Have finally located the reference to a CMWX traveling on the NP. The
citation is from Russ Strodtz from a posting on his Rail Freight Group.



"For example I've got a copy of a bill in front
of me for a CMWX car of wine. San Martin CA to Bronx NY.
No diversions involved, just a straight routing. It is
routed SP-SP&S-NP-CB&Q-NYC."



It would appear that on at least several occasions the cars were routed over
the NP but still from San Martin CA to the Bronx NY very close to Yankee
Stadium.



Matt Herson



From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of
Richard Hendrickson
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 9:16 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: Wine cars





On Apr 5, 2010, at 6:03 PM, leakinmywaders wrote:

Brian: Matt Herson called it to my attention first, and since I've
seen other bits of evidence from photos and wheel reports that in
small numbers, but over many years, some of these ex-Pfaudler CMWX
wine cars saw routing eastbound over the NP with loads of wine for
destination points east of the Twin Cities....

Chris Frissell
Polson, MT

East of the twin cities? The only major cities east of the twin
cities are Milwaukee and Chicago, and one would think wine traffic to
those destinations which originated south of the Bay Area would have
been routed SP-UP-C&NW to Chicago, not SP-SP&S-NP via Portland and
Spokane. Unless Chateau-Martin supplied a wine wholesaler in
northern Wisconsin, and even then.... Very curious.

Richard Hendrickson

Tim and Gene, Thank You.

I have found something that looks similar:

http://www.molocotrains.com/freight-parts/ca-0302-freight-car-appliance-kit-ajax-universal-2.html

Any suggestions?

Mark Morgan

Is Champ still selling their decals? I placed an online order last
month and did not get a reply. I wasn't sure if it was them or my lack
of computer skills.

Bill pardie
On Apr 5, 2010, at 11:35 AM, cvlk wrote:

The price of Champ should be based on what Walthers got for their
decal business......

....from what I understand, they offered the whole works....
screens, plates, etc... to whoever would back a truck up to the
warehouse and get rid of it for them. Presumably Whatever research
materials existed long since passed over to the manufacturing side
of WKW.
They didn't have any takers from what I've heard. The only thing of
value for a non-digital based business would be the source material
and perhaps some of the original artwork if it were scanable.

Nobody (well, I probably shouldn't make that statement... almost
nobody) in their right mind would base a venture on pen and ink
drawing of artwork for decal production today.
The costs and quality that computer-based art and processes allow
are the only viable basis for a for-profit business. Of course, we
are talking about the HOBBY Industry so the rules are apparently a
little different.....

We will see some viable tooling become boat anchors because of over-
valuation of their worth by retiring owners. There is some stuff
worth touching up (maybe so much in rolling stock) but we're going
to lose some nice building kits because of this.

Charlie Vlk

Tom Olsen wrote:

Connie has officially placed the company up for sale. If the company
is not sold, she plans to shut down completely. Hopefully someone
will buy the company as a complete shutdown would make it difficult
to letter a great many of the freight cars that we currently build.
Not always do the decals in many of the kits we buy do the job.

I couldn't agree more, Tom, but in conversations with Connie it
is clear that they do not wish to have the business professionally
valued, but are simply setting a very high price, based I guess on
their personal feelings for how great a business it is (or was). This
is common with hobby businesses, where individuals have poured a great
deal of themselves into the work and cannot conceive that it might not
be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is not to criticize Connie--she has labored mightily in
recent years to keep Champ alive, and is certainly entitled to every
buck she can get from the sale--but I personally doubt her pricing
ideas will find a buyer.

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

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

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

On Apr 5, 2010, at 6:03 PM, leakinmywaders wrote:

Brian: Matt Herson called it to my attention first, and since I've
seen other bits of evidence from photos and wheel reports that in
small numbers, but over many years, some of these ex-Pfaudler CMWX
wine cars saw routing eastbound over the NP with loads of wine for
destination points east of the Twin Cities....

Chris Frissell
Polson, MT

East of the twin cities? The only major cities east of the twin
cities are Milwaukee and Chicago, and one would think wine traffic to
those destinations which originated south of the Bay Area would have
been routed SP-UP-C&NW to Chicago, not SP-SP&S-NP via Portland and
Spokane. Unless Chateau-Martin supplied a wine wholesaler in
northern Wisconsin, and even then.... Very curious.

Richard Hendrickson

Brian: Matt Herson called it to my attention first, and since I've seen other bits of evidence from photos and wheel reports that in small numbers, but over many years, some of these ex-Pfaudler CMWX wine cars saw routing eastbound over the NP with loads of wine for destination points east of the Twin Cities. As Richard said, no one would question their absence. Along with a few other oddballs like wandering SCL express reefers of mail, I'd put them in the category of cars that you could put in model consist once in a great while just to raise a few eyebrows, especially if you want to bait naysayers into a discussion about what "never happened."

