a prototypically plausible freight car fleet is a lot more complicated than model railroaders have generally recognized (or than many model railroaders want to admit). --------------- I don’t

Jerry, The point you are missing is that before you can load a home road car, you have to HAVE a home road car, and that means it has to be paid for. On the other hand, you can haul the traffic

The Standard Railway Equipment Co. owned the patents for all of the "Dreadnaught" (their tradename) designs, and as far as I know they did not license the design to other railway equipment makers or

No. 4/4 Dreadnaught on most cars, though some exceptions included 4-5 and 7-8 corrugated. No; 4/5 Dreadnaught. 10-0 IH cars had 4/5 ends; almost all 10-4 and higher cars had 5/5 ends. Lower panels

RPC 13 shows the unique 5/5 Dreadnaught ends used on MILW ribbed-side cars. From the text describing the production of the cars in the MILW shops - "The cars' [ends] were formed in two halves. . ."

Dave, the problem here is that diagonal panel roofs were introduced ca. 1948 and many of what we're in the habit of calling 1944 AAR box cars, i.e. those with 4-4 "rolling pin taper" Improved

Thanks Richard Well, that's my fault. I didn't include the 1932 series because I thought they were ARA not AAR. OK, another factor. So then, if I'm sorting this out correctly for 40-6 IL cars, the

that I tend to agree. The ends changed to the new pattern "Improved Dreadnaught end" in 1944, but the roof remained the rectangular panel design that had been in use since the thirties. About 1948,

Richard Hendrickson wrote: I'll admit to not thinking too much about many post WWII cars as my interests fade before 1951... but in my ignorance of 1950-1960 car appearances I always thought of the

Kurt Laughlin wrote: This isn't a simple question, Kurt, and I don't think you can answer it with dimensions alone. Various buyers chose their own interior height, in particular, and so cars

The old MDC car is a composite prototype. Either Athearn or MDC tooled a new, more eastern-looking cupola to replace the AT&SF/Rock Island style one previously used on the car, but it still is a

Kurt, your analysis is essentially correct, though there were actually five main variations: 1932, 1937, 1937 modified, 1944, and postwar. the 1932 cars were 9'4" high inside, the 1937 versions were

Frank Greene wrote: How could it be otherwise? unless I misunderstand Frank's question. Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA 2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705

Posted by: "Russell Strodtz" Malcom, I beg to differ. In the case of an intermediate switch road they were getting very little revenue from the movement of a "Road to Road" car. Their profit may

Mal, In my college days at MIT I witnessed the midnight madness on the Grand Junction every night as long strings of cars were moved from the NYC yards in Brighton to the B&M in Charlestown and

Hi: In the last few days I've gotten some back issues of the RPC and taken a good look at some of the files here and on the Steam Freight Cars site, all of which has left me a little confused about

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE Hi all; In continuing this line of discussion (and because I was asked), I did a detailed look at several yard shots taken at Pittsburgh-area yards in

Jerry Dziedzic wrote: "With so much interest in the topic, I wonder about making it a subject for discussion at one of the Prototype Modeler's meets. I'd enjoy having everyone in the same room and