the patents covered any truck with bolted-in journal boxes and bar steel lower journal box locator/retainers. However, ASF licensed the design to other truck manufacturers, and almost every truck manufacturer built several different variants of the Andrews truck between the turn of the century and the late 1920s. The Wolff truck also incorporated the main features of the Andrews design and may have been built under license, though the side frames were obviously unique in configuration. As Tony Thompson has already pointed out, the Bettendorf T-section truck, which pioneered the principle of journal boxes cast integral with the side frames, was also built under license by a number of other truck manufacturers than Bettendorf, and the same was true of ASF's Vulcan design in which cast steel side frames enclosed separate journal boxes in pedestal jaws. The DESIGNS are correctly identified as Andrews, Bettendorf, or Vulcan regardless of who cast the side frames or built the trucks.

Richard Hendrickson

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

On Feb 16, 2007, at 5:54 PM, Paul & Bernice Hillman wrote:
*****************************************************************

One case in point. I impetuosly purchased Walthers, Proto 2000

Series;

Mather 40ft Stock Car, GM&O
Mather 40ft boxcar, C&IM
Mather 40ft Boxcar, C&EI

******************************************************************
Richard wrote:

The Proto 2000 line was carefully researched from the outset.
That's not to say that every model is 100% accurate, but errors were
generally minor and inadvertant. All three of the Mather models you
purchased are prototypically correct for some point in time, but
whether they're correct on your model RR depends on the date it
represents.
******************************************************************

Thanks Richard for your input & verification of these car's accuracy.

I model around 1947, the last year for C&EI steam, and the car-types
are current for that period.

Of course it's true that the car's build/rebuild date is highly
relevant to the period one's modelling and has to be considered when
purchasing, painting & building a model car.

To the bottom left of the car's side doors there's a date, IE) C.R.5-
43. What does that literally mean? I presume it's the rebuild date,
as "Car Rebuilt 5-43"?

Thanks, Paul Hillman

John,Check Accupaint.Armand Premo

Gentlemen,

Does anyone know the paint match for the P2K NYC and
P&LE Greenville gons--the as-delivered freight car
brown paint? I have several that I have modified (with
the correct ladders, etc. and can't seem to match with
Scalecoat. Thanks for the help.

John


John Golden
O'Fallon, IL

http://www.pbase.com/golden1014

The links got garbled in my last post. Here ist what I intended to say:

As a reminder: All of you have free access to the Excel file version
of the July 1950 ORER. It contains the car heights from which you can
construct many of the tables above. It also has a rudimentary division
into DS/SS/Steel (collations of USRA DS, USRA SS files, and several
files that divide "steel" into 1923 ARA, 1932 ARA, etc., up to 50' PS1 –
all posted at various times by members of this group.). This file can
be downloaded from Mike Brock's Steam Era Freight Car Analysis (STEFA)
site. To access the file, you will first need to become a member of the
group:

Post message: STEFA@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: STEFA-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: STEFA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner: STEFA-owner@yahoogroups.com

Sorry
Larry

Hi Folks

One of the great charms of the steam era boxcar fleet is the ragged
nature of rooflines on a long string of cars. Getting a quantitative
answer to the proportion of cars of various heights, so as to better
capture the feel of the era on my layout, was a major motivation for me
to digitize the mid-Twentieth Century ORER in the first place.

This is a summary of the distribution of inside height, IH, for box,
auto, and ventilator cars in the July 1950 ORER, further divided into
double sheathed, single sheathed and steel. IH varies from a low of 4'
11" (MILW series 8000-8474) to a high of 12' 4" (UP, 4 consecutive
series 562000-564199), but such extremes are rare. In fact, over half
the fleet has an IH of one or another of the following exact dimensions:
8' 7", 10' 0", 10' 6". Here are the DS/SS/Steel splits for these car
heights (I apologize for the ragged look of the tables - I've tried
several ways to get them to line up, but nothing seems to work):

8' 7" ______%____Number
DS_______3.1%____2,917
SS______22.3%___20,716
Steel____74.4%___69,006
Other____0.0%________0
Known___99.8%___92,639
Unknown__0.2%_____166
Total___100.0%___92,805
Percentage of fleet = 13%. Most are from just three railroads: PRR
(25,360; X29 = 23,635); NYC (17,394; including subsidiaries this rises
to 19,200); B&O (13,720).

(The "fleet" here referred to is box, auto, and ventilator cars owned by
U.S. railroads and in interchange service; as of the July 1950 ORER,
this was 715,073 cars.)

