One technique that seems to work fairly well is to make a frt train longer
than the scenes it will roll through. Thus, if the scene will hold an engine
and 20 cars, a 30 car train works pretty well because after the engine is
gone from view we still see cars emerging from the other side of the
scene...giving one the impression that we see in person. Illusion is, after
all, what we're doing. Unfortunately, making trains longer than scenes tends
to make them longer than passing sidings. Oh well...

Mike Brock

Dave,

I'm not quite sure of the street location where I saw the car (and don't have a map handy), but I can
give you the general area. There is/was an SP yard just east of and parallel to the #17 freeway. It would
have been roughly a mile north of the Fruitvale bridge between Oakland and Alameda. Does that sound like
the same general area?

I don't know if there are currently any kits for these cars. However, Ambroid used to offer a wooden kit,
and maybe Gloor Craft still does. Knowing how often their kits actually were built, you could probably
find one on the used market. There was also an article on how to build one of these in MR sometime during
the 1950s (possibly a "Dollar Car"). IIRC, it was reprinted in the 1970s in the Kalmbach book on easy
freight car projects which I still have. If you can't find this article, let me know and I can send you a
copy. I also have a pretty good 3/4 photo of a similar car preserved at the Orange Empire Railway museum
which I can scan for you. Good end detail.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

Dave & Libby Nelson wrote:

Thanks Garth. All I need to hear. The Standards Brand plant is at 98th Ave
at San Leandro street -- the end of the long Kohler siding jointly served by
the SP and WP. Perhaps that car you saw was routed to/from that plant.

Raises a different question: are there any nice HO scale models of such cars,
suitable for 1950?

Dave Nelson

Interesting.

I'm asking as last night I was looking at a Sanborn map and there was a
Standard Brands facility shown (Oakland CA) that I know is standing today --
it makes Yeast. An interesting collection of tanks, pipes, and 1920's
California stucco architecture. The map suggests rail receipt of molasses,
perhaps rail shipments of dry yeast (but it could have all been done locally
by trucks), and large wooden vinegar vats. Input or output of the process? I
dunno. Either way, how did they move such a large volume of vinegar?

DSave Nelson

Tom and Dave,

I spotted a wooden vinegar tank on the SP at Oakland, California, around 1975. No picture, sorry. I was
zooming by on the #17 freeway.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff


Tom Gloger wrote:

--- Dave Nelson <muskoka@...> wrote:

When did wooden vinegar cars become obsolete and what
kind of tank car replaced them?

Reinhart Vinegar in Stayner, Ontario was still shipping vinegar in a
wooden car in the early 1970s. The CNR guys called their car the
"vinegar jug".

Cheers,

Ian
-------
Ian Wilson Canadian Branchline Miniatures
Box 2565, Orillia, ON L3V 7B1 http://www.canadianbranchline.com
tel/fax (705) 327-5397; mailto:iwilson@...
Publishers of books on CNR steam operations in Ontario during the 1950s

Stafford Swain wrote:

The only "risk" for the depositing recipient is that the item will
later bounce. However, the recipient can take the risk out of same by
simply waiting about ten days before shipping the goods.

Over several years of taking thousands of personal checks (cheques) from
American and Canadian customers, we have NEVER had one bounce. Al
Westerfield once attested the same thing on another list.

Cheers,

Ian
-------
Ian Wilson Canadian Branchline Miniatures
Box 2565, Orillia, ON L3V 7B1 http://www.canadianbranchline.com
tel/fax (705) 327-5397; mailto:iwilson@...
Publishers of books on CNR steam operations in Ontario during the 1950s

--- Dave Nelson <muskoka@...> wrote:

When did wooden vinegar cars become obsolete and what
kind of tank car replaced them?

Data point: ca. 1940, Gregory-Robinson-Speas in Rogers,
Arkansas shipped 3,000,000 gallons annually in wooden
tank cars to the South and Southwest.

ca. 1965, I _think_ I remember seeing a wooden tank car
near Clyborn station on the C&NW.

=====
- Tom Gloger e-mail: mailto:tomgloger@...
web page: http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.tgloger
____Content_below_this_line_is_from_Yahoo!,_not_from_me!____

__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax
http://http://taxes.yahoo.com/

OK, the March Wish List for decals provide to be a
less than rousing success. This one may prove more
interesting to you. I have a new Wish List for April
that is for detail parts. The link is below.

For HO Scale, I have listed some suggested parts (I
will be adding links to photos of them over the next
few days). For other scales, you will have to submit
via suggestions, unless you like the HO list.

PLEASE participate. I would like to send this info to
manufacturers and have it mean something.

The link is:
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/modeling/wish%20list/wishlist042002main.html

Thank you.

