-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: sseders@comcast.net

In lieu of that, I wish somone would offer photo etched replacement ends we
could add grab irons to. Unfortunately, there probably would not a very
extensive market for it.

Scott Seders

--- On Tue, 10/14/08, Gatwood, Elden J SAD <elden.j.gatwood@usace.army.mil
<mailto:elden.j.gatwood%40usace.army.mil> > wrote:

From: Gatwood, Elden J SAD <elden.j.gatwood@usace.army.mil
<mailto:elden.j.gatwood%40usace.army.mil> >
Subject: RE: [STMFC] Mineral Service on your Roads
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 5:36 PM

Folks;

I have been doing a bunch more reading on minerals shipped by the railroads,
and figure you could have an interest. This may create a more interesting
through or set-out operation for you, or even an on-line industrial
interchange with your road, if we can figure out what cars were used by what
roads, in this service.

We have pretty good ideas of what roads shipped coal, and iron ore, but there
is a lot that can be done to ID some of the rest, some of which was shipped
in open hoppers, others in covered hoppers, and even box cars. Mineral
service was a huge amount of the traffic on most roads, even those you
wouldn't think of, so I hope we can figure some of this out.

Here we go:

Aluminum; source area usually overseas (Guinea, Jamaica, Brazil, India);
would have entered U.S. ports, most eastern.

QUESTIONS: What ports, and shipped by what roads, where destined, how
shipped? How much?

Ammonium Sulfate; by-product of coking industry; used as soil amendment,
white to yellow powder, shipped most often bagged, in box cars. Sources:
Coke Industry - Bethlehem Steel, Colorado Fuel & Iron, Crucible Steel,
Detroit Steel, Eastern Gas & Fuel, Ford Motor Co., Granite City Steel, Inland
Steel, Interlake Iron, International Harvester, Jones & Laughlin, Kaiser
Steel, Merritt-Chapman & Scott-Tennessee Products & Chemical, National Steel,
Pittsburgh Coke & Chemical, Pittsburgh Steel, Republic Steel, Sharon Steel,
U.S. Pipe & Foundry, U.S. Steel (numerous locations), Wheeling Steel,
Woodward Iron, Youngstown Sheet & Tube (to start) If you want more details
about any of these facilities' production rates or locations, ask!

Questions: Where did all this bagged product go first, before it went to
local feed & fertilizer distributors?

Calcium Carbide: grayish-white mineral used in de-sulphurization of iron.
Also used in deoxidization at the ladle, in treatment.

QUESTIONS: Sources? Shipped by what roads? Are these the cylindrical tanks
we have seen shipped on the NYC and RI in dedicated service rack flats? How
much of this was shipped?

Chromium: blue-white ore; by 1952, 40% was coming from Turkey, 38% South
Africa, some from s. Egypt & Cuba (i.e., 79% import), with small amounts from
Montana, California, Oregon, and Alabama. Used in ferrochromium production.
Most coming through ports of Philadelphia, Baltimore (others??). Shipped
most often in open twin hoppers not filled to volumetric capacity due to
weight. Most headed to specialty steel-making facilities (and small
industrial chromium coating concerns, but first through where?)

QUESTIONS: What other ports, and shipped by what roads? How much?

More minerals, later! Any input appreciated.

Elden Gatwood

--- On Tue, 10/14/08, Gatwood, Elden J SAD <elden.j.gatwood@usace.army.mil> wrote:

From: Gatwood, Elden J SAD <elden.j.gatwood@usace.army.mil>
Subject: RE: [STMFC] Mineral Service on your Roads
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 5:36 PM






Folks;

I have been doing a bunch more reading on minerals shipped by the railroads,
and figure you could have an interest. This may create a more interesting
through or set-out operation for you, or even an on-line industrial
interchange with your road, if we can figure out what cars were used by what
roads, in this service.

We have pretty good ideas of what roads shipped coal, and iron ore, but there
is a lot that can be done to ID some of the rest, some of which was shipped
in open hoppers, others in covered hoppers, and even box cars. Mineral
service was a huge amount of the traffic on most roads, even those you
wouldn't think of, so I hope we can figure some of this out.

Here we go:

Aluminum; source area usually overseas (Guinea, Jamaica, Brazil, India);
would have entered U.S. ports, most eastern.

QUESTIONS: What ports, and shipped by what roads, where destined, how
shipped? How much?

