Dave Evans writes:

"One way to use the N-G distribution model is to assess "plausibility"
for the presence of foreign road box cars on your layout. Needing one
train with 15 SP box cars doesn't instantly drive you into a huge box
car fleet."

Right. I could simply strongly over weight the number of SP box cars in order to be able to generate X4005. Also, the other data shows a much greater representation of SP box cars so it would not be a problem. The 1956 box car data [ 18 trains ] shows:

UP: 157
PRR: 48
NYC: 45
SP: 43
Milw: 22
CNW: 17
GN: 17
SR: 13
B&O:13
NP: 13
ATSF:11

Note the much higher % of SP box cars compared to Pennsy and NYC. Both Pennsy and NYC cars should be double that of SP if the G-N theory holds. BTW, the '49 data supports this relation between SP, PY, and NYC.

"But unless the train ran several times a day, it makes a
strong case for letting the X4005 train stay in staging some days, and
perhaps fiddling the other box cars in that train. If you want to
emulate N-G, then I would simply segregate the SP cars dedicated to
this train from the rest of your fleet balance targets. So now you
need 15 SP cars for X4005, and 100 for the rest of your trains to
maintain N-G."

Which is exactly what I do. Great minds....

"To my thinking, the intent of N-G is make a model railroad visit more
like a stop along the prototype's track. If you randomly stoped along
sherman hill in your era for 3 hours (more if you run a fast clock),
would you expect to see X4005 every visit? IF yes - run it every session."

Possibly...but it wouldn't look the same.

"As for the MWR car, same concept, how may 3 hour visits to sherman
hill before you spot it? One, ten, one hundred?"

Well...each visit would for our purposes see 8 trains...about 240 box cars. If randomly distributed, in each group of 7400 box cars I would expect to see one MWR car. That would be 247 frt trains. IOW, I could expect to have to do 31 visits to expect to see one MWR car. UP, however, is moving 35 frt trains in one day, 1050 box cars, and the MWR car should appear once in each 7400 or once each 7 days [ the shortened time span from 10 to 7 is due to an increase in 1953 to 100 MWR cars from 75 ]. So, while a bum sitting beside the tracks might see an MWR car every 7 days [ and wonder what the heck it is doing there ], our illustrious frt car evaluation team, being whimps and only checking during a 3 hour time period, would expect to observe for 31 days to see what the bum saw in 7. Makes you wonder who should be in charge...

"Stats would suggest it
would be pretty infrequent."

Yep. And if you dozed off...

"Same for the Ann Arbor, D&H and other
small roads (although they would appear much more often than the MWR,
but certainly these roads would not be seen every visit)."

D&H? 2963 cars. In every group of 7400 box cars, 30 D&H cars, 185 trains, 23 visits....To fit the N-G theory I would need about 2 cars if I had a 500 box car population. In my current population....8 trains, about 100 box cars...alas...I could only have a fifth of 2 cars...perhaps everything but the trucks.

"My lessons learned from this thread are:

1) N-G should apply to mainline trunk routes where the nation's
traffic is traversing a layout."

I agree if one applies the "Close Association SP Syndrome" fudge factor.

"6) Having cars from small roads is perfectly acceptable - but they
should be fiddled in - it could be on a dice roll, or more analytic.
It seems that having an extra 30-60 box cars from smaller lines (and
some of these may be well known lines for a smaller fleet), is all
that is required to provide some sense of "randomness" to trains
entering the layout from staging."

I agree.

"I think the concept has some very positive merit. The good news is
that having 50% of your fleet from the 11 major roads is probably
pretty easy to accomplish, unless your fleet is primarily resin, in
which case I think you can do whatever you want ;-)"

"The interesting finding is that because 50% of the boxcar fleet was in
11 roads, the "fiddle" pools do not need to be huge - 30-60 cars
depending on the size of the layout and the length of the PP's memory
(don't let them collect on-layout wheel reports!) And it is quite
reasonable to run that MWR car once every few sessions. Just don't put
it in a string of D&H, B&M, D&LW, AA, and RDG box cars, or no one may
notice it!"

