--- In STMFC@..., "Ferko" <destron@...> wrote:

Is there a list somewhere that gives the class designations for

freight

cars for each series of running numbers of the ATSF, UP and the B&O?

Terry Metcalfe's book "Union Pacific Freight Cars: 1936-51" has this
information for the U.P. roster as of October 1951. I can send you an
Excel file version, if you want it.

Larry Ostresh
Laramie, Wyoming

--- In STMFC@..., "Ferko" <destron@...> wrote:

<snip>

Also: what other roads used such a system of in-house classification

for

cars?

SAL and ACL both had freight-car classes, though Seaboard was a tad
casual about them. Some cars didn't have classes (e.g. the GF&A
boxcars); most of the boxcars re-built to stock cars were re-classified
but IIRC at least one wasn't.

Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.

Ed Mines queried:


What do you guys use as debris in your models?

Scrap stripwood, simulating blocking, and some fine sand from the street outside. Glued in with
diluted white glue. As yet, the rain hasn't loosened up the glue . . .8^)

SGL

ED,

I have put debris in most of my gons. Dirt, weeds, rust scraps, a few ferns,
left over wood blocking. Almost anything could be in there, Standard scenery
techniques were used.

CJ Riley






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That looks like the upgrade on my 25 year old Campbell Hausfeld. It still works good. Just ask my steam era freight cars.

Rob Manley

In reality the floors of gons were seldom visible. By the time it
had been through about 10 cycles of loading and unloading scrap
with a magnet the bottom would be covered with dirt. Since the
scrap is usually just laying on the ground a certain amount of dirt
goes along for the ride. A little rain and it's on the floor.

The great majority of scrap yards that did not have their own scales
required a "light weight" before loading or after unloading. This is
probably something that can be worked into an operational procedure.
Scrap yards were not working on big margins anyway and did not want
to pay for an extra half ton of dirt and non-ferrous debris.

Speaking of non-ferrous there was one scrap yard served by the
St Paul that usually loaded brass and copper in MILW 51xxx series
single door boxes. Security was obviously high on their list even
40 or more years ago. Had a simple anti-theft device. A small piece
of angle iron was always welded to the lower door tracks at the backs
of both doors. Not much chance of breaking into that car.

Russ

Of course, if it's got great interior detail like
http://www.pbase.com/tracktime/image/86893373 why bother covering it
up with a load? BTW that was from the just completed Western
Prototype Modeler meet: http://www.pbase.com/tracktime/wpm2007&page=1

--- In STMFC@..., RUTLANDRS@... wrote:

Ed,
Happened to build one of the Seaboard gons some years ago.

Think I used

an old MDC/Roundhouse kit. The sides had large slits cut into them

between

the "stakes" at floor level and they were what appeared to be an

off white.

Loaded it with shrub roots for stumps and it looked pretty good

and even won a

prize in a LHS contest. The rest of your questions I can't answer.
Chuck Hladik
Rutland Railroad
Virginia Division



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

Were Caswell GS gondolas utilized by the Sante Fe for raw sulphur
traffic? See mention of another ATSF class (Ga-13 and Ga-19) cars
designated as "sulphur gondolas". What is a "sulphur gondola"? If the
Caswell design cars did handle sulphur, what was the nature of that
traffic? Bob

In a message dated 10/9/2007 7:43:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
destron@... writes:

Also: what other roads used such a system of in-house classification for
cars?

PRR see Rob Schoenberg's site for this information
http://prr.railfan.net/freight/

Rich Orr


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In a message dated 10/9/2007 7:43:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
destron@... writes:

I'd
most specifically be interested in the cars of the early 1950 (1950-1953).

The B&O Historical Society has some of these mostly hoppers and Boxcars.

Rich Orr


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Ed Mines wrote:

Were the interiors of mill gons painted? Mill products wouldn't do much scratching.How about regular gons?

The heck they wouldn't!! But nearly every gondola interior photo I can think of shows paint. It protects the steel. Of course the paint job wasn't too great after some service.

Has anyone ever seen a puddle in a gon or a picture of a gon? There are no holes for drainage.

Sure, in a number of cases.

In the era when most exposed steel rusted . . .

Steel still rusts, Ed. It's thermodynamics. <g>

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

Ed

In today world of railroading, gons are NOT cleaned out from load to load, not that I see anyhow. I have seen the insides of steel gons with all sorts of debris in them. This ranges from wood used to secure previous loads to just plain and simple trash. There are gons that are in assigned service..That is the are assigned to serve a particular plant only. Many of the gons of this nature serve in a manner that scrap steel is brought into a plant and then finished product is hauled out in them. This is NOT to say that this is the case with ALL gons.

The Seaboard had gons that were steel sided and had drains at the bottoms of the side panels to allow the muck to flow out of the cars. Remember also that this was often the last type of service that the cars would be used in. Gons in stump service were just a couple of switches from heading the scrap yard or into MofW service.

Denis Blake
Marysville, OH

Were gondola interiors ever cleaned? I think debris would accumulate
for many years before it was discarded.

For many high side, fixed end gons you would have to throw debris
over a side almost as tall as you were.

You couldn't sweep out drop bottom gons. The ends usually drop down
inside the car.

Were the interiors of mill gons painted? Mill products wouldn't do
much scratching.How about regular gons?

