The data for boxcars as of 12-31-1950 can be found in the Files section as a table of numbers and in the photos section as two bar charts for the top twenty owners and the next twenty owners. The table includes CN and CP. CN and CP were removed from the bar charts. Without CN and CP the top twenty boxcar owners own 76% of the US boxcar fleet.

I compared the North American boxcar fleet with the NMRA Charles collection and posted it in the Files section in August 2008. The data are as of 12-31-1950 from the Handbook of American Railroads They are presented as a table. The link is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/files/Boxcar%20counts-Charles%20collection/

I compared the same 12-31-1950 US boxcar fleet data with the boxcars that can be identified in WM and P&WV train photos. Most of the photos are Bill Price WM photos from the early 1950s. The data are presented as bar charts showing percentages. The charts are in the photos section. I posted them several years ago. Jeff Aley moved them from the files section in August 2010. The link is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/photos/album/748636150/pic/list

Larry Kline
Pittsburgh, PA

I am sure this has come up but can not find anything about it in the archives. I
have a US Navy, made by Athern, boxcar and am wondering how correct it is? Did
the Navy have any boxcars and if so does anyone have a picture of one in
service? Did they have alot of them? I also have seen a Navy flatcar on e-bay,
Mantua I think, and am wondering the same thing about it. Thank you for any and
all support that I can get for this question.

Kenny Broomfield

Mike Aufderheide wrote:

FWIW, the following lists of the most numerous box/auto/vent cars not modeled in resin or plastic: (1950 ORER #s)

Terrific list, Mike! A couple of comments:

CNW 60000 series USRA clone rebuild. 1,009 cars. 6th most numerous house car on CNW.
MILW 597000 series, etc. ss raised roof auto car. 1,137 cars, 7th most numerous house car on the MILW.
MP 42000 series etc. ss 10'-0" IH. 1,697 cars, 4th most numerous house car on MP.
NYC 56400 series etc., steel, rebuilt of 1916 ds auto cars, 2,973 cars, 12th most numerous house car on NYC.
NYC 147000 series, steel, 40ft, 10ft doors, 9'-4" IH, 2,486 cars, 13th most numerous house car on NYC.

Um, I'm a little doubtful that car groups this far down the list all need to be done--except of course for modelers of those roads.

PRR X38, 50ft steel, 14'-6" doors, 10'-8"IH. 2,299 cars, 14th most numerous house car on PRR.

DIdn't these cars have two different roofs? If so, it's misleading to lump them all together--and 14th most numerous doesn't shout a "call of action" to me <g>.

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

All,
 
FWIW, the following lists of the most numerous box/auto/vent cars not modeled in resin or plastic: (1950 ORER #s)
 
 
ACL O16A, B, C 40ft rebuilt auto car. 2,500 cars, 3rd most numerous house car on ACL.
 
CO '23 ARA with the unusual side sheathing pattern. 1,924 cars 3rd most numerous house car on CO.
 
CNW 63000 & 74900 series rebuilt from auto cars, 1,486 cars. 4th most numerous house car on CNW.
 CNW 60000 series USRA clone rebuild. 1,009 cars. 6th most numerous house car on CNW.
 
ERIE  70000 series etc. '23 ARA 2,639 cars.  2nd most numerous house car on the ERIE (I have a question mark next to this entry.  I don't know the issue with these cars vs. X29; side sheathing pattern?)
 
MILW 597000 series, etc. ss raised roof auto car.  1,137 cars, 7th most numerous house car on the MILW. 
 
MP 42000 series etc. ss 10'-0" IH. 1,697 cars, 4th most numerous house car on MP.
 
NW B-5. 2,479 cars. 1st most numerous house car on NW.
 
NYC 56400 series etc., steel, rebuilt of 1916 ds auto cars, 2,973 cars, 12th most numerous house car on NYC.
 
NYC 147000 series, steel, 40ft, 10ft doors, 9'-4" IH, 2,486 cars, 13th most numerous house car on NYC.
 
PRR X38, 50ft steel, 14'-6" doors, 10'-8"IH. 2,299 cars, 14th most numerous house car on PRR.
 
UP B-50-17 180000 series rebuilt. 2282 cars, 4th most numerous house car on UP. Sunshine Models Private Stock kit with limited availability
 
WAB 17000 series,etc. 40' ss auto car with 12' door and 10'-3" & 4" IH.  1975 cars, 2nd most numerous house car on WAB.
 
 
This list got shorter by 2 cars this year with the introduction of the NCStL 36' rebuilds and the announcement of the SAL V9 vent. Any corrections or suggestions are very welcome.
 
Regards,
 
Mike Aufderheide
 
PS: I haven't revised this list in light of the recent loss/postponement of Westerfield & Speedwitch kits, but the number of unavailable cars will double in length without them.
 