Ted Culotta

__________________________________________________
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Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...> wrote:

Any chance of getting these in any scales other than HO?
Obviously, I'm looking for S-scale, but I'm not the only one who
wants other-than-HO. Since these are pure black, wouldn't they
lend themsleves to decent resolution on an Alps printer?

Sorry, Jeff, but the decal set is white (for black cars), not black.

Yes, well, chalk it up to graphic dyslexia.

However, enlarging the artwork to 1:64 wouldn't be a big deal, and maybe
you could team up with some other S scalers to order enough sets so that
Allen would consider doing so.

That can be looked into, but does not answer my question
about whether handfuls of sets could be done on an Alps printer.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff English Troy, New York
Proto:64 Classic Era Railroad Modeling
englij@...

| R U T L A N D R A I L R O A D |
Route of the Whippet
---------------------------------------------------------------

ljack70117@... wrote:

Sorry you mis read my post. If I remember the way they assembled was a
round rod on the back od the side frame snapped in to the bolster like the
Intermountain trucks. I said nothing about spring plank but was referring
to the assembly Thank you Larry Jackman

Sorry for misinterpreting what you said. While this type of
assembly makes sense for model construction, I've never evaluated
whether the assembly has low enough stiffness to allow effective
equalization. My conclusion is that equalization is not necessary
for freight car trucks in P:64 but may be helpful. It seems,
however, to be necessary for 8-ft wheelbase trucks typical of 1st-
generation Diesel locomotives.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff English Troy, New York
Proto:64 Classic Era Railroad Modeling
englij@...

| R U T L A N D R A I L R O A D |
Route of the Whippet
---------------------------------------------------------------

Jeff Aley - GCD PE <jaley@...> wrote:

On Mar 29, 11:43am, Richard Hendrickson wrote:
How many cars make up a convincing model freight train length ?

IMO, twenty cars behind a main line steam loco won't cut it but forty or

so

may give the impression of a suitably long consist. Of course, YMMV.

The key answer here is Richard's "YMMV". Anything less than prototypical
length is a compromise. Each person has to rationalize his or her own
compromises and decide what is "acceptable".

The same concept applies to minimum radius -- at what point to 50' box
cars look "ridiculous"? Some would say at 24"; others say nothing less
than 48" will do.

The best you can do is ask for a vote. My vote is for about 12 - 15 feet
of length for a mainline freight (in HO scale).

Don't forget that people in different scales will likely have different
answers!

I'm not going to take that "other scale" bait, but I would like to
point out that many fans of the Rutland RR agree that part of its
appeal is that, while still a Class 1 road, its operations were
sufficiently low-intensity to allow modelers to come closer to
capturing the whole effect in scale within the practical confines of
the average basement. A 20-car through-freight on the Rutland
would be entirely plausible, and they also ran some 100-car trains
as well.
Here are some data for number of cars in Train 9, the main
westbound interchange train, out of Alburgh, Vermont in 1942:

9/21: 28
9/22: 51
9/23: 56
9/24: 69
9/25: 43
9/26: 71
9/27: 79
9/28: 21
9/29: 72
9/30: 57
10/1: 78
10/2: 34
10/3: 88
10/4: 72
10/5: 32
10/6: 48
10/7: 71
10/8: 78
10/9: 54
10/10: 67
10/11: 57
10/12: 72
10/13: 70
10/14: 45
10/15: 63
10/16: 29
10/17: 85
10/18: 62
10/19: 30
10/20: 65
10/21: 53
10/22: 69
10/23: 28
10/24: 70
10/25: 59
10/26: 23
10/27: 52
10/28: 48
10/29: 40
10/30: 63
10/31: 69


---------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff English Troy, New York
Proto:64 Classic Era Railroad Modeling
englij@...

| R U T L A N D R A I L R O A D |
Route of the Whippet
---------------------------------------------------------------

The April Shot of the Month is up (link below). Can
anyone help to identify the refrigerator car pictured
in the bottom right hand corner of the photo (behind
the Wabash single sheathed auto car). Only the roof
is visible, but those metal strips for the hatches to
rest on should provide some clue to somebody to help
identify it. Also in the left hand corner, up where
the last freight cars are, there is an SP 36' double
sheathed box car behind the P&LE 1937 AAR car. Can
anyone help with the identification of that car (and
provide a photo)? I think it had truss rods, but I do
not know. Enjoy.

http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/shot%20of%20mo/shotofmoapr02.html

Ted Culotta
www.steamfreightcars.com

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Safford,

I always thought that the correct spelling was "cheque" up your way!

Bill Daniels
Tucson, AZ

On Tue, 2 Apr 2002 08:49:41 -0600
Stafford Swain <sswain@...> wrote:

Our banks and credit unions will take any U.S.-origin "check" (see my 'correct' spelling)

Hi:

Allen Ferguson of Black Cat and I are good pals and live within about a mile of each other so please indulge me a moment to comment on this topic.