Chris Frissell
Polson, MT

Ben,
I'm not in HO scale myself, but you might look for someone who has an Overland Scale Models HO LV caboose to "borrow" to make a mold of the three tiered steps. The HO model had the cast type steps.
I don't have an accurate listing of which cabooses had fabricated three tiered steps, but more than a few did. This might be an option if you only need to do one cab.
The LVRR modeler site of the Anthracite Railroads Historical Society has some good photos of both the cast and the fabricated steps. See:
http://www.anthraciterailroads.org/lvrrmodeler/cabooses.html
In fact I believe this site lists which numbers did have the fabricated steps.
Hope this helps!
Bud Rindfleisch

Tom, and Brian, you both are no doubt correct about some of the meat going
to the NYC. The figures that I had seen from a presentation that Jim Singer did
at Naperville a few years ago confirmed that NYC got a huge portion of the
perishable traffic to the east. And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense,
it's a good connections, with fast routing to the population centers of the east,
and with many consignees served by NYC railroad itself, this is all perfectly
understandable.
MC (NYC) handled it's hot perishable traffic through Canada to Buffalo. With
MC having hot connecting trains off the IHB, at Blue Island, and out of Joliet, off
the Santa Fe, to handle the traffic. Many great photos exist to show how big this
interchange was, and how it worked. What amazes me is how many Santa Fe
modelers have no clue as to how this worked in the Chicago area. All one really
has to do is look at the photos, and talk with some of the IHB/NYC retired rail-
roaders. They can easily identify the trains origin by the cars, lots of PFE's and
meat reefers, a Blue Island connection, SFRD's, a Joliet connection.
What a lot of this boils down to is very simple, the shipper has the right to
route his freight as he sees fit. Many reasons may exist to influence his choice,
rates, connecting times, train schedules, and the railroad serving the consignee
at destination, are but a few. Now it's easy to understand that a large packing
house would easily be turning out loads for many of it's branch houses in the
population centers, most of the traffic is moving to the east. Now, of course you
are going to get different routes to the destinations cities-----and yes, some of
them may even be going to the Pennsy.

Happiness, Jerry Stewart

Woodstock, Illinois

Roger Hinman wrote:

I just did a quick comparison of the two lists and the only differences are cars for D&RG, MDT, one lot of SLSF and the WP. I was a bit astounded to see 50 MDT cars under control of the REA, but the car numbers listed are bogus for 1929 . I would tend to trust the more official looking REA list. Any more of these lists coming from later in the 30s and 40s. Be interesting to see which road names fall off or added and whether it correlates with other data sources.

The car numbers shown for WP are also bogus in 1929, and in fact the ORER for that year shows NO express reefers in either freight or passenger entries. Makes me wonder about the entire typescript list which is posted.

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

I just did a quick comparison of the two lists and the only differences are cars for D&RG, MDT, one lot of SLSF and the WP. I was a bit astounded to see 50 MDT cars under control of the REA, but the car numbers listed are bogus for 1929 . I would tend to trust the more official looking REA list. Any more of these lists coming from later in the 30s and 40s. Be interesting to see which road names fall off or added and whether it correlates with other data sources.

Roger Hinman.

The price of Champ should be based on what Walthers got for their decal business......

....from what I understand, they offered the whole works.... screens, plates, etc... to whoever would back a truck up to the warehouse and get rid of it for them. Presumably Whatever research materials existed long since passed over to the manufacturing side of WKW.
They didn't have any takers from what I've heard. The only thing of value for a non-digital based business would be the source material and perhaps some of the original artwork if it were scanable.

Nobody (well, I probably shouldn't make that statement... almost nobody) in their right mind would base a venture on pen and ink drawing of artwork for decal production today.
The costs and quality that computer-based art and processes allow are the only viable basis for a for-profit business. Of course, we are talking about the HOBBY Industry so the rules are apparently a little different.....

We will see some viable tooling become boat anchors because of over-valuation of their worth by retiring owners. There is some stuff worth touching up (maybe so much in rolling stock) but we're going to lose some nice building kits because of this.

Charlie Vlk

Tom Olsen wrote:
> Connie has officially placed the company up for sale. If the company
> is not sold, she plans to shut down completely. Hopefully someone
> will buy the company as a complete shutdown would make it difficult
> to letter a great many of the freight cars that we currently build.
> Not always do the decals in many of the kits we buy do the job.

I couldn't agree more, Tom, but in conversations with Connie it
is clear that they do not wish to have the business professionally
valued, but are simply setting a very high price, based I guess on
their personal feelings for how great a business it is (or was). This
is common with hobby businesses, where individuals have poured a great
deal of themselves into the work and cannot conceive that it might not
be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is not to criticize Connie--she has labored mightily in
recent years to keep Champ alive, and is certainly entitled to every
buck she can get from the sale--but I personally doubt her pricing
ideas will find a buyer.