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

I have this boxcar data for 1956 summarized also, I'll post tonight if it helps. I think it was in my Naperville handout also.
Brian Carlson

Richard Hendrickson wrote:
"Ben, as your boxcar compilation no doubt shows, this list changes
dramatically if coal hoppers are excluded. B&O, C&O, L&N, and N&W
move way down the list, Santa Fe, Milwaukee, and Southern Pacific
move way up. So for many of us (i.e., most of us who model railroads
west of the Mississippi) this list isn't very helpful and in fact may
give us a seriously distorted picture of the foreign road freight
cars we need to model."

Richard, just giving JP what he wanted. :)

Agree with you 100% - I've always believed that a better entering argument (reinforced by Tim Gilbert and Dave Nelson) was to look at the general service cars (XM, FM) as one of the bases for most likely foreign road cars.


Ben Hom

Richard Hendrickson wrote:

Ben, as your boxcar compilation no doubt shows, this list changes dramatically if coal hoppers are excluded. B&O, C&O, L&N, and N&W move way down the list, Santa Fe, Milwaukee, and Southern Pacific move way up. So for many of us (i.e., most of us who model railroads west of the Mississippi) this list isn't very helpful and in fact may give us a seriously distorted picture of the foreign road freight cars we need to model.

Exactly. The chart i referenced from my blog DOES have the hopper, ore and ballast cars removed. Here's that link again:

http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2010/12/choosing-model-car-fleet-2.html

My data also are for 1950, as it happens, and they INCLUDE the subsidiaries, such as C&NW's Omaha Road and Mopac's IGN and others, unlike the Nehrich data.

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

JP Barger wrote:

Hi-- Tony Thompson's last message made me think that a 'pareto' list of the top twenty RR's total freight car ownership in 1950 would be most useful in thinking about what is under- and what is overrepresented in model form. Does someone have this data? Thanks in advance.

Yes, I published such a chart years ago, and have reproduced it in a post on my blog. Here's the link:

http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2010/12/choosing-model-car-fleet-2.html

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

Here is a reference to Pareto that JP mentioned......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution

The Pareto distribution, named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, is a power law probability distribution that coincides with social, scientific, geophysical, actuarial, and many other types of observable phenomena. This idea is sometimes expressed more simply as the Pareto principle or the "80-20 rule" which says that 20% of the population controls 80% of the wealth.[3

To apply it to underrespresented freight car models one would (should?) break down the cars by descrete types to come up with important missing models. I suspect that the "law" might be missapplied here as the 80/20 distribution is based on a common commodity split between multiple owners, not multiple commodities specific to an owner in a pool of different commodities.

Are we talking "mass production" models here or included limited run resin and brass models? Makes a big difference. For example, there are few RTR models of 50FT 1 1/2 Door box cars, which for some areas of the country were very commonly seen. Car distribution (some car types did not normally make it to all parts of the network) is going to make a difference, not just the total number of cars "in the fleet".

I don't think you can make the choice process into a formula, although it is fun to talk about such matters.

Charlie Vlk

On May 16, 2011, at 11:00 AM, Benjamin Hom wrote:

Data compiled by John Nehrich from January 1949 ORER:

Railroads (22 - CN/CP included for comparison)
Pennsylvania - 214,799 revenue freight cars
New York Central - 129,369 cars
Baltimore & Ohio - 102,190 cars
Canadian National - 90,733 cars
Canadian Pacific - 82,397 cars
Chesapeake & Ohio - 80,881 cars
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe - 78,904 cars
Louisville & Nashville - 68,319 cars
Norfolk & Western - 60,178 cars
Milwaukee Road - 57,475 cars
Illinois Central - 56,516 cars
Southern - 55,368 cars
Southern Pacific - 51,042 cars
Chicago Burlington & Quincy - 49,499 cars
Union Pacific - 46,608 cars
Chicago & North Western - 46,227 cars
Great Northern - 40,480 cars
Northern Pacific - 35,787 cars
Missouri Pacific - 35,022 cars
Reading - 32,032 cars
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific - 27,997 cars
St. Louis - San Francisco - 26,760 cars

Ben, as your boxcar compilation no doubt shows, this list changes
dramatically if coal hoppers are excluded. B&O, C&O, L&N, and N&W
move way down the list, Santa Fe, Milwaukee, and Southern Pacific
move way up. So for many of us (i.e., most of us who model railroads
west of the Mississippi) this list isn't very helpful and in fact may
give us a seriously distorted picture of the foreign road freight
cars we need to model.

Richard Hendrickson

I wrote:
"I also compiled a comparison of boxcar fleets for January 1950 and
formatted it on a slide for my clinics - Brian Carlson used it last for
his presentation at the last Greensburg meet.  I'll post it to the
files section later tonight if it's not already there."

Turns out I posted it to the files section six(!) years ago:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/files/General%20Service%20Boxcars%20-%20July%201950.pdf

US roads only. PRR Class X29 and NYC USRA-design steel boxcar (all lots) included for comparison.