Ammonium Sulfate; by-product of coking industry; used as soil amendment,
white to yellow powder, shipped most often bagged, in box cars. Sources:
Coke Industry - Bethlehem Steel, Colorado Fuel & Iron, Crucible Steel,
Detroit Steel, Eastern Gas & Fuel, Ford Motor Co., Granite City Steel, Inland
Steel, Interlake Iron, International Harvester, Jones & Laughlin, Kaiser
Steel, Merritt-Chapman & Scott-Tennessee Products & Chemical, National Steel,
Pittsburgh Coke & Chemical, Pittsburgh Steel, Republic Steel, Sharon Steel,
U.S. Pipe & Foundry, U.S. Steel (numerous locations), Wheeling Steel,
Woodward Iron, Youngstown Sheet & Tube (to start) If you want more details
about any of these facilities' production rates or locations, ask!

Questions: Where did all this bagged product go first, before it went to
local feed & fertilizer distributors?

Calcium Carbide: grayish-white mineral used in de-sulphurization of iron.
Also used in deoxidization at the ladle, in treatment.

QUESTIONS: Sources? Shipped by what roads? Are these the cylindrical tanks
we have seen shipped on the NYC and RI in dedicated service rack flats? How
much of this was shipped?

Chromium: blue-white ore; by 1952, 40% was coming from Turkey, 38% South
Africa, some from s. Egypt & Cuba (i.e., 79% import), with small amounts from
Montana, California, Oregon, and Alabama. Used in ferrochromium production.
Most coming through ports of Philadelphia, Baltimore (others??). Shipped
most often in open twin hoppers not filled to volumetric capacity due to
weight. Most headed to specialty steel-making facilities (and small
industrial chromium coating concerns, but first through where?)

QUESTIONS: What other ports, and shipped by what roads? How much?

More minerals, later! Any input appreciated.

Elden Gatwood

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

--- On Tue, 10/14/08, Gatwood, Elden J SAD <elden.j.gatwood@usace.army.mil> wrote:

From: Gatwood, Elden J SAD <elden.j.gatwood@usace.army.mil>
Subject: RE: [STMFC] Re: Paint Failure on Outside Metal Roofs
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 12:55 PM






Denny and all;

Faced with a large number of projects for which I had few answers, I have
been staring at in-service photos for months now trying to get up the courage
to finish some of these horrible weathering jobs off. I've done a few. A
number of them are really daunting.

Roofs are a big part of it. I have a lot of PRR cars to finish, and I think
I have some of their way of dealing with this issue partly figured out.

When the PRR was using plain-steel sheet for their lap-seamed roofs, they
seemed to have less paint flaking problems than when they went to galvanized
roofing (immediate post-war). This is not to say they did not have problem
with those roofs, they just laid on coats of asphaltum, if it leaked, but
otherwise, out of the shop, it was painted. The paint seems to have
gradually failed by erosion of its thickness and rust forming around seams
and rivet heads, again both of which could be temporarily cured by another
coat of asphaltum.

When they went to outside vendor galvanized roofing, with their big rebuild
campaigns, they created a whole different paint problem. The paint flaked
off the roofing, sometimes pretty quickly. The seam caps stayed painted
longer and gradually rusted up like the earlier sheeting. This created that
neat grey/silver sheeting and red/rust seam capping you see on so many cars,
not just PRR (I have photos of WAB, NKP, ATSF, NYC and others in front of
me). There are many subtleties in all this, when you look at a lot of
photos. The rivet heads along the side/roof juncture went to rust very
quickly, and are very visible on many of my photos as small brown dots.

This is also added to by the variations you seen in paint failure seen in
color shifting and rust bleed through. Earlier paints on the PRR seem to
have shifted toward orange and/or pinker versions of Freight Car Color, as
opposed to later versions, which shifted toward a bluish tan-brown or some
mess I haven't completely figured out.

Lastly, are these jobs where the paint has almost worn off. One X26 has me
in awe. The paint has almost completely worn off wood and steel
framing/ends/ doors. It is a fascinating patina of gunmetal blue with rust
blotches on the steel, and a suite of pinks, tans, browns and hints of
original red, on the wood. The lettering is almost gone. I do not currently
have the courage to finish that job!

It takes an artist to see how some of this should be created. I wish I had
taken more art classes!

Elden Gatwood

____________ _________ _________ __

From: STMFC@yahoogroups. com [mailto:STMFC@yahoogroups. com] On Behalf Of Denny
Anspach
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 12:50 PM
To: STMFC@yahoogroups. com
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Paint Failure on Outside Metal Roofs

Getting ordinary paint to stick on galvanized metal is a common
problem that has never completely solved, as far as I know. The most
common means of minimizing paint failure has been to apply on the
clean galvanized surface a preliminary first coat of a weak acid, most
commonly ordinary household vinegar. Whether or not the car builders
routinely did that, i.e. cleaned the surface AND applied vinegar, I
know not (but probably someone does).

