Just to keep the facts straight, we are talking BULK DENSITY here at 51.8 #/cu. ft. not DENSITY.

Al Kresse

Jim,

We haven't seen the final product yet, so don't know about eventual remaining flaws.
As for paint, I have seen a possible 1950 repaint in mineral of a 10500 series car, but the year is fuzzy, and it is a Scotchlight decorated car which received white backgrounds to the Scotchlight elements in the lettering. Only firm mineral repaint dates I have seen are 1953.

Staffan Ehnbom

Since in both cases the route was in Minnesota such a rate request may have gone to the Minnesota Rairoad and Warehouse Commission instead of the ICC. At least that is what appears to have happened in Texas.

Cyril Durrenberger

Dennis Storzek <destorzek@...> wrote:
--- In STMFC@..., "gn3397" <heninger@...> wrote:

...FWIW, I googled the density of wheat, and found the following
values, expressed in lbs. per cu. ft.

broken bituminous coal 51.9

Interesting figures. Just for grins, I took the 51.9 lbs./cu.ft.
factor and applied it to the cubical capacity of the ore cars on the
Soo Line roster in 1958, which varied from 637 to 984 cu. ft.

The smallest of the 50 ton cars could haul 16.5 tons of coal. The
largest of the 70 ton cars could haul 25.5 tons of coal. Really
inefficient for the long haul, and kind of disappointing for a shipper
who ordered an empty hopper because he had an order for fifty tons of
bituminous.

The fact there are photos of ore cars hauling coal on the iron range
got me to thinking. I wonder if the DM&IR filed a special tariff for
coal in 20 or 25 ton car loads between selected points on their lines.
This would allow common carriage for third parties (as opposed to
company coal for railroad use) and certainly wouldn't have been
protested by other roads if the points were solely served by the DM&IR.

The other route would have been to file an addendum to the coal tariff
allowing the substitution of two or three ore cars for one coal
hopper. Not a very efficient load/tare ratio, but the distances were
short.

Anyone know?

Dennis

I'd expect Intermountain to keep using their "Modeler's License" in decorating these in roadnames/numbers/paint schemes that they consider to be close to the specific prototype chosen. That wouldn't make Intermountain or this specific model unique in that aspect, as there are other manufacturers and models from Intermountain where "the most is being made" from the tooling. That being said, it boils down to what the individual purchasor considers "acceptable" as far as "stand-ins" when models go beyond their "match".

Caveat emptor.

CJM

"Hunter, James R." <jhunter@...> wrote:
Everyone:

I seem to have deleted the emails which discussed this - Intermountain
is going to release a 40' "plywood panel" Great Northern Box car. Any
significant flaws? Would a mineral red or orange/black paint scheme be
more correct for circa 1951? Thanks.

Jim Hunter

--- In STMFC@..., "gn3397" <heninger@...> wrote:

...FWIW, I googled the density of wheat, and found the following
values, expressed in lbs. per cu. ft.

broken bituminous coal 51.9

Interesting figures. Just for grins, I took the 51.9 lbs./cu.ft.
factor and applied it to the cubical capacity of the ore cars on the
Soo Line roster in 1958, which varied from 637 to 984 cu. ft.

The smallest of the 50 ton cars could haul 16.5 tons of coal. The
largest of the 70 ton cars could haul 25.5 tons of coal. Really
inefficient for the long haul, and kind of disappointing for a shipper
who ordered an empty hopper because he had an order for fifty tons of
bituminous.

The fact there are photos of ore cars hauling coal on the iron range
got me to thinking. I wonder if the DM&IR filed a special tariff for
coal in 20 or 25 ton car loads between selected points on their lines.
This would allow common carriage for third parties (as opposed to
company coal for railroad use) and certainly wouldn't have been
protested by other roads if the points were solely served by the DM&IR.

The other route would have been to file an addendum to the coal tariff
allowing the substitution of two or three ore cars for one coal
hopper. Not a very efficient load/tare ratio, but the distances were
short.

Anyone know?

Dennis

Everyone:

I seem to have deleted the emails which discussed this - Intermountain is going to release a 40' "plywood panel" Great Northern Box car. Any significant flaws? Would a mineral red or orange/black paint scheme be more correct for circa 1951? Thanks.

Jim Hunter

How about that! I'd rather be lucky than smart.

Thanks for the lead to the Corning data.


