On Jun 29, 2008, at 2:51 PM, Brian Leppert wrote:

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "wmcclark1980" <walterclark@...> wrote:

It would be nice (hint,
hint) if Brian would tell us what truck he's working on now, as well
as a projected time line for the next truck.

The newest HO freight car truck from Tahoe Model Works is what much
of the hobby still calls a "bettendorf". I'm calling it a "Buckeye
A.R.A. 50-ton Truck". The real sideframe I measured and photographed
was made by the Buckeye Steel Casting Co. and included a spring plank
and four coil springs per sideframe grouped close together.

This sideframe is illustrated in Buckeye's ads in the 1928 and 1931
Car Builder Cyclopedias and pictured in Mainline Modeler May and July
2001 and May 1986 issues under C&O 8000-9499 series and Pere
Marquette 82000-83499 series 1930 built steel boxcars.

It will be available for sale in just a few weeks. I'll post more
information then.

I hope to have the next project, an AAR self-aligning, spring-
plankless double-truss truck finished by the end of this year.

Brian, this is all very good news. The trucks you've done so far in
HO have been superb, and the forthcoming trucks will represent a
significant advance in accuracy and detail over what is already
available. I'll be looking forward to them, and will plan to replace
a bunch of trucks I have on models already built.

Richard Hendrickson

I recently acquired a NYC car inspector's log book from the mid-40's,
apparently from somewhere in central NY state (based on destinations listed
for car mileage in back) Cars are all noted as "paper" or as some defect
"door not tight," "lime on floor," "cement on floor," etc. I don't know if
that means this inspector was working a track or yard dedicated to a paper
mill or if it was simply that cars good enough for paper were assumed good
enough for any other clean lading as well.

Dave Smith

--
David L. Smith
Da Vinci Science Center
Allentown, PA
http://www.davinci-center.org

Please consider the environment before printing this email.

Keep up the good work!
Sincerely, Mark Morgan

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "wmcclark1980" <walterclark@...> wrote:

It would be nice (hint,
hint) if Brian would tell us what truck he's working on now, as well
as a projected time line for the next truck.

The newest HO freight car truck from Tahoe Model Works is what much
of the hobby still calls a "bettendorf". I'm calling it a "Buckeye
A.R.A. 50-ton Truck". The real sideframe I measured and photographed
was made by the Buckeye Steel Casting Co. and included a spring plank
and four coil springs per sideframe grouped close together.

This sideframe is illustrated in Buckeye's ads in the 1928 and 1931
Car Builder Cyclopedias and pictured in Mainline Modeler May and July
2001 and May 1986 issues under C&O 8000-9499 series and Pere
Marquette 82000-83499 series 1930 built steel boxcars.

It will be available for sale in just a few weeks. I'll post more
information then.

I hope to have the next project, an AAR self-aligning, spring-
plankless double-truss truck finished by the end of this year.

Brian Leppert
Tahoe Model Works
Carson City, NV

I am definitely not a bridge expert; but, as we say, I took a couple
of classes. If my assertions are incorrect, I hope someone will
correct me/them.

In a steel truss, there is no reason for the verticals to actually be
vertical. What's happening is that there are a series of triangles
being formed. The fact that there are vertical members is just a
convenience of manufacture and perhaps of aesthetics. An exception
could be for trusses with vertical cables as they can accept no
compressive loads, but I think for the very minor deviation from
vertical for a railroad bridge that that would involve, it wouldn't
matter.

However, the loading of the members will change for a bridge that is
not flat. This is only slight, but if I were designing an inclined
truss bridge, I'd still run the calcs.

Also of interest are the bridge shoes and abutments. The abutments
will probably be built just as if the bridge were level but will be
raised and lowered appropriately. The bridge shoes which normally
"only" take vertical loads will have a horizontal component. For
this reason, I would expect that the rolling bridge shoes will be on
the high side of the bridge--they transmit only vertical loads. The
fixed shoes will however receive the horizontal component of the
bridge and load. I expect it's much better to feed a compressive
load into the abutment and surrounding earth than it is a tension
load. Thus the fixed shoes should be on the downhill side of the
bridge.

All this is descriptive of only a single span bridge. If there were
multi-spans on a grade, it might get a bit sticky. Essentially, the
vertical piers would have to take horizontal loads too. I think this
would result in a much stouter design, especially for masonry.