Ben Hom

Elden,

I think JP wanted the top 20 Railroads, not the top 20 per railroad <VBG> , although that data would be even more useful, and it is certainly the approach that you, I and others have taken in persuading manufacturers to do specific PRR cars.

Regards
Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL

JP Barger asked:
"Hi-- Tony Thompson's last message made me think that a 'pareto' list of the
top twenty RR's total freight car ownership in 1950 would be most useful in
thinking about what is under- and what is overrepresented in model form.
Does someone have this data?"

Data compiled by John Nehrich from January 1949 ORER:

Railroads (22 - CN/CP included for comparison)
Pennsylvania - 214,799 revenue freight cars
New York Central - 129,369 cars
Baltimore & Ohio - 102,190 cars
Canadian National - 90,733 cars
Canadian Pacific - 82,397 cars
Chesapeake & Ohio - 80,881 cars
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe - 78,904 cars
Louisville & Nashville - 68,319 cars
Norfolk & Western - 60,178 cars
Milwaukee Road - 57,475 cars
Illinois Central - 56,516 cars
Southern - 55,368 cars
Southern Pacific - 51,042 cars
Chicago Burlington & Quincy - 49,499 cars
Union Pacific - 46,608 cars
Chicago & North Western - 46,227 cars
Great Northern - 40,480 cars
Northern Pacific - 35,787 cars
Missouri Pacific - 35,022 cars
Reading - 32,032 cars
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific - 27,997 cars
St. Louis - San Francisco - 26,760 cars
 
Private Car Owners:
Union Tank Car - 42,316 cars
General American Transportation - 41,521 cars
Pacific Fruit Express - 37,635 cars
 
I also compiled a comparison of boxcar fleets for January 1950 and formatted it
on a slide for my clinics - Brian Carlson used it last for his presentation at
the last Greensburg meet.  I'll post it to the files section latetr tonight if
it's not already there.
 
 
Ben Hom

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

JP;

You need a message title, so...

For the PRR, closest date I have - July 1949; TOP 20:

H21A, X29, GLA, GS, GLCA, X31A, X26, X25, G22, H21E, H25, G27, X28A, GR,
X26C, G25, X38, X29B, G29

BTW, this changes dramatically for 1955.....

Elden Gatwood

Hi-- Tony Thompson's last message made me think that a 'pareto' list of the
top twenty RR's total freight car ownership in 1950 would be most useful in
thinking about what is under- and what is overrepresented in model form.
Does someone have this data? Thanks in advance.



JP Barger

Does the lack of UP freight cars have anything to do . . .

What's all this UP sensitivity? It's an interesting and in some ways glamorous railroad, but stands around 14th or 15th in terms of size of freight car fleet, as of the early 1950s.

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

Might I be bold enough to suggest the NEB& W site? -Armand Premo <

Sure ;-)

Actually, I'm a dues-paying member. Haven't been to the site for some time. Maybe I better re-explore.

-Brian Chapman
Evansdale, Iowa

. . . It sounds to me like the current state of the art is not particularly good for fine modeling. . . . -Chuck Soule <

I've been collecting 3D printing information as I trip across it. There are several processes out there, some of which do a very fine job of reproducing fine detail. Some years ago I was able to examine first hand an N scale GP38 shell from Mark4Design (New Zealand) and thought it to be a match for Kato N scale shells.

Recently, I have heard third hand that a fellow at TT Nut (a TT scale forum) used Shapeways to create a GP7 shell; it was not entirely successful, according to the judgment of that third party.

I am 3D modeling a first gen EMD loco in TT scale and will CNC cut the sub-assemblies here. But, certain items, such as air horns, I am hoping to 3D print. Hope some of the finer 3D printing technology is up to it.

-Brian Chapman
Evansdale, Iowa

Might I be bold enough to suggest the NEB& W site?.Armand Premo

. . . We will only be as successful if we have articles from modelers. -Noel <

Noel,

From a Midwesterner who is captivated by upstate New York and New England topography and history, I (selfishly) wish you high success. I moved on from the Boston & Albany (to the B&M and CV) as a modeling subject when I discovered how difficult it is -- for me, anyway -- to dredge up NYC information.

So, a question if I may: Do you have a membership that is now ready to embrace modeling as a way to preserve NYC history? Or, are you and a few others hoping to develop an interest in modeling that is, at the moment, lacking?

A few years ago, I posted a question or two about the B&A at the NYC-Railroad yahoo group and received zero responses. This, in combination with finding little other B&A information online, motivated me to leave the B&A behind.

(I have collected a large amount of B&A documentation from the Conrail era, but my modeling focus is the 1950s. Which means the double-track B&A is a problem for me. . . .)

BTW, is the NYC-Railroad the leading NYC information forum out there?

Thanks much,

Brian Chapman
Evansdale, Iowa