10' 0"_______%__Number
DS_______5.4%____9,226
SS______20.5%___35,154
Steel____72.1%__123,369
Other____1.5%_____2,482
Known___99.5%__170,231
Unknown__0.5%_____867
Total___100.0%__171,098
Percentage of fleet = 24%. Many of the steel cars are 1937 AAR
(53,844). Another 17,082 are 10 foot postwar; but a whopping 37,978 are
simply "steel" and of no particular (named) design. (Data for the 1937
AAR cars comes from a file created by Ed Hawkins and Ted Culotta,
available for download on the Steam Era Freight Cars (SEFC) web site.
Data for 10' postwar cars comes from a file created by Earl Tuson and
available for download here on STMFC. Both files were collated into the
digital ORER.)

10' 6"______%___Number
DS______0.0%________0
SS_______5.8%____8,201
Steel____93.9%__132,645
Other____0.0%______20
Known__99.7%__140,866
Unknown_0.3%______361
Total___100.0%__141,227
Percentage of fleet = 20%. Of the steel cars: 28,604 are 1944 AAR;
17,459 are modified 1937 AAR; 15,866 are 40' PS1; and 54,462 are
un-named "Steel". (Data for the 1944 AAR, modified 1937 AAR, and 40'
PS1 rosters come from files created by Ed Hawkins and available for
download from SEFC; I collated them into the digital ORER.)

Boxcars with an interior height of 9' 4" are sometimes cited as
an intermediate "standard" between 8' 7" and 10'
0"; in the 1950 ORER there were 17,571 such cars, 90% of them steel,
nearly all the rest SS.

The ORER lists over 80 individual car heights, some with a precision to
the nearest one-sixteenth of an inch; it is neither practical nor
desirable to list each IH with the detail given above. Rather, I
classified the heights into 3 inch bands, centered on (for example)
9' 9", 10' 0", 10' 3", 10' 6" . . . ,
and counted the cars in each band. This gave 15 classes, each of 3"
except for the first and last, which were open-ended (i.e., they
extended to the extrema of the data). Each band extends 1.5" above
and below the band centers – e.g., the 10' 0" band ranges
from 9' 10.5" to 10' 1.5"; cars were assigned to each
band if they were equal to or above its minimum and below its maximum.
I numbered the bands from 1 (highest IH) to 15 (lowest IH). Here are
the counts for each band:

Band; Center IH: Number

1; 11' 3": 949

2; 11' 0": 1,584

3; 10' 9": 22,256

4; 10' 6": 156,268

5; 10' 3": 60,083

6; 10' 0": 180,093

7; 9' 9": 4,841

8; 9' 6": 6,785

9; 9' 3": 49,797

10; 9' 0": 49,898

11; 8' 9": 14,337

12; 8' 6": 12,3438

13; 8' 3": 7,567

14; 8' 0": 2,9137

15; 7' 9": 8,040

Band 1 extends from 11' 1.5" to 12' 4"; band 15 extends
from 4' 11" to 7' 10.5". All the rest extend +-
1.5" from Center IH.



Here is an attempt to visualize the above table:



01

02

03 ***

04 **********************

05 ********

06 *************************

07 *

08 *

09 *******

10 *******

11 **

12 *****************

13 *

14 ****

15 *

My intention in this "graph" was to distribute 100 stars in
proportion to the numbers in the preceding table, but because of
rounding only 99 appear. The meaning is this: If you have a fleet of 99
box/auto cars and want the heights to reflect the U.S. fleet in 1950,
you would want 7 cars from band 10 (IH from 8' 10.5" to 9'
1.5") and 2 from band 11 (IH from 8' 7.5" to 8'
10.5"). On the assumption that the "graph" will be
unreadable when I post this, here are the numbers of stars in each band:



01, 0

02, 0

03, 3

04, 22

05, 8

06, 25

07, 1

08, 1

09, 7

10, 7

11, 2

12, 17

13, 1

14, 4

15, 1



Here is the DS/SS/Steel split, categorized by IH band. Each row
contains the band ID, center IH, and (successively) the number of DS,
SS, and steel cars; the number of "Unknowns" is not shown; the
number of "Other" types is appended only if it exceeds 200
(usually it is zero).