Yep.

Mike Brock

Claus,

For your Feb. 2005 Mainline Modeler, you might want to contact Railroad Treasures / Stevens Railroad History in Talbot, Tennesee, at 1-877-694-8366. They have many RR magazine back issues for sale.

http://www.railroadtreasures.com/

Regards,
Steve Busch

Hi Earl



I don’t know if you have seen this page with info about DRGW box cars. I
think you can fill in some of the gaps in your list.



http://www.drgw.org/data/freight/1960/boxcars.htm





Roland Levin

Vällingby, Sweden

hem.bredband.net/drgw







Från: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] För Earl Tuson
Skickat: den 6 februari 2009 15:41
Till: STMFC@...
Ämne: [STMFC] Roster of 40' riveted 12 panel AAR box cars



I have uploaded a preliminary roster of 40' riveted 12 panel AAR box cars to
the groups files area. I am not sure if this has been compiled elsewhere
previously. If you have a moment, please review this and offer any additions
and corrections you may have. My data on the D&RGW and DL&W cars is a bit
sketchy in particular. It is titled 12PANELAAR.pdf. Thank you for your
assistance,

Earl Tuson_._,___



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

Tim wrote:

Very interesting! So now the question is did those
gondolas travel the ATSF-WP-GN inside gateway route
to Great Falls, or SP-UP-MILW? :-)

That's easy...the switch lists show that, after weighing, the loaded cars
were taken to the SP interchange...

Jack Burgess
www.yosemitevalleyrr.com

I never could get over the use of masks, use of masking tape, etc. I
kept a couple pair of "shop" trucks, put the wheelsets in them and
painted. A pipe cleaner dipped in thinner done immediately cleaned the
treads. It usually even left a thin edge of the weathering on the outer
edge of the tread.

Jerry Glow

Stan Rydarowicz has several reefer kits for sale. His latest are two NWX reefers. One rebuilt with wood sides in 1953 and the other with steel sides rebuilt in 1955. Anyone interested in this two kits please contact me off list at:
cepropst@...
Clark Propst
Mason City Iowa

I have uploaded a preliminary roster of 40' riveted 12 panel AAR box cars to the groups files area. I am not sure if this has been compiled elsewhere previously. If you have a moment, please review this and offer any additions and corrections you may have. My data on the D&RGW and DL&W cars is a bit sketchy in particular. It is titled 12PANELAAR.pdf. Thank you for your assistance,

Earl Tuson

Hi Claus,

Try railpub.com. Railpub is a used book and magazine dealer specializing in railroad and model railroad titles.

So long,

Andy

Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
Model Railroader magazine
asperandeo@...
262-796-8776, ext. 461
FAX 262-796-1142

Finally - a durable, cleanable (acrylic AND solvent-based paints),
flexible wheel mask with a built-in handle. Might not be able to paint
more than four wheelsets at a time, but with the ease of
loading/unloading, one should be able to paint just as many in the
same amount of time as using other, more unwieldy masks. Having less
mask material in the way of the airbrush stream is also a big plus.

http://www.rgspemkt.com/WheelMask.html

Mike Fortney

Disclaimer: Yeah, I'll confess to being one of the culprits nagging
AMB for years to produce this!

--- In STMFC@..., "Mike Brock" <brockm@...> wrote:

Consider: I model only a tiny part of Sherman Hill and only about 3

hrs of

traffic during one op session. 8 frt trains in all. I compress both the
layout and the frt trains...from 75 to 30 cars. About 100 box

cars....or 12

per train if they were applied equally which they were not. Using

the % of

the entire box car fleet, I should have 4 SP box cars. However, in

order to

model the infamous X4005 train with its 36 SP box cars...very close

to 50%

of the known train...I would need 15 SP box cars [ 50% of a 30 car

train ].

To do that and stay within the N-G envelope of 4% of the national

fleet, I

would need 375 box cars. But...I will need more SP box cars to populate
other trains so I'll go with 20 SP box cars. I now need 500 box

cars. The

question then is...how do I apply these 500 box cars to my 8 frt

trains and

their average of 12 per train? In any session the number of box cars

should

be about 100...leaving 400 in their boxes.