Edward Sutorik

Ed
I believe that NJ International did this car in HO as well as N, but it was some years ago.(Mid 80's?)
Rick Dietrichson
Wilmington, NC

Kurt,
I also have Vol 1 and, as far as I know, a Vol 2 was never published.
 Ed Sommer
San Jose, CA


"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." B.Franklin

Group,
I asked this question on the PCL when this was posted there and did receive a couple of responses.  I know there are a couple of NYC experts on this list so I'll ask again:  does anyone know if there is an HO model of this milk car.  I ask because these cars show up in the consist lists of the book "Ghost Trains of the SP", the book on the Overland mail trains and I would like to have one of these cars for my train.
TIA,
 Ed Sommer
San Jose, CA

Hi Rob,
I am by no means an ACF Tank car expert but to my eye this isn't an ACF
car. I think it's too long to be from the type 11 series which was very
similar to the type 7 cars in design which I am very familiar with. Type
7 cars were all 33' long with the tank diameter differing to obtain a
greater capacity. In addition the dome appears to be much larger in
diameter than an ACF style dome of the early teens vintage.

Sincerely, Rich Yoder
7 Edgedale Court
Wyomissing PA 19610-1913
610-678-2834 after 6:00PM est until 10:00PM
www.richyodermodels.com

Yeah, they didn't get along too well... ;>

Phil Buchwald



--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Schuyler Larrabee"
<schuyler.larrabee@...> wrote:

my aunt, an

english teacher, was busy correcting my grammer during the
trip.... :>

Regards,
Phil Buchwald

So, your grandmother was with you too?

;^)

SGL

Re: [STMFC] Soo Line boxcar questions

Jim, if the car has Youngstown doors and S-corner ends, then
it's correct for these Soo/WC cars built in 1936.

I expect the cars would have been repainted before 1964.

Ted Culotta's web site is a good reference...
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/prototype/frtcars/1937aarpdfmain.html

The later 10'6" cars were far more numerous on Soo/WC. The old
Athearn 40' steel box car is actually correct for Soo & IC.

Tim O'Connor

Anything is possible, I suppose, but I tend to agree with Tim. The "$" herald with the black background was used on new steel cars built before and during WWII, even as the black background disappeared from cars the road was repainting in its own shops as an austerity move. When the Soo started assembling their own boxcars in 1948, these were built with car color backgrounds in the heralds, but I have never seen any evidence that any earlier steel cars were repainted such; the period of usage was too short, and the older cars were still too new to need repainting. The original 4' high "boxcar block" lettering was introduced midway through the 1951 production run, and became standard for all steel boxcars at that time. Lots of cars were repainted in this scheme, and the next, "boxcar block II" which changed the shape of the S. The Venus Bold lettering was developed shortly after the Soo, WC, and DSS&A merged in 1961, but not very many 40' boxcars were ever repainted into this scheme.

My personal recollection, dating from when I started railfanning the Soo in 1968, was that the $ was completely gone from steel boxcars at that time. I've never seen one, but have seen photos of cars with both black and FCR heralds behind diesels, so they did last well into the fifties. Of course some of the last cars to be repainted were those 1948 and early 1951 home builds, because they weren't very old at the time of the merger.

A word of caution; DPH run of custom Red Caboose cars had a strangely distorted herald; the parallelogram had too much angle, the result of working off a builder's photo that was made with a view camera's swings and tilts being employed. Go to"

http://www.sooline.org/home.html

The masthead has a cut of the $ herald for reference.


Dennis Storzek
Big Rock, IL

Re: [STMFC] Steel center beams

The current AAR interchange rules are written such that things aren't
"banned", but that RRs are "prohibited from accepting in interchange" cars
with the particular features. I would imagine that this format was followed
throughout the Twentieth Century.

Actually, as I recall, the language was, "prohibited from OFFERING in interchange." The receiving road could accept whatever they chose; it's still that way today with "plain" bearing journals. It's the originating road that is supposed to know that they can't load a car that doesn't comply with the interchange rules and then expect another road to take it.

Also, the FRA or predecessors like the ICC were given the legal authority to
control RRs by Congress and that they have delegated the definition of the
technical particulars to the AAR or predecessors like the MCBA.