In Canada we have always had very large, multi-branch national banks. All these banks (and our much smaller regional credit unions) offer U.S. dollar accounts to customers. Thus many Canadians (including both Allen and myself) have same.

Our banks and credit unions will take any U.S.-origin "check" (see my 'correct' spelling) and, without question, allow you to deposit it in your U.S. account.

The only "risk" for the depositing recipient is that the item will later bounce. However, the recipient can take the risk out of same by simply waiting about ten days before shipping the goods.

So please, write all the cheques/checks you want to Allen Ferguson in U.S.dollars. That will make him and his Black Cat very happy.

. . . as for credit cards, that's not a practical payment capability for Allen to offer so (Rule 1) back to checks (or money orders if you insist on same).

--
Stafford Swain
26 Kenneth Street
Winnipeg, MB, Canada
R3T 0K8
(204) 477-9246
sswain@...

Jeff:
Actually they are white lettering. Yes they could be produced in a larger
scale. My guess that the price would be approximately double and I would
expect you to buy at least 4 to 10 sets to amortize the set-up. I'll see
what size they would end up and we'll talk off list.
Allen

Mike Brock speaks of the interrelationship between wheels and wing
rails...

An interesting point. However, the code 110 wheel actually doesn't

drop at

all. The reason is that the turnout frog/flange gap dimensions for

track

standard S-3 matches the code 110 wheel.

What follows are links to three photos in the abpr archives. Please
note the credits on each page once it opens. These photos, together
with the text below, may be of assistance to those who have a bit of
trouble visualizing just exactly what is going on as the wheel passes
over the flangeway gap in a frog. Below we will see two views of a
crossing that utilizes railbound manganese frog castings and then we
will finish by looking a photo of a spring frog. I wish I could find
other photos because these particular configurations can be confusing,
but they will have to do for the moment.

So, let's begin.

In the first photo we see a wide view of most of a crossing - not the
whole thing. What you will see here are the shiny paths of wear left
by wheels as they pass through the crossing. Of interest here are the
parallel wear lines left by the flange-root radius portion and the
"false flange" portion of the tread as typically found on worn wheels.
When wheels wear, the pretty coned taper of the tread wears away
rather quickly and the tread eventually assumes a concave or cupped
shape. This wear results in the creation of a shallow and somewhat
broad "false flange" at the outer edge of the wheel tread accompanied
by the regular flange which now sports a worn flange-root radius that
bespeaks a flange that is both thinner and sharper that it was when
new.

Two things about this first photo that may confuse -- First is the use
of manganese inserts in the frogs - you have to mentally scoot things
around to think of how the rails would look if all the frogs were of
bolted rail construction - but then you wouldn't be able to see very
much evidence of the wear left by the false flanges -- Second is that
this crossing is using frogs of a much lower number than that
typically found in turnouts. This latter fact makes it difficult to
see that the wing rail is carrying the wheel across the flangeway gap
until such point as the flange can again ride on the closure rail.
(In other words, as you get closer and closer to a 90 degree
crossing - you get less and less "wing rail action".) So, here's the
1st photo (each of the following URLs will wrap so it's copy and paste
to get the whole thing into the browser window):
http://www.railfan.net/cgi-bin/thumb/abprphoto.cgi?/railpix/ABPR/septe
mber01/09-02-01/Diamond3PaolaKs.jpg

Next up is a detail shot of this same crossing. Here we are looking
at one of the end frogs, and the wear caused by false flanges on the
wheels is *really* evident. Indeed, this wear pattern makes it easier
to see that the outer portion of wheel tread begins to be supported on
the "wing rail portion" of the manganese insert at a point some
distance in advance of the flangeway gap. Just trace the path of a
wheel running from screen lower right to screen upper left. See how
the wear pattern to the left of the frog point begins at a location
prior to the 1/2" point of the frog? No? Well, then, try this --
Draw a horizontal line between the two points of wear - the outer ones
to the left and right of the frog point. Notice how this line crosses
the rails of the frog some distance behind the point of the frog?
Yes? Good! Now you got it.