What does this do for the MWR car? Well, nothing. The 1953 ORER

shows 100

MWR box cars. For me to have one MWR box car and match the N-G data

base, I

would need 7400 box cars.

Mike Brock

Mike,

One way to use the N-G distribution model is to assess "plausibility"
for the presence of foreign road box cars on your layout. Needing one
train with 15 SP box cars doesn't instantly drive you into a huge box
car fleet. But unless the train ran several times a day, it makes a
strong case for letting the X4005 train stay in staging some days, and
perhaps fiddling the other box cars in that train. If you want to
emulate N-G, then I would simply segregate the SP cars dedicated to
this train from the rest of your fleet balance targets. So now you
need 15 SP cars for X4005, and 100 for the rest of your trains to
maintain N-G.

To my thinking, the intent of N-G is make a model railroad visit more
like a stop along the prototype's track. If you randomly stoped along
sherman hill in your era for 3 hours (more if you run a fast clock),
would you expect to see X4005 every visit? IF yes - run it every session.

As for the MWR car, same concept, how may 3 hour visits to sherman
hill before you spot it? One, ten, one hundred? Stats would suggest it
would be pretty infrequent. Same for the Ann Arbor, D&H and other
small roads (although they would appear much more often than the MWR,
but certainly these roads would not be seen every visit).

My lessons learned from this thread are:

1) N-G should apply to mainline trunk routes where the nation's
traffic is traversing a layout.

2) N-G applies to general merchandise deliveries from staging to
almost any industry where captive cars were not used, for most layouts
that received traffic from around the country.

3) It is very doubtful that N-G applies to empties delivered to small
branch lines by a larger road. When/where MTs were in surplus the
large road might send what would take them the longest to get rid of.

4) N-G may apply to MT box cars passing across a layout. It is
doubtful, depending on the era and location, that it would apply to
MTs arriving from staging for use at a specific on-layout yard that
was collecting MT's for distribution.

5) It DOES NOT apply to branch lines, or even medium sized lnes that
were not "trunking" the nation's traffic, in part because some (or
many) cars may be in captive service.

6) Having cars from small roads is perfectly acceptable - but they
should be fiddled in - it could be on a dice roll, or more analytic.
It seems that having an extra 30-60 box cars from smaller lines (and
some of these may be well known lines for a smaller fleet), is all
that is required to provide some sense of "randomness" to trains
entering the layout from staging.

7) It may be worth creating three pools - one of the dominant road's
cars, where nearly all are used all the time (assuming the layout can
handle your collection), one from lines that appear less then every
session, but were numerous. Depending on the extent of your
collection, 20-50% of these cars would be fiddled in each session. The
third pool would be the rarities (e.g. MWR on your UP mainline). If
you had 20 of these cars, you might randomly draw two per op session.

We need to ponder if some of the "attraction" to the rare car is, in
fact, because they were spotted so rarely on the prototype. I would
guess that when 50% of the WWII fleet was owned by 11 roads, spotting
the rare car would be a memorable event. But if you rail-fanned
sherman hill, based on your conductors reports, and saw 8 trains go
by, just how many of the cars would be from fleets smaller than say
the 20th road (C&O)? N-G would suggest that 25% of the cars would be
from these "smaller" lines (SOO, WAB, Erie, N&W, SAL, PM, GTW, RDG,
ACL, SAL, NYNH, DL&W, and over 100 others) Yet the 12 lines listed
have 100 times as many box cars as MWR.

I think the concept has some very positive merit. The good news is
that having 50% of your fleet from the 11 major roads is probably
pretty easy to accomplish, unless your fleet is primarily resin, in
which case I think you can do whatever you want ;-)

And it would not take a large fleet of cars from smaller roads to
create a "prototypical" sense of the occasional rare car passing
through your layout.

The one down side to this is that you need to be able to fiddle your
trains in staging so you can provide a prototypical sense of
"randomness" (I hate to breach the subject of rare car classes and how
often they should appear... Nevermind.)