Has anyone ever seen a puddle in a gon or a picture of a gon? There
are no holes for drainage.

How about weeds growing? I think that the many Seaboard composite
gons were used to haul stumps to be made into turpentine. Certainlt
soil would was off when it rained.

In the era when most exposed steel rusted I can understand why some
railroads would order wood floors.

What do you guys use as debris in your models?

Where steel bands used in the steam era?

Ed

Is there a list somewhere that gives the class designations for freight
cars for each series of running numbers of the ATSF, UP and the B&O? I'd
most specifically be interested in the cars of the early 1950 (1950-1953).

Also: what other roads used such a system of in-house classification for
cars?

Frank Valoczy
Vancouver, BC

Neither white nor yellow carpenters glue are waterproof, nor are they sealants. However, they are quite water-resistant, and in this regard are totally satisfactory for our modeling purposes unless we are making flood plans.

Even on boats, ordinary white glue has been commonly used for years (32 in my own case) for fastening the thousands of wood plugs that cover the screw heads on varnished side and deck planking.

Use these glues in your modeling as glues are intended to be used, and be happy.

Denny
--
Denny S. Anspach, MD
Sacramento

Ed,
Happened to build one of the Seaboard gons some years ago. Think I used
an old MDC/Roundhouse kit. The sides had large slits cut into them between
the "stakes" at floor level and they were what appeared to be an off white.
Loaded it with shrub roots for stumps and it looked pretty good and even won a
prize in a LHS contest. The rest of your questions I can't answer.
Chuck Hladik
Rutland Railroad
Virginia Division



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Denny Anspach wrote:

Paper is a time honored model railroad construction material, the
most common type being Strathmore, the brand of a type of Bristol
board, a high, or even pure, rag content paper of archival quality
that is very dense, quick stiff, and has a variety of surfaces. It
is sold in art stores in several thicknesses, the most common being
about .008" - .010" (you will have to measure this yourself inasmuch
as the art store will have no idea what you are talking about). The
great pioneering modeler Bill Clouser was a great promoter of
Strathmore, and many of his models were constructed of this material
(he later became an enthusiast -the first?-- of resin casting!).

= = =

Bill's article on Strathmore was in the February 1959 Model Railroader, with the companion article on painting in the March 1959 issue. The material then came in five thicknesses, from .005 to .025, labeled from "1-ply" to 5-ply." But that was long ago. A check of Strathmore's web site shows the following available at art stores, in smooth (called "plate") surface 500 Series Bristol Board. Comes in 23" x 29" sheets.

235-072 2-Ply Plate Surface
235-073 3-Ply Plate Surface
235-074 4-Ply Plate Surface.

I guess the 5-ply ("075") didn't sell that well. There is a 1-ply Bristol available, I believe, although it's not listed under "071"); it's handy for rivet strips and overlays. As I remember, Testor's model airplane cement and Ambroid were the adhesives I used to build "layered" models.

The key to using Strathmore is completely sealing the model. I followed Bill's lead and used automobile gray body primer, which was then sanded and painted with lacquers. (It was a long time ago...) I recently had the good fortune to find some models I scratchbuilt from Strathmore using this method, (including my first, a CCT trolley freight motor built around 1962), and they had not warped or distorted in the intervening 35 - 45 (ouch!) years. They still look pretty good next to my scratchbuilt brass stuff, too.

Peter Weiglin
Amelia, OH

Thanks Tim!

Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:
They appear to be body color in a black & white builder photo and
also may appear that way in a color photo in the RI 'Color Guide'.
But it's hard to tell dirt from paint after a few years.


At 10/7/2007 01:05 PM Sunday, you wrote:

In 1951 Rock Island received 2,000 PS-1 boxcars from Pullman with the "100 Years of Progress" logo. Were the trucks black or car body color?

Thanks,

George Hollwedel

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512-796-6883

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They appear to be body color in a black & white builder photo and
also may appear that way in a color photo in the RI 'Color Guide'.
But it's hard to tell dirt from paint after a few years.

Dennis -

Sorry for the delay in responding - I have been occupied and not on
line for several days. Others have already given you the Sylvan
website.

The "O" scale Sylvan car is fairly nicely detailed, with a one piece
sides, ends and roof and a separate floor. No special power
handbrake parts, however. Still, it is very nice.

Curiously, the diagonal side "brace" zees on the model are "upside
down", as they truly are on the CN prototypes! The open part of the
diagonal zees faces upward. On the prototype, it seems that this
would tend to catch and trap water and cause the siding to leak.
(Maybe water up there is all in the solid phase, so no problem, eh?)
I say "upside down" because it seems that they should have the open
part of the zee facing downward, to shed water away from the siding.

If the diagonal zees were "right side up", then the model would be
correct for a series of Frisco cars, and some others. That was why I
bought two of the models! Will try to remove/replace the diagonals
on one car.

A.T. Kott

--- In STMFC@..., "Dennis Storzek" <destorzek@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., "proto48er" <atkott@> wrote:

Many thanks for the photo, Dennis! I am getting ready to build
the "O" scale Sylvan Models kit of this car, and the info is

timely.

The second image is now available at:

http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/photos/browse/fbbf

It gives a little better perspective as to how the parts fit

together.

AT, what car did Sylvan do? Could you give us a link to a web site

or

at least an image?

Thanks,

Dennis