Great maps Eric. I wish we had that feature on the Library and Archives Canada site I use for maps of Vancouver. While Pittsburgh is not my modelling focus, I can see from those maps that an amazing switching layout could be based on any one of the smaller plates - tons of trackage in there - let alone that whole stretch along the river! Thanks for posting them.

Rob Kirkham

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Eric Hansmann" <eric@...>
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 12:46 PM
To: <STMFC@...>
Subject: [STMFC] Pressed Steel Car Co. factory location

I found plat maps of Pittsburgh, circa 1925, that offers the building layout
and rail service to the Pressed Steel Car Company works. This freight car
factory was served by the B&O and PRR, but on the map the lines are noted as
the original rail line names Pittsburgh & Western (B&O) and Cleveland &
Pittsburgh (PRR). As there was interest on this six-mile long B&O river line
from postings yesterday, I thought others may want to explore this
collection of maps. Here's the link for the index map for this part of
Pittsburgh:
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/maps/25v05ind.html

If you follow the right bank of the Ohio River, the third map down features
the Pressed Steel Car Company works (Plate 19A). Using Internet Explorer,
you can hover the mouse over the map and different plate numbers come up in
a text block. Click on that portion for a more detailed local map. Once that
map loads, you can click on it to zoom in, or click and hold to move the map
view.

Clicking along that bank of the Ohio River will open other maps that show
the rail served industries. Clicking on the right border will take you to
the next index map so you can see the H.J. Heinz facilities.

The Eagle facilities discussed yesterday do not seem to be labeled on the
map (Plate 9B). The detail I quoted was from a 1922 B&O Form 6 book and
located the Eagle facility near the South Street Team Tracks. The nearby
Barrett complex is well marked.

Links to other map volumes of Pittsburgh can be found here:
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/maps/browse.html

Enjoy!

Eric




Eric Hansmann
Chagrin Falls, Ohio
Modeling the railroads of Newburgh, Ohio, circa 1026
http://designbuildop.hansmanns.org/





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Yahoo! Groups Links

I put together a summation that I have pulled from different resources of the West India Fruit Company's history. I have always liked the WIF and what they did and always thought that they deserved more attention than they received. So here is the document.


- Steve Hedlund, Everett, WA




To: STMFC@...
From: mec-bml@...
Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 21:54:38 +0000
Subject: [STMFC] CUBAN RR/HERSHEY IN CUBA





GENTLEMAN:Before Castro Hershey had a huge plantation in Cuba and think TRAINS did a article on that operation,plus did the Cuban RR interchange(via ferry)into the USA?Any idea of how many North American freight cars sailed{from Key West and Tampa via WIF} to Cuba(to Hershey and other customers)??
Thanks
Joel Norman





_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy think 9 to 5 is a cute idea. Combine multiple calendars with Hotmail.
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?tile=multicalendar&ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_5

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

Joel,
Hershey did indeed have freight cars that came from the US, but I have
no idea if any of them actually traveled across to Florida or not. In my
collection I have a photo of a former Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. hopper
(PRR GL design) that was sold to Hershey, and reconditioned at the Windber,
PA shops prior to shipment to Cuba. The car has a large "H" logo on the
top of it's second panel (from the left, about 40% of the whole panels
height). In the logo are the letters "FCCinc above the "H's" crossbar, and the
word "Hershey" below the crossbar. Below that is the car' number (750).
The next two panels to the right had all the capacity data; in metric system
of course. The cars number also appeared at the right end of the car at
the top of the second panel. It rides on arch bar trucks.
I believe this photo dates to the late 1930's. It was shot by Ray
Meyers, who was the chief assistant to Ed Barefoot; the car shop foreman at
Windber. Berwind didn't have "Official" builder's photos, but Ray I was told
always had a camera handy to make what now passes for the "official views"
Rich Burg

ModelFlex makes a CN red #11.