Jerry Dziedzic
Pattenburg, NJ

--- In STMFC@..., "Gatwood, Elden J SAD "
<Elden.J.Gatwood@...> wrote:

Jerry;



You did better than a SWAG. One of our contributors posted in the

files

several spreadsheets that illustrate what cars were going to

Corning glass,

over a period of years ranging from late 40's to mid-50's. The

list clearly

illustrates that Corning, for one, went from using a fleet of

grabbed-up

non-dedicated box cars from every road under the sun, to a

dedicated fleet of

covered hoppers, for their shipments of (drum roll) sand, and soda

ash. The

PRR valued their business enough to dedicate them a whole series of

brand-new

H34A (PS-2) when they became available, but prior to about 1954, had
gradually pulled in the 1935-36-built H30 for sand, and larger H32

for soda

ash, as the initial replacements for the non-dedicated box car

assemblage.

The change from H30 & H32 to H34's might be explained by the fact

that the

welded, and tightly-sealed hatches of the H34 were probably more

leak-proof

than the earlier square hatches of their predecessors.



Elden Gatwood



________________________________

From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On

Behalf Of Jerry

Dziedzic
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 10:29 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Covered hoppers (was Sand Cars)



I was refreshing myself on my files while Richard was posting his
reply. Some additional information:

The first example of a "built new as covered hopper" for cement
service I've located is the Hercules Cement car built by Standard
Steel in 1928. An 1933 article in Railway Mechanical Engineer cites
Lackawanna as studying designs since 1929. Roads that converted
hopper cars to cement service include DL&W, LV, CNJ, RDG, PRR and
L&NE, all in the early 30's.

The Hercules car was a unique design, never repeated as far as I
know. ACF developed the first mass production design, building a
prototype in 1932. This is the car similar to the Bowser and Kato
products in HO scale.

However, Greenville may have been the first builder to actually
deliver cement cars to a common carrier, filling an Erie order in
1934.

ATSF was ACF's first customer, in 1936. NKP and C&O followed with
orders soon after. ACF also produced the 1790 cu ft variant, the
prototype for the F&C resin kit. L&NE was the first customer for
this car, with deliveries beginning in 1937. DL&W and L&NE operated
the largest fleets of the 1790 cu ft car.

Although ACF promoted both their designs as suitable for various
commodities, including cement, carbon black, flour, and clay, I

agree

that the early adopters used them primarily in cement service.

The question about the first use of covered hoppers in sand service
is an interesting one. I'd guess that sand for the glass industry
was the first instance. I believe that most locomotive sanding
facilities were equipped with driers, so protecting locomotive sand
from moisture in transit was not a priority.

Here's a SWAG. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that covered

hoppers

in sand service coincided with covered hoppers in soda ash service.
Once the glass industry began investing in bulk raw material
handling, why not soda ash as well as sand?

Jerry Dziedzic
Pattenburg, NJ

--- In STMFC@... <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com> ,

Richard

Hendrickson <rhendrickson@>
wrote:

Aside from a few odd-ball cars for specific service, the earliest
covered hoppers were converted from conventional hoppers in the
1920s, and the earliest cars built new as covered hoppers

appeared

in

the early 1930s, mostly on northeastern RRs where they were used

in

bulk cement service. By the mid-'30s, numerous RRs were getting
small numbers of them on a trial basis (e.g., the Santa Fe got

ten

cars in 1936) and larger numbers began to be ordered, especially

in

the northeast, ca. 1940-'41. AFAIK, however, non of these early
purpose-built covered hoppers were used for sand loading; they
remained in the bulk cement service for which they were designed
until many years after WW II.

Richard Hendrickson



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

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

I suppose ACF's A-B car is one of the oddballs that Richard had in
mind. I had forgotten about the Angus car, Dennis -- need to add
that to the file.

Another oddball was "Lime Car No. 3" for Columbia Chemical (a PPG
heritage company) from Standard Steel in 1913. I have no way to
follow up to learn if this was one-of-a-kind or a member of a small
fleet.


Jerry Dziedzic
Pattenburg, NJ

--- In STMFC@..., "Dennis Storzek" <destorzek@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., "proto48er" <atkott@> wrote:

Jerry -

Thanks for the excellent post on covered hoppers! There was one
covered hopper constructed by AC&F about 1910 for Anheiser(sp?)

Bush

brewing company, but the design was apparently not repeated until

the

cars you mentioned. I have a copy negative of the builder's

photo at

home somewhere. It may have been for hauling grains.