Band; Center IH = Number DS; SS; Steel

1, 11' 3"= 0; 374; 387

2, 11' 0"= 0; 0; 1,584

3, 10' 9"= 20; 2,384; 19,752

4, 10' 6"= 196; 10,003; 145,333

5, 10' 3"= 2,167; 8,078; 49,208

6, 10' 0"= 9,254; 35,234; 132,144 (+ 609 ATSF "Panel" and 1,863
GN "Plywood" cars)

7, 9' 9"= 95; 178; 4,460

8, 9' 6"= 0; 4,249; 2,532

9, 9' 3"= 6,248; 11,643; 31,828

10, 9' 0"= 7,232; 26,014; 16,564

11, 8' 9"= 8,565; 1,861; 3,732

12, 8' 6"= 5,028; 45,020; 70,961 (+ 1,993 ATSF "Panel" cars)

13, 8' 3"= 7,085; 260; 0

14, 8' 0"= 12,936; 15,498; 529

15, 7' 9"= 6,865; 688; 378

Totals = 65,691; 161,484; 479,392



Next is an attempt to graph the above table: d = double sheathed, s =
single sheathed, t = steel. There are 100 letters; to mimic the
mid-Twentieth Century fleet in terms of IH and construction type with
100 cars, you would have, for example, 8 cars in IH band 9 (9'
3" +- 1.5"): 1 DD, 2 SS, and 5 steel.

01 -

02 -

03 ttt

04 sttttttttttttttttttttt

05 sttttttt

06 dsssssttttttttttttttttttt

07 t

08 s

09 dssttttt

10 dsssstt

11 dt

12 dsssssstttttttttt

13 d

14 ddss

15 d

There are 9,504 ventilator cars, primarily in size classes 13 (2,088);
14 (3,614); and 15 (3,228).



I hope no one infers from my above tables that I am suggesting that
one's fleet SHOULD mimic the IH or construction type of 1950 or any
other era – my intent is merely to provide some data for those who
may wish to consider that option.



As a reminder: All of you have free access to the Excel file version of
the July 1950 ORER. It contains the car heights from which you can
construct many of the tables above. It also has a rudimentary division
into DS/SS/Steel (collations of USRA DS, USRA SS files, and several
files that divide "steel" into 1923 ARA, 1932 ARA, etc., up to
50' PS1 – all posted at various times by members of this
group.). This file can be downloaded from Mike Brock's Steam Era
Freight Car Analysis (STEFA) site. To access the file, you will first
need to become a member of the group:

Post message: STEFA@yahoogroups.com
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/post?postID=ALJWdHSaCkaALQwbDQUsyiu\;
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Best wishes,

Larry Ostresh

Laramie, Wyoming













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

I've posted a PDF file at the address below that compares a number of early cast-steel trucks with separable journal boxes. For those on dial-up, it's about 278K.

http://home.sprintmail.com/~karig/separable.pdf

Bob

Only the shorter of my two replies came through, so let me summarize
both.

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "allen rueter" <allen_282@...> wrote:

I got a yard log for Martinsburg, MO 1958, (Wabash)

Digging thru the archives I see a fair amount of fertilizer came
from Florida.

Any one have an idea as to what make of LO (I assume) these are?
I'm really more interested what would be appropriate for 1950.

With one possible exception, all cars listed are two-bay
covered "cement hoppers", not phosphate cars. See Goolsby, Lines
South 4th/98, pp 18-23.

ACL series pre-1960 were:

85000-85014 (L-1), P-S '41.
85015-85074 (L-3), ACF '49.
85100-85699 (L-4), P-S '50-51.
86100-86699 (L-5), P-S '53.
86700-87299 (L-5), ACF '53-54.
87300-88099 (L-5), ACF '57.

SAL series pre-1960 were:
8000-8049 (C1), P-S '40.
8050-8099 (C1), Greenville '42.
8100-8249 (C1), Bethlehem '47.
8250-8449 (C3), Greenville '49.
8450-8649, P-S '51.
7600-7999, P-S '52-53.
7200-7599, ACF '54.
8650-8849, ACF '56.
30000-30549, ACF '57.

I don't know what SAL 7040 is: don't have a reference to that series.
Can't help wondering if the number's correct.

Pierce and Mulberry, Fla., are in the "Bone Valley" phosphate region
east of Tampa. Pierce is just south of Mulberry on the SAL line to
Boca Grande, the old Charlotte Harbor & Northern. Don't confuse it
with *Fort* Pierce, a much larger town on the FEC. See Fischer, "Boca
Grande: Once a Railroad Town" (privately published, '04), p18.

Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.

The following hoppers appear,
Apr 29
ACL | 87156 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald
ACL | 87025 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald

Apr 30
ACL | 87156 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.
ACL | 87025 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.

May 12
SAL | 7040 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.
SAL | 8208 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald < ACF 70T ?

May 14
SAL | 8208 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.

May 21
ACL | 87749 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.
ACL | 87790 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald

May 22
ACL | 87790 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.

May 29
SAL | 30021 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald
SAL | 30156 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald

Jul 1
ACL | 87906 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.