The interesting finding is that because 50% of the boxcar fleet was in
11 roads, the "fiddle" pools do not need to be huge - 30-60 cars
depending on the size of the layout and the length of the PP's memory
(don't let them collect on-layout wheel reports!) And it is quite
reasonable to run that MWR car once every few sessions. Just don't put
it in a string of D&H, B&M, D&LW, AA, and RDG box cars, or no one may
notice it!

Dave Evans

Dave Nelson wrote (answering Tim's question):

Very interesting! So now the question is did those gondolas travel the ATSF-WP-GN inside gateway route to Great Falls, or SP-UP-MILW?

Either Richard or Tony might be able to find the answer as they have the GN:WP exchange books that cover several periods of time.

Yes, we have books for one month out of each of two years, 1947 and 1952 (if memory serves). But note that this is AFTER the zinc mine shut down, so any of the zinc traffic would be pretty unlikely to be in those books.

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

Tim O'Connor wrote:

Steve

Very interesting! So now the question is did those gondolas travel
the ATSF-WP-GN inside gateway route to Great Falls, or SP-UP-MILW?
:-)

Tim O'Connor

Either Richard or Tony might be able to find the answer as they have the
GN:WP exchange books that cover several periods of time.

Dave Nelson

Mike Brock wrote:

Yes. Modeling the UP on Sherman Hill over a three hour time period
with its 35 frt trains doesn't match well with, for example, a yr's
worth of data.

I have never said a year long sample was required. I have always suggested
that a minimum of 1000 foreign road boxcars be counted and always felt more
comfortable w/ something closer to 1500. On some secondary line, seeing
1000 foreign road boxcars might take a rather long time, tho I still think a
year is way too long. On Sherman Hill, I suspect 1000 foreign road cars
would be seen in days.

Moving on, Mike, you continue to toss out the argument that since your data
has 1 train w/ a large number of SP boxcars in it that the distribution
hyposthesis isn't very useful. I have countered numerous times that 1) one
train does not make a sample and 2) the distribution hypothesis has nothing
whatsoever to say about the composition of a single train. I will fall
back, once again, on my Yoplait Yogurt in the shopping car example: I do not
purchase Yoplait at regular prices (tho my daughter may slip in one or two
when I'm not looking); However when they are half off I but a whole lot of
them. The composition of my carts therefore varies considerably when
examined individually but the average number of yoplaits I buy over numerous
trips is probably pretty constant over time if enough trips are recorded and
analyzed.

What does this do for the MWR car? Well, nothing. The 1953 ORER shows 100

MWR box cars. For me to have one MWR box car

and match the N-G data base, I would need 7400 box cars. Anyone think I'll

make it? Incidentally, using the 500 box car data base, I

could not use a box car if a RR had less than 1480 box cars. Whew. SP&S

barely makes it in. Tucson, Cornelia, and Gila Bend with

their 3 cars missed the cut along with the Montana, Wyoming &

Southern...which might be over represented due to their close proximity

to the UP except for the fact that they had no box cars.

That is all correct. Which is why Hendrickson was hyperventilating earlier
today about absurdites. Fortunately, yours is a hobby, not a job, so if you
want to enjoy a MWR car, go ahead. Just keep it out of sight when Richard
visits. 8-) Or leave it over on the shelf in a nice display, where it
probably belongs all of the time.

Let me return to discuss a point I mentioned earlier today, which is,
really, which hobby: The problems most often raised on this subject are the
problems of (physical) model railroads, not of the distribution hypothesis
itself (that does have objections but they're mentioned less often). I
operate a (virtual) model railroad and can have many hundreds of 60, 70, 80
car consists composed, in total, of thousands of individual cars. My
constraint is the limited availablity of models, not the number of them (and
certainly not the cost... As they are all free), and that makes for a very
big difference in the utility of the distribution hypothesis.

Dave Nelson

I noticed your comment about MKT single sheathed surviving in Sloan
Yellow into the 1950s. I am working on patterns for this car and
have photos of a fair number of cars taken in the 1960s still in
Yellow. A quick check of the pictures shows 95038,95680 and
96264. In the background of 95038, there appears to be string of
cars in yellow. The photo was taken in Fort Worth around 1969.
I am not disputed the statement that "few if any cars survived in
yellow". It does give photographic proof that cars lasted a long
time in this color scheme.