Jim Hayes
Portland Oregon
www.sunshinekits.com

I am trying to finish the Naperville GM&O gift from two years ago. the GM&O
car. In January painting the car was discussed and Scalecoat II CN#11 red
was recommended. I've looked for this paint online (No local shops carry
scalecoat) and haven't found it. weaver doesn't even list it on their site.
(Tim O'Connor thought it was custom for the CN Sig. has anyone painted this
car with a polyscale color or mix? I can get most of those colors locally.
Modelflex/accuflex would also work. thanks.

Brian J. Carlson, P.E.
Cheektowaga NY
prrk41361@...

Well,...(R.Reagan),....Google, et al, let me down. Thanks for the URL to
Details West.

Paul Hillman

Web site is: www.detailswest.com.

Frank Pearsall
Brevard, N.C.
Narrow Trak 10
(Oct 8, 9, 2010)

I entered 'details west' in my search box and it popped right up. First on
the list.

http://www.detailswest.com/

Jim Hayes
Portland Oregon
www.sunshinekits.com


On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 12:48 PM, behillman <chris_hillman@...> wrote:

Does the Details West Company have a web-site?

I can't find one.

Thanks, Paul Hillman

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

Paul,

Try this:

http://www.detailswest.com/


Larry Wolohon

Does the Details West Company have a web-site?

I can't find one.

Thanks, Paul Hillman

On May 8, 2010, at 10:15 AM, bill_d_goat wrote:

My question is which paint scheme would be most prevalent in 1950?
Would that paintscheme be found on the AFC type 21 tankcars? As a
follow up question who makes decals for the paint scheme? I have
looked at Champ but they don't have Conoco decals listed on there
website. A search of Microscale was not productive either.

Thanks

Shay Stark

Dear Shay
The following is from an answer provided to me from Richard
Hendrickson a while back.
"All the photos I've seen of the black cars with white billboard
lettering date from the late 1950s and '60s. There were some black
Conoco cars in the 1940s, but they didn't have billboard Conoco
(instead they had Conoco's triangular red and white logo)."
I was asking about my 1943 era, specifically the aluminum with
black billboard vs the black with white billboard.
Since Richard said LATE 1950s, it would appear that for 1950 you
would want the aluminum with black billboard and black with the
triangular logo. FWIW.

Bill beat me to it on this one, but I can at least confirm that he is
correct, AFAIK, about Conoco paint and lettering in 1950.

Richard Hendrickson

They are hollow castings nicely done,but plastic is plastic.The magnetic removal feature is nice for operational purposes.Armand Premo

Are the Accurail coal loads solid castings, or hollow plastic
like Athearn's coal loads? The magnetic removal sounds good to
me!

Tim O'Connor

My question is which paint scheme would be most prevalent in 1950? Would that paintscheme be found on the AFC type 21 tankcars? As a follow up question who makes decals for the paint scheme? I have looked at Champ but they don't have Conoco decals listed on there website. A search of Microscale was not productive either.

Thanks

Shay Stark

Dear Shay
The following is from an answer provided to me from Richard Hendrickson a while back.
"All the photos I've seen of the black cars with white billboard lettering date from the late 1950s and '60s. There were some black Conoco cars in the 1940s, but they didn't have billboard Conoco (instead they had Conoco's triangular red and white logo)."
I was asking about my 1943 era, specifically the aluminum with black billboard vs the black with white billboard.
Since Richard said LATE 1950s, it would appear that for 1950 you would want the aluminum with black billboard and black with the triangular logo. FWIW.
Bill Williams

I use a lot of them, and they are pretty good in about all respects. So far, I have left them alone as OEM on the layout and in this environment I have few personal or external complaints; but as I upgrade individual car detailing (a project akin to the slowly- advancing thin edge of a wedge), I may well apply an added veneer of coal, gravel, crushed rock, ballast, gold dust, etc.

I have not kit bashed them for other cars, but after reading the comments for those who have done so, I will certainly be looking into it.

I'm not certain why the embedded ball bearings are a problem for those wishing to easily and manually remove a load with a handy-dandy magnet. That is why it (ball bearing) is there, Its free with the load, and it too is removable from that load.

Denny


Denny S. Anspach MD
Sacramento

Guys...the generation of messages to the STMFC has gotten to be downright sloppy recently. Charlie Vlk sends two messages in direct violation of the STMFC rules and Tim O'Connor responds in a similar vein.