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

Brian,

As a young boy I recall standing on the platform of the new Marshalltown depot in the early to mid-Fifties waiting for Number 6 to take us north to Minneapolis. More than once a freight train heading toward Oelwein got out of Kansas City and Des Moines ahead of us. I stood on the platform and believe I saw some Rath refrigerator cars in the consist. I definitely saw SFRD refrigerator cars, produce I assume, in that consist. Perhaps the CGW was forwarding the RATH cars to Waterloo.

I don't doubt that some meat went to the NYC, but according to my source, the CGW preferred to deal with the NKP when it came to meat.

Tom

Greg Martin wrote:

We did perhishabes fruits and vegetables, meat and livestock in TKM. I have yet to publish the lumber data, but I have those numbers as well.

Which issue? I don't always read the entire issue, so may have missed it.

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

Tony,

We did perhishabes fruits and vegetables, meat and livestock in TKM. I have yet to publish the lumber data, but I have those numbers as well.

Greg Martin

Tom Olsen wrote:

Connie has officially placed the company up for sale. If the company is not sold, she plans to shut down completely. Hopefully someone will buy the company as a complete shutdown would make it difficult to letter a great many of the freight cars that we currently build. Not always do the decals in many of the kits we buy do the job.

I couldn't agree more, Tom, but in conversations with Connie it is clear that they do not wish to have the business professionally valued, but are simply setting a very high price, based I guess on their personal feelings for how great a business it is (or was). This is common with hobby businesses, where individuals have poured a great deal of themselves into the work and cannot conceive that it might not be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is not to criticize Connie--she has labored mightily in recent years to keep Champ alive, and is certainly entitled to every buck she can get from the sale--but I personally doubt her pricing ideas will find a buyer.

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

There was a Todd Sullivan article in the Sept. 90 MM on ACF 1948 design box cars. It talks about ACF using a "split panel" roof (as opposed to a rectangular or diagonal panel -- similar to the "Despatch" roof) and "dartnaught" ends on certain cars. The article specifically calls out DT&I 14000-14299 and 14300-14549, MKT 97001-97300 and 97301-97800, and Reading 107500-107999 and 10800 (sic) -108499. It includes plans for MKT 92548 (which is not among those called as being of this particular design). The photos in this article are confusing to say the least. The title illustration has nothing to do with the subject of the article, being ACFX 30000 a 1938 welded demonstrator car (I think). I can accept that since I have no intention of modeling that car. But also included in the photos are the following:

ACL 24000-24999
ATSF 33500-33999
C&EI 66300-64299 (did they count backwards?)
Erie 90500-91199
CMO 38300-39098
ITC 5700-5709
DL&W 54000-54999
RI 23000-23999 and 24000-24999
NKP 20200-20499
PRR 600000-601999 and 602000-603499
Reading ? (showing 109300)
SERX 976-1027
NJI&I 100-199
MKT 91500-92000 (again outside the series called out in the article)

Based on the photos in the article, the DL&W, NKP, SERX, and NJI&I are not among the cars with the dartnaught ends and split panel roof. Looking at Ed Hawkins's article in the 11/90 RMJ, it appears that the Erie cars are out, too, as are the PRR 602000-603499. Another Ed Hawkins article, from the 10/90 RMJ, seems to rule out others (ATSF, C&EI, ITC, and RI 24000 series) since he says they had rectangular panel or diagonal panel roofs.

So here is my question. What 40' box cars did have the combination of split panel roofs and dartnaught ends? I would be pleased to learn that the RI 23000 series cars are among these.

I am contemplating building an example of these cars using Branchline dartnaught ends and a cut-down Despatch roof from a Branchline 50' box car kit.


Richard Townsend
Lincoln City, Oregon

List,

I just placed an order for some NYC freight decals from Champion Decal Company. Connie has officially placed the company up for sale. If the company is not sold, she plans to shut down completely.

There is a summary on the website of what is included in the sale along with photos of the worksite and cabinets. See the website at: http://www.minot.com/champ/

I am sure that all would be interested in this upcoming event. Champ has many decal sets for freight cars that are not available from MicroScale, even though some of the Champ sets are not correct as to size, the majority were undergoing revision when Rich passed away.

Hopefully someone will buy the company as a complete shutdown would make it difficult to letter a great many of the freight cars that we currently build. Not always do the decals in many of the kits we buy do the job.

Best regards,

Tom Olsen
7 Boundary Road, West Branch
Newark, Delaware, 19711-7479
(302) 738-4292 (H)
(302) 740-2897 (C)]
tmolsen@...