Gene Deimling

--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

On Feb 3, 2009, at 9:34 AM, ed_mines wrote:

I asked this question before - how common were BC red, SS MKT box

cars

just after WWII?

I saw a 1958-59 NKP video on TV yesterday with an aforementioned

BCR

car.

I have photographic evidence of a yellow car repainted in 6-48 and

a

BCR car repainted in 4-49 (as well as several BCR cars repainted

in

the early '50s). So by the '58-'59 date of the video, few (if

any)

Katy SS box cars would have survived in yellow. And cars started

to

be repainted yellow ca. 1942 - I have a photo of a car repainted

BCR

in 10-41- so some BCR cars doubtless lasted into the early prewar
era, especially considering the deferred maintenance of the war

years.

Richard Hendrickson



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

Richard,

At least one survived into at least 1958. You will find a photo of a
yellow SS MKT boxcar in the group's photos section under MKT. This car
was yellow... well most of it. There was a good deal of flaking paint
and exposed -- graying -- wood. And the reweight information was white
lettering on BCR patches.

The location is Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The car was on the team track
being unloaded. The load was bricks.

The photo is not that good as it is a scan from a rather poor
enlargement. But the camera was not that good either. A Kodak 616 with
a pull-out metal bellows. Oh, and the photographer was a 12 year old
kid. Me.

I am planning on modeling this specific car.

Cheers,
-- Bill Keene
Irvine, CA

Dave Nelson writes:

"I'll repeat myself: Tim and I were doing analysis of railroads, not model
railroads. Our hypothesis on the distribution of ordinary boxcars was for
real world data. That it might have some bearing on what an owner of a
model railroad could do has always been a bit problematic, if, for no other
reason, the huge reduction in the sample size."

One thing that I have been arguing for is that the process one chooses to develop a box car fleet [ other fleets for other types of cars will be needed ] is that such a fleet needs to be capable of producing trains that match...with compression...actual trains. My conception of the N-G theory is that it shows box car populations over a very long time period...perhaps a yr. The problem I have is, will it address train consists?

Consider: I model only a tiny part of Sherman Hill and only about 3 hrs of traffic during one op session. 8 frt trains in all. I compress both the layout and the frt trains...from 75 to 30 cars. About 100 box cars....or 12 per train if they were applied equally which they were not. Using the % of the entire box car fleet, I should have 4 SP box cars. However, in order to model the infamous X4005 train with its 36 SP box cars...very close to 50% of the known train...I would need 15 SP box cars [ 50% of a 30 car train ]. To do that and stay within the N-G envelope of 4% of the national fleet, I would need 375 box cars. But...I will need more SP box cars to populate other trains so I'll go with 20 SP box cars. I now need 500 box cars. The question then is...how do I apply these 500 box cars to my 8 frt trains and their average of 12 per train? In any session the number of box cars should be about 100...leaving 400 in their boxes.

What does this do for the MWR car? Well, nothing. The 1953 ORER shows 100 MWR box cars. For me to have one MWR box car and match the N-G data base, I would need 7400 box cars. Anyone think I'll make it? Incidentally, using the 500 box car data base, I could not use a box car if a RR had less than 1480 box cars. Whew. SP&S barely makes it in. Tucson, Cornelia, and Gila Bend with their 3 cars missed the cut along with the Montana, Wyoming & Southern...which might be over represented due to their close proximity to the UP except for the fact that they had no box cars.

BTW, will I have to run 7399 box cars before the MWR car can show? Of course not. It might be the first...or 640th...car. However, you can also toss 24 7's in a row at a crap table in a Las Vegas Casino except for the fact that, after the 12th such toss, your toss might be a bit off course since your fingers...among other items...will all be broken. Still...there is no reason why...