Also clearly evident in this photo are what are called risers. False
flanges on wheels make it necessary to slowly raise the wheel rather
than allow the false flange to abruptly collide with the backside of a
rail or other part of a turnout or crossing. Do you see that
rectangular part of the casting that extends back toward the viewer
and alongside the running rail on each side of the inner or crotch
portion of the frog? The vertical side of this portion of the casting
is bolted to the running rail. It's the top surface of that "tongue"
that is of interest here. Please notice how it slopes upwardly from
its near end until, as it gets closer to the actual point of the frog,
it is level with the adjacent rail. More importantly, notice how the
wear on the riser's top surface begins *before* the transverse joint
between the casting and the adjacent rail. That gives you a good feel
for how deep false flanges can be. Notice how obvious it is that the
center of the left-hand approaching rail is not as worn as the wear
evident along its two edges - this wear pattern being even more
obvious once the wheels are running on the top surface of the casting
portion. This wear pattern is witness to the prevalence of cupped
worn tread profiles traversing this crossing. It's now time for photo
number 2:
http://www.railfan.net/cgi-bin/thumb/abprphoto.cgi?/railpix/ABPR/septe
mber01/09-02-01/Diamond2PaolaKs.jpg

Finally, we move on to the photo of the spring frog. (We are here to
look for wear patterns and to understand the operation of the frog -
so please ignore the folks shown in the photo who insist that it is
fun to be run over by a train.) First off, notice that once again we
see a riser - here it is located in the crotch of the frog. And once
again we can see wear left on the top surface of the riser by the
false flanges of the wheels passing through on the main road through
the turnout - not to mention the false flange wear (groove!) evident
on the top surface of the sprung wing rail! Since this is a spring
frog, there is no flangeway gap to bedevil wheels passing through the
frog on the main route. Indeed, the wheel sees the frog pretty much
as if it were a solid piece of rail - which, of course, is why spring
frogs were invented in the first place. However, if you mentally
shove the sprung wing rail back by the distance of one flangeway width
from its companion frog point rail, then I think you can clearly see
how that wing rail would support the wheel until the wheel had rolled
not only past the frog point but also rolled past the flangeway gap
beyond.

The deep wear caused by false flanges, evident in this photo,
dramatically demonstrates the actual width of the wheel. Keeping that
width in mind, use your Mark I eyeball to visualize the process of a
wheel traversing the other path through the turnout - i.e., moving
away from you, the viewer, and along the left hand frog point rail -
the wheel using the backside of its flange to nudge the left hand
sprung wing rail over against the springs and thereby gain the wheel's
passage through the frog. Notice that the outer edge of the wheel
tread will first begin riding on the right hand wing rail at least
eight inches in advance of where the wheel passes beyond the 1/2"
point of the frog and thereby ceases to be supported by any portion of
the frog point. From that point (pun intended), it's home free for a
smooth transition to running on the closure rail. Here is Photo 3:
http://www.railfan.net/cgi-bin/thumb/abprphoto.cgi?/railpix/ABPR/septe
mber01/09-04-01/Frog1.jpg

When I began this mini-essay, I suggested that the manganese inserts
in the crossing frogs and the sprung wing rail in the spring frog
might be confusing. Now that I am done, I think that I am convinced
that this potential for confusion is outweighed by the fact that these
particular trackage components clearly show the wear patterns produced
by false flanges and thereby give a vivid visual cue in each photo as
to the width of the wheels.

Also, just for ducks and in each instance, please do attempt some
mental gymnastics with regard to the photos by mentally doubling the
flangeway width while still holding the wheel tread width constant.
To do this you first scoot the wing rails out to twice the flangeway
width shown in the photos - and then - you will also have to slide the
wing rails toward the points of the turnout (away from the point of
the frog) so that the gauge edge of the closure rails will remain
aligned with the gauge edge of the frog point rails. If you are
successful in this exercise, you will see how the wing rails *are not
now able to support* the constant tread width wheel across the
flangeway gap of your now rearranged turnout.

There goes our constant tread width wheel, right off the tip of the
point. I'll let you be the one to visualize what you next will see -
and hear! Oh dear, what to do? Well, for starters, try doubling the
width of the wheel tread. Hmmm. Starting to look like a 110 thou.
width wheel and a 50 thou. width flangeway -- Isn't it?

So, I'll now leave you where Mike Brock left you, together with my
hope that the foregoing will help you to better understand how the
width of a wheel tread interacts with both flangeway width and with
wing rails at frogs.

Roger Miener
at Tacoma WA

When did wooden vinegar cars become obsolete and what kind of tank car
replaced them?

-----------------------------------
Dave Nelson

*** New E-mail address: muskoka@...

Mike . . .

Better save your nickels . . . I'm sure pennies won't do . . . Since you
have to buy three at least, two for Bill, and one or more for yourself . . .

http://www.divisionpoint.com/

Enter the site, select "Project Pages," and then the fifth item down . . .

Yep, they are: "Right handsome engine at that."



SGL

Any chance of getting these in any scales other than HO?
Obviously, I'm looking for S-scale, but I'm not the only one who
wants other-than-HO. Since these are pure black, wouldn't they
lend themsleves to decent resolution on an Alps printer?

Sorry, Jeff, but the decal set is white (for black cars), not black.
However, enlarging the artwork to 1:64 wouldn't be a big deal, and maybe
you could team up with some other S scalers to order enough sets so that
Allen would consider doing so.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520