Jul 7
SAL | 8096 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.

Sept 26
ACL | 87786 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald

Sept 29
ACL | 87786 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.

Oct 1
ACL | 87615 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald

Oct 2
ACL | 87615 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.

Oct 9
ACL | 86768 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald

Oct 10
ACL | 86768 | EH | Mty | Mulberry Fla.

Oct 28
ACL | 85404 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.

Nov 4
ACL | 87700 | EH | Mty | Mulberry Fla.
ACL | 87806 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald

Allen Rueter
St. Louis MO

Sorry for using bandwidth; just experimenting with formatting a table.

10' 6"______%___Number
DS_______0.0%________0
SS_______5.8%____8,201
Steel___93.9%__132,645
Other____0.0%_______20
Known___99.7%__140,866
Unknown__0.3%______361
Total__100.0%__141,227
Percentage of fleet: 20%

Thanks, Larry

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "allen rueter" <allen_282@...> wrote:

I got a yard log for Martinsburg, MO 1958, (Wabash)

Digging thru the archives I see a fair amount of fertilizer came
from Florida.

Any one have an idea as to what make of LO (I assume) these are?
I'm really more interested what would be appropriate for 1950.

The following hoppers appear,
Apr 29
ACL | 87156 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald
ACL | 87025 | LH | Fertz | Kersting & Fennewald

Apr 30
ACL | 87156 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.
ACL | 87025 | EH | Mty | Pierce Fla.

Addendum to my previous post: Pierce *is* in the Bone Valley, 4.6
miles south of Mulberry on the old Charlotte Harbor & Northern.

Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.

. . . in most cases freight cars got trucks that built up at the point of construction. The parts may have come from a number of vendors and in some cases may have been purchased by the
Railroad in order to get a volume discount.

Quite true, though the "point of construction" was usually a carbuilder shop. (Completed cars were then moved on their own trucks to the buyer.) Certainly in the SP order sheets I have seen, it is common to have all major parts of a truck (sideframe, bolster, spring plank, etc.) from a single vendor. That side bearings, journal box lids, springs, etc. came from someone other than the sideframe manufacturer would have applied equally well even if trucks WERE assembled at the sideframe manufacturer.
The modeler idea that a particular car had "Acme trucks" or whatever, is not so wrong in that the most visibly significant part of the truck by far is the sideframe, so going by the sideframe will in most cases get you where you want to be. One major exception is the Simplex bolster, which gave a distinctive appearance to the truck though not part of the sideframe.

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

A couple of things to mention. As I read these posts I get the impression
that there is a general opinion that "trucks" were purchased from one
vendor, all assembled and ready to go. While for some specialty uses,
(passenger cars, tenders), companies like LFM, (Locomotive Finished
Material), did sell full built up trucks, in most cases freight cars got
trucks that built up at the point of construction. The parts may have come
from a number of vendors and in some cases may have been purchased by the
Railroad in order to get a volume discount.

Since we were discussing the Chrysler truck here is an example:

CB&Q 23000-23099 built at Havelock 1955 with:
FR-5E Chrysler, Symington-Gould Design truck, CB&Q truck #94.
Sideframes and most other parts from Symington-Gould
Bearings from Magnus Metal
Wedges from Cliff. Jackson Forging
Snubbers were from Houdaillee-H Co.
Unit wear plate from Unit Truck Co.
Connecting lever from Schaefer
Side bearings from Standard Car Truck
Spring layout followed AAR Plate D-37-1951 (Havelock would buy springs in
bulk and use where needed)

Since these were rather oddball trucks most of the stuff came from
Symington-Gould. With a more common design there would be much more mixing
of parts.
Interesting to note that for this series of cars no axles or wheels were
specified. Havelock must have just used what was on hand.

I found a photo album for this group called "Trucks". Put two images of the
trucks mentioned in there. Guess the Moderator has to approve them but
that's
out of my control.

Russ

Another important point to be made in connection with this
discussion: the idea that modelers sometimes create, that "T-section"
or "Andrews" describes a specific truck, is very wrong. The Bettendorf
Axle Company (as it then was) was a pioneer of the T-section sideframe,
but American Steel Foundries outsold them with a very similar-looking
design, and several other truck makers offered that sideframe also.
There were a whole bunch of Andrews designs, many significantly
different in appearance from the familiar truck used under USRA cars,
with their distinctive short journal retainer bars. Mr. Hendrickson has
published a couple of articles on trucks; for those with access to even
a few issues of the Cyclopedia, or Train Shed reprints, there is much
to look at and learn from about the products of the various truck
producers.

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