Both Charlie and Tim know by now...or at least should know...of the STMFC primary rule:

"ALL SUBJECTS OTHER THAN THOSE DIRECTLY ASSOCIATED WITH STEAM ERA FREIGHT
CARS ARE PROHIBITED FROM MEMBER MESSAGES."

Now, to be honest, Charlie and Tim are hardly the only ones violating the primary rule. However, such violations are going to cease.

Software issues associated with links to various websites are NOT directly associated with frt cars. The problem, obviously, is...where is the line which seperates frt car stuff from other stuff? Is it at the railhead? Ties? Ballast? The study of links to websites? How about hurricane warnings? I had to throw some poor guy into Moderate Jail a few yrs ago because he was determined to send weather warnings for the North Carolina coast to the entire STMFC membership. The point is...if there is no definitive line that is easy for members to recognize, I have to rule on each thread to determine which are clearly not associated with frt cars. Now...I will do that. I will remove the rule and the members can send any message they like...if two conditions are met. First, I will rule on each message...using my own opinion on what is good and best. Second, I will receive payment for my efforts from each member. Lessee...I think $100 per month [ for starts ] will work. Until, however, I receive the entire approximately $160,000 for the month of May...we'll just stay with the current rule.

And...the thread about linkage to websites [ erroneously applied under the heading the weird coupler box ] is now terminated. Furthermore, think twice before you send a message to the STMFC that is clearly not DIRECTLY associated with steam era frt cars.

Now...where are those keys to Moderate Jail? Hmmm.

Mike Brock
STMFC Owner

Tim-
I found the original post further down in my Inbox and the link was fine there. The bad one was in the body of repeated text (or whatever the chain of emails is called when people don't clear the originals when hitting "respond"). I don't think it is happening here because many links come through just fine.
I know that very long links get truncated and some sites don't allow linking.... I try to test a link before I send it for that reason... but you are probably right... the boys at MicroSoft do some strange things in providing "features" (like the maddening default that types over previously typed text instead of inserting it.. who wants that feature... it must be a code-writer favorite way of working for some reason) and I still use Outlook Express. Tried to install Mozilla and it screwed up other things so had to revert to Mr. Gates.
Thanks,
Charlie

Charlie, no one can be responsible for what your email software
does to URLs. Eudora doesn't mangle them, nor does Yahoo. So the
problem may be on your end. I've noticed a lot of -reply- emails
containing mangled links that were just fine in the originals.

This "blanks inserted" format has only appeared in the last year
or two, so I suspect one of the major email programs like Thunderbird
or Outlook is doing it. (Similar situation exists with extremely long
URLs being chopped at arbitrary "line length" settings -- again, it's
done by individuals' email programs.)

Tim O'Connor

This is the link with the blanks removed:

http://www.bensonrailphotos.com/2010-03/73581.jpg


At 5/7/2010 06:32 PM Friday, you wrote:

To all-
If you are going to insert a link into a post, please make sure that it actually works. I know there are computer mumbo-jumbo issues that happen,
but it is really frustrating to click on a link, find out it doesn't work, and have to try to guess what extra spaces, etc.. are in the address to try to make it work.
Thanks,
Charlie Vlk

FYI, this is from a recent Ebay auction:

http://www.bensonra ilphotos. com/2010- 03/73581. jpg

This is the link with the blanks removed:

http://www.bensonrailphotos.com/2010-03/73581.jpg

It's called a "Union Centering Device" and was offered by the Union Metal Products Company. It seems to consist of a swinging support, within the striker casting, that supports the coupler shank and whose purpose is apparently to center the coupler.

I have some Railway Age magazines from April and June 1932 with ads for it.

Brian Leppert
Carson City, NV

To all-
If you are going to insert a link into a post, please make sure that it actually works. I know there are computer mumbo-jumbo issues that happen,
but it is really frustrating to click on a link, find out it doesn't work, and have to try to guess what extra spaces, etc.. are in the address to try to make it work.
Thanks,
Charlie Vlk