Tim O'Connor writes: "Larry, does 2,267 box cars on the UP mainline even represent the traffic of a single typical day? So here we are looking at freight trains spread over four months... or on any

Mike My point is, can anything useful be inferred from it about the overall composition of freight trains on the UP mainline? I don't think so. But as I said before, if you want to model THOSE

Mike Brock wrote I was struck by Mike's statement, which I think is true -- when I came back into the hobby in 1988 (and before I discovered Westrail, Tichy, Prototype Modeler etc) I'd go into a

Tim O'Connor writes: On the contrary, I think we know a great deal. We know what UP frt trains looked like. From my conductor's book, we know what 34 trains looked like. Not in a given day, but over

I designed a track plan proposal for a club in 1500 sq ft that included a hidden three level stage/elongated helix that would have provided 700-1000 linear ft of level staging (18-24 long trains) --

Ross Per diem was a fixed daily charge. I don't think railroads paid mileage on other railroads' cars. I think the only time railroads played per diem games was when cars were near interchanges, and

Jeff Aley wrote Jeff Not to belabor this point, but let's suppose the railroad agent/clerk follows the AAR rules and sends a PRR, WABASH, SP and UP box car to a single shipper on the SP for loading

Jeff Aley wrote Hmmmm.... I think that assumption has no foundation. I know that the GN annual reports I have from the 1950's include box car statistical data, including the fact that for most of

Hi John, I don't have an answer and don't recall seeing anything in the CBCs. I would make an educated guess that the MD&S cars were part of a larger SAL order (MD&S did a lot of "tag-along" orders

Tony Yes, it is about the same -- However, it begs the question of whether various conductors' reports distinguish between XM's and XA's for the purpose of the various ownership tallies. Especially

On some brass cabooses, I stippled on artists acrylics to get a textured surface. Works well for tarred roofs on buildings too, in fact, that's how I started using the technique. Jerry Glow

Chuck and Viv, The statistical "variability" of "traffic" you are hinting at was discussed on this group back in February 2009. I crafted a post based on a simple statistical analysis, not to prove

Clark I don't understand -- what does ALBERT LEA BACK HAUL mean? Lumber definitely could be diverted before it reached its final destination. And diversions could go in any direction, as long

Jeff First of all, you have a small sample. It's 2400 cars, but it's also only from a small number of trains on any given day, over 90 days. Second, it's possible that in late fall-winter months

I like someone's suggestion of reserving a small proportion of the fleet for rarities, which are rotated. Saves me the need for 974 X29s: I don't mind building a few, but hundreds of the same thing

\Ross McLeod wrote: Yep. That's why truckers have been eating their lunch on the profitable traffic for decades. Sorry for implying that a railroader might want to serve the customer. Tony

"Stop off cars also handled thing like appliances, farm machinery, etc".   Correct, I believe with ag imps you could have up to three stop offs, baler twine as many as you wished.    There was also

Assuming that some wood freight cars and cabooses had roofs not unlike that on passenger cars, what techniques and materials are you all using to model that? Victor Baird Fort Wayne, Indiana

Larry, does 2,267 box cars on the UP mainline even represent the traffic of a single typical day? So here we are looking at freight trains spread over four months... or on any given day, less than 1%

"Sure, Ross, but the FIRST RULE is to "Protect the shipment." You could not care less about car hire if a shipper needs that empty car. Now of course you don't keep empties sitting around idle, and