I didn't think the CGW would turn over its meat to the PRR and the NYC. The NKP was a wise choice back in the day. I recall reading about the NKP Berkshires zipping past NYC freights pulled by diesels at points where the NKP and the NYC ran parallel. -Tom <

Tom,

Some of the CGW meat must have gone to the NYC (the question is probably how much, though). There's a photo spread in an issue of MRJ magazine of an NYC P70 PiggyPacker lifting a CGW beaded reefer trailer (#504073) off of an 89ft flat in Boston's Beacon Yard. Gotta assume that came in via the B&A, I'd think. (Have you seen the photos?)

Also, I've wondered about Rath Packing meats and the CGW. For those here who aren't familiar with the subject, Rath was located in the northeast Iowa community of Waterloo, about 25 miles southwest of CGW's hub city, Oelwein.

Waterloo was headquarters for Illinois Central's Iowa Division, which ran hot with lots of meat trains. But, does anyone know if much Rath meat made it onto the CGW? Perhaps north to the Twin Cities or south to Des Moines and Kansas City?

Hmmm. Which reminds me, that during the early 1960s CGW expanded its TOFC ramps to 16 sites, one being its Waterloo yard adjacent to Highland Park. From a tree as a boy, I watched crews bury one end of what I think was a 53-foot flat into the ground at the northeast end of the yard. Did CGW load trailers other than reefers online?

-Brian

Brian Chapman
Evansdale, Iowa

Bill,



Notice that the Chinchfield and C&O synchronized their Fast Freight numbers . . . even though one went east-west and the other north-south but both actually going northwest-southeast . . . to get fresh veggies up to Chicago.



Al

I have been fortunate to scan several "Perishable Schedules" published by the ACL, SAL, and L&N and anticipate accessing several more including a group published by the Southern soon. I also have one from the Charleston & Western Carolina. Many of these were loaned to me to scan by collector and dealer Kent Hannah plus my friends John King and Jim Singer.

All of these help draw a picture of the way Fruit Growers Express traffic moved from the southeast to the major markets of the northeast and upper midwest, which involved many other railroads in addition to the B&O and PRR (this is not said to diminish the volume of either of these RR's).

A nice example is the relatively simple schedule published by the C&WC for train #97 which originated in Augusta, GA (with reefers originating from the ACL, SAL and FEC) and was handed off to the Clinchfield at Spartanburg, SC to travel behind their Challengers (and later grey & yellow EMD F-5's) to the C&O at Elkhorn City, KY. From here the C&O moved FGE's traffic to:

Buffalo, NY via the NKP
Charleston, VW
Chicago, IL
Cincinnati, OH
Cleveland, OH via the NKP
Detroit, MI via NYC in some cases
Flint, MI
Ft Wayne, IN via the NKP
Fostoria, OH
Grand Rapids, MI
Huntington, WV
Lansing, MI
Saginaw, MI
Toledo, OH
Toronto, ON via CP
Toronto, ON via D&TSL-GT-CN

Another example was part of the schedule from Birmingham, AL for cars delivered by the Seaboard Airline

Lv. B'ham 7 PM Wed. via the I.C. to Ar. Chicago 11 PM Thurs.
Lv. B'ham 7:30 PM Wed. via the SL-SF to Kansas City, Ar. Thurs. 4 AM
Lv. B'ham 4 AM Thurs. via the GM&O to Memphis Ar. 8:30 PM Thurs.

Bill Welch

Jim Dick wrote:

If offense was taken to the use of the word "assertion", I'll stand back, however, were these tesimonials applicable to the USRA time frame? I honestly do not know and that is why I am asking.

I would doubt that they apply on the basis of the personal experience of those PFE people, for obvious reasons, but both the individuals I mentioned had worked for PFE starting in the 1920s. As we know, railroad corporate cultures change quite slowly, and I could well believe that generalizations about most railroad's attitudes would hold up over generations, particularly if restricted to the period covered by this list.

I think it would help clarify that with the car shortages (during the USRA time frame) this thread seemed to start with, the AAR was putting out car orders that did not apply to the private car companies, like PFE, WFE, MDT. These companies or more over, the railroads behind these private car companies could then thumb their noses at the AAR directives. This worked (in cases I have studied regarding the NP) with the UP being able to flood the Yakima area with PFE cars while the NP's own reefers were being diverted to handle crop crisis in California.

The AAR car orders were ordinarily obeyed by railroads as the operation of consensus standards. It had nothing to do with TRULY private companies, say URTX, but railroad-owned ones like MDT or PFE are another matter. From what I know, the railroad owners would have imposed those orders on their subsidiaries--certainly that was the case with SP and UP relative to PFE, You may be thinking of the ICC, which had authority ONLY over common carriers, and thus NOT over the various "private" companies like PFE.

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