Mike Brock



Yes. Modeling the UP on Sherman Hill over a three hour time period with its 35 frt trains doesn't match well with, for example, a yr's worth of data. Then, compress the 8 trains by 60%...from about 75 cars to 30.

my 100 box cars, I cannot generate a
compressed version of X4005 and its 36 SP box cars. I mean...compressing by
60%, I still need 14 SP box cars and the SP national % of 4% only gives me 4
of my 100 total not allowing that. I would, in fact, need 350 box cars to
give me enough to produce the train in question. And, since I would need
other SP box cars in frt trains...say 20 in total...I would need about 500
box cars. In that case, I would have to spread the cars...do op sessions
with different cars. The trouble with that is that I cannot just randomly
select cars. I still only have 8 frt trains and I can only apply about 1/5
of the fleet to the session.

As is obvious, model RRs compress everything. Compressing the box car fleet
will eventually

Continuing, I
always argued against the inclusion of Canadian marked cars... Or if
included, to set their railroads contribution to distributed fleet at 10% so
as to match the FACT that only 10% of home road cars loaded in Canada were
sent south of the border and that the law required them to be returned to
Canada quite directly.

Not expressed, but IMO a reasonable addition, would be to add something to
take into account the complete ownership of one road by another, such as the
SN by the WP, the T&NO by the SP, and yes, perhaps even the CV by the CN.

All of that slices out of the picture a lot of locations and in some cases,
a lot of cars (i.e., counting CN cars on the CV as home road).

So right off the bat, Jack Burgess and his YV were out of scope. As were
all the PRR boxcars in Enola Yard. I'm not familiar w/ the Ball Line
Route... But I want to ask: Were those cars part of the common carrier fleet
or were they private road cars? One would expect a different movement
pattern for the later.

In recent years I have done futher analysis on the Western Pacific traffic
and seen a very distinct pattern of a large number of loaded boxcars
terminating in the SF Bay Area and correspondingly fewer outbounds.
Slightly more than a 2:1 ratio. Thinking on that fact led me to realize the
WP had little need for storing ordinary, home road boxcars in protective
service in this area as they were "blessed" w/ a a generous supply provided
by everyone else. Which led to the notion that in areas where the
opposite traffic conditions were true... Such, places like, say, Modesto,
CA, the opposite conditions for protective service would also be true. If
true, then there may have been a fair number of SP and ATSF boxcars sitting
aound in and near Modesto... from which some could have been loaned to the
YV when asked for.

Moving on... As for the interesting analysis of how to manage a modeled
freight car fleet... I agree the correct procedure is to reserve some
portion of the foreign road boxcars -- I thought in the 10-20% range of the
owners nominal count of on-layout foreign road cars, for double or tripple
the number of cars that percentage calculated to, but bearing the marks of
smaller roads, cycling them in and out regularly. The only problems I see
with that approach is storage, extra handling, and the bother of having to
do it. But the theory is sound and the variety it provides, both visually
and in the pleasure of collecting them, could still make it worthwhile.

Dave Nelson



All of which adds to the difficulty of applying the hypothesis.

OTOH, for those few of us doing V-Scale -- that is computer sim railroading
-- we have the opportuity to do urban sites 1:1 (as I happen to be
modeling), to run 60, 70, 80 car freights (as I do), and to run over an
entire division of 100+ miles, with each town represented in full (as I
happen to be modeling). IOW, the difficulties of applying the distribution
to this method of modeling a setting disappears entirely.

All that said, I'll still stick to the premise that, absent historical data
for the site being modeled, the distribution model we offered is a pretty
decent place to start, whether one is modeling in plastic, resin, or
brass... or pixels.

Dave Nelson

Steve

Very interesting! So now the question is did those
gondolas travel the ATSF-WP-GN inside gateway route
to Great Falls, or SP-UP-MILW? :-)

Tim O'Connor

Claus - The NMRA library sells donated back issues at low cost. - Al Westerfield

I have always used Railpub for my back issue needs.
 
www.railpub.com

Hi,

I believe Mainline Modeler went belly-up soem time back.

Does anyone know if there is some good source of back issues of this magazine?

I'm trying to locate a copy of the Feb 2005 issue.

Thanks - Claus Schlund