KL

Only in cases where Congress specifically authorized the ICC to enforce particular laws; boiler code, power brake, automatic couplers, safety appliance, and hours of service requirements were all defined in Acts of Congress,and had the force of law, as did the ICC's original purpose of regulating railroad rates and rate making practice. Other items, like the AAR code of Interchange rules, were essentially voluntary agreements between the members of the AAR. It wasn't until Congress created the FRA in the late sixties, past the time of this list, that EVERYTHING became a Federal mandate. Prior to this, AAR rules for items not specifically addressed by the Federal mandate of the ICC were handled as agreements between the members of the AAR. A condensed version of the Car Service and Per Diem Agreement in printed in the back of most (all?) issues of the ORER, and the language of the preamble makes it very clear that this is an agreement between the parties, not a law.


Dennis Storzek
Big Rock, IL

I have seen what appears to be stub-frames at each end of 30-ton stock, flat, and gondola wooden cars shown in a 1922 C&O/C&O of Indiana FC Diag Shts package . . . which refer to channel construction draft gear arms. These drawings were crude and often the draftsperson only made minimal drawing changes and just added a note. Notes and Val photos of the same era don't always agree either as to which car-series got updated. C&O Richmond Offices "must" of started more detailled FC Diag Shts of new or rebuilt cars only right after the USRA returned their fleet of cars back to them. Then there is a void of surviving C&O "old, complete" FC Diagram Books until we get into the 30s. Miscl "obsolete" diagram sheets also exist.

Al Kresse

It is actually relatively rare that the track on a bridge is not level.
Most RR bridges have a level approach on both ends of the bridge. There
are a few bridges where this is not done but it is rare and, I believe,
requires considerably different engineering of the bridge.
On our layouts, in contrast, it is relatively rare to see those level
approaches because our bridges are all too often cut into a heavy grade.

But I like CJ's idea of a 'constantly changing' outside braced box car.
Maybe we could go back to STMFC practices and put a "brace man" on the
tops of the cars with a wheel that re-aligned the trusses. *G*

- Jim in San Jose

The current AAR interchange rules are written such that things aren't "banned", but that RRs are "prohibited from accepting in interchange" cars with the particular features. I would imagine that this format was followed throughout the Twentieth Century.

Also, the FRA or predecessors like the ICC were given the legal authority to control RRs by Congress and that they have delegated the definition of the technical particulars to the AAR or predecessors like the MCBA.

KL

Guy,

Was the MCBA empowered do the "banning" . . . or did it just get a consensus from the railroads and then submit that to some federal institution . . . or was there then just a right to refuse a car as you passed on a car to another railroad?

Al Kresse

my aunt, an

english teacher, was busy correcting my grammer during the
trip.... :>

Regards,
Phil Buchwald

So, your grandmother was with you too?

;^)

SGL

I wish I could give you an exact date, but I saw several Soo Line
box cars standing on a bridge in central Wisconsin, still bearing
faded $ heralds. The thing that struck me, and created a lasting
memory was how they incorporated the dollar sign into the spelling
of a word. My "build date" was 8-62, and the occasion of the
encounter was when I was at least 6 years old, as my aunt, an
english teacher, was busy correcting my grammer during the
trip.... :>
I maintain that some cars were still around in well worn dollar
sign markings in 1964 and later.

Regards,
Phil Buchwald


--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:

Jim, if the car has Youngstown doors and S-corner ends, then
it's correct for these Soo/WC cars built in 1936.

I expect the cars would have been repainted before 1964.

Ted Culotta's web site is a good reference...

http://www.steamfreightcars.com/prototype/frtcars/1937aarpdfmain.html

The later 10'6" cars were far more numerous on Soo/WC. The old
Athearn 40' steel box car is actually correct for Soo & IC.

Tim O'Connor

I have acquired a steam era Soo Line boxcar kit, a custom Red
Caboose run offered through Des Plaines Hobbies some time ago.
Boxcar has black $oo Line herald, road number 136182, nominally
a 1937 AAR standard 10'-0" foot inside height car, built date
8-36.

- Would this boxcar have a Youngstown door or Superior door?
Especially after long service. My available Soo Line boxcar
photos all show later postwar cars, "SOO LINE" billboard
lettering, and all Youngstown doors.


- The 1964 equipment register shows half this series still in
revenue service. Is it plausible that the original Soo paint
would be on such a car after 25-30 years service??

Prototype Railroad Modeling I was a compilation of articles from "Prototype Modeler", the SFMA's "High Iron", and (I'm guessing) "Western Prototype Modeler" published in 1981. The front matter states that Vol II was underway. Where any further volumes ever published?

KL