Denny

Denny S. Anspach MD
Sacramento

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@opendoor.com>
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 6:35 pm
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: New HO scale 70-ton flatcar






On Oct 13, 2008, at 4:40 PM, Anthony Thompson wrote:

Gene Green wrote:

How will the new Intermountain 70-ton flat car differ from the P2K
53'-6" flat car we already have?

Rich Orr replied:

P2K is a 50 ton car the IM is a 70 ton car.

True, but not helpful; and the underframe being a hair beefier is
pretty hard to see on a flat car. Should Intermountain actually tool a
70-ton truck, that would be a nice addition--but I'm not holding my
breath.

The AAR 50 ton and 70 ton flat cars were entirely different designs.
The 50 ton car was based on the Union Pacific F-50-11 class of 1941;
the 70 ton car was derived from a series of cars with notably low
decks built in the early 1940s for the Erie. As noted by Ed Hawkins,
the sides were different and, I will add, the 70 ton cars had 14
stake pockets while the 50 ton cars had 15 per side. The four road
names of IM's initial introduction are all authentic, and other RRs
that rostered AAR 70 ton flats included the Santa Fe, New York
Central, and Wabash, models of which will doubtless be coming from IM
in later production runs. About the trucks I can't say anything
until I see them.

Richard Hendrickson

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Gatwood, Elden J SAD " <elden.j.gatwood@usace.army.mil>

So, when is someone going to do the alternate standard twin offset hopper?

Sigh... evidently no one. I was very disappointed that Kadee didn't do it.

Lastly, on the subject of flat cars, why hasn't Walthers re-done their GSC
"Commonwealth" car as a state-of-the-art car. No laughing, now...

I like the Walthers car. It is better than Tichy's version and can be easily
improved. And it has a separate deck. What's not to like? It would be nice
to have the longer versions built for several roads in the 1960's.

I'm sure many modelers would like a really good PS-3 two bay hopper. The
only one out there is the ancient Trains Miniature tooling.

If only Athearn had acquired the Stewart models -- then we'd get a bunch of
radically improved hoppers with wire grabs instead of fat plastic grabs.

Tim O'Connor

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Monk Alan" <Alan.Monk@tube.tfl.gov.uk>

Tim,

here in the UK we have a number of suppliers of thin metal strip (brass,
steel, nickel silver, phosphor bronze) in various thicknesses and widths
for modelling - what sort of sizes are you after?? (The main supplier I
thinking of, Eileen's Emporuim, don't yet have a website, otherwise I'd
post a link).

In addition, I know I have lots of thin brass strip from waste sections
of etched brass kits, if I find something which might be useful I'd be
happy to post some over.

Regards,
Alan
London, UK

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim O'Connor
Sent: 14 October 2008 13:31
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [STMFC] True Scale HO sill steps



Walter M. Clark wrote

>> My current adventure<g> is modeling sill steps for Harriman
>> SP box cars.

Many of Al's kits use similar methods using flat brass 'wire'.
Personally I'd like to see someone do an etched sheet of strip
brass in several scale widths, each piece 3-4" long. It would
be generic material, thinner than the Detail Associates flat
strips, easier to bend and twist, for many applications. Easy
to cut too, because the cuts are not lengthwise -- as you said
it's really hard to cut shim material so narrowly.

Tim O'Connor

-------------- Original message --------------
From: "rwitt_2000" <rwitt_2000@yahoo.com>
Al Kresse asked:

Why didn't "anyone" pursue that particular design? i.e. N&W, C&O and
then Virginian in their prototype or production 90-120-ton car

designs?

Al,

From what research I have completed on B&O coal cars, it appears
different railroads had different needs for the type of coal cars they
placed on their rosters. The B&O definitely settled upon the 50-ton
twin hopper as their "standard" coal cars. I don't have the memos to
document this, but this is implied from types of cars listed in their
rosters.

For what ever reasons the B&O had no interest in large capacity
gondolas. In fact, they had no interest in the USRA 50-ton twin hopper.
Although they received several thousands during the USRA era, they
immediately began building more of their class N-12 hopper at the
termination of USRA control even though the original design dated from
~1912. Large capacity cars for the B&O were the 70-ton ARA quad hoppers
received in the late 1920's.

Regards,

Bob Witt