A.T. Kott

There was also a single 75 ton, 3942 cu. ft. covered hopper for

grain

service turned out by CP's Angus shop in 1919. The car looked
surprisingly modern except for having four conical outlet hoppers. I
think making grain-tight outlet gates was the downfall of these

early

designs. There is a photo of this car in Wayner's Freight Car
Pictorial (a true eclectic selection of one-of-a-kinds) on page 15.
The cubic capacity I cite is from the 2/29 ORER.

Dennis

--- In STMFC@..., "allen rueter" <allen_282@...> wrote:

Robert,
The question should be what applies more pressure to the door,
a cubic yard/meter of wheat or coal. I think you will find
coal is generally denser.

Allen Rueter

I hadn't thought of that. FWIW, I googled the density of wheat, and found the following
values, expressed in lbs. per cu. ft.

broken anthracite coal 68.9
broken bituminous coal 51.9
corn 45.0
flaxseed 45.0
wheat 48.0
oats 26.9

Anyway, I am taking this into off-topic land, so I will refrain from exposing more of my
ignorance to you all. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Robert D. Heninger
Stanley, ND

Robert,
The question should be what applies more pressure to the door,
a cubic yard/meter of wheat or coal. I think you will find
coal is generally denser.

Allen Rueter

--- In STMFC@..., "gn3397" <heninger@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., "np328" <jcdworkingonthenp@> wrote:

A prior post states that coal doors were nothing more than worn out
grain doors. Perhaps this was true as coal shipping was dying out in
the sixties however of research I have done, in at least the
Duluth/Superior area, extensive bookkeeping was kept of both the
grain doors and coal doors used in boxcars and these were kept
separate.

Mr. Dick,
I was the offending poster. A careless choice of words, perhaps.

I was aware of the

bookkeeping efforts by the RRs and the WWIB to return grain and coal

doors to their

owners. It seems rather odd that differently dimensioned lumber

would be used in the

construction of the doors, unless this was done to facilitate

separation of the doors. It

begs the question of what weighs more: 50 tons of grain or 50 tons

of coal? If 1" lumber is

good enough for the grain door, why wouldn't it work for the coal

door? Have you run

across the reasoning in your research?

Sincerely,
Robert D. Heninger
Stanley, ND

Thanks for sharing this link Jerry. The references to numbers such as 81 and
89 are interesting to me since I recently realized that the Yosemite Valley
Railroad used milepost numbers on switchlists to indicate designations.
Rather than "National Lead", the YV switchlists use "76" for the destination
based on the milepost of that industry. I wonder if the numbers in this link
refer to mileposts too. That would mean that I should chalk more numbers on
the cars on my layout based on destination. But then, that would mean that I
would need to specify that those particular cars be moved to only those
destinations during operating sessions! On the other hand, I suspect the YV
employees were so smart that they didn't need to "chalk" cars....<g>

Jack Burgess
www.yosemitevalleyrr.com

--- In STMFC@..., "np328" <jcdworkingonthenp@...> wrote:

A prior post states that coal doors were nothing more than worn out
grain doors. Perhaps this was true as coal shipping was dying out in
the sixties however of research I have done, in at least the
Duluth/Superior area, extensive bookkeeping was kept of both the
grain doors and coal doors used in boxcars and these were kept
separate.

Mr. Dick,
I was the offending poster. A careless choice of words, perhaps. I was aware of the
bookkeeping efforts by the RRs and the WWIB to return grain and coal doors to their
owners. It seems rather odd that differently dimensioned lumber would be used in the
construction of the doors, unless this was done to facilitate separation of the doors. It
begs the question of what weighs more: 50 tons of grain or 50 tons of coal? If 1" lumber is
good enough for the grain door, why wouldn't it work for the coal door? Have you run
across the reasoning in your research?

Sincerely,
Robert D. Heninger
Stanley, ND

Jerry;



You did better than a SWAG. One of our contributors posted in the files
several spreadsheets that illustrate what cars were going to Corning glass,
over a period of years ranging from late 40's to mid-50's. The list clearly
illustrates that Corning, for one, went from using a fleet of grabbed-up
non-dedicated box cars from every road under the sun, to a dedicated fleet of
covered hoppers, for their shipments of (drum roll) sand, and soda ash. The
PRR valued their business enough to dedicate them a whole series of brand-new
H34A (PS-2) when they became available, but prior to about 1954, had
gradually pulled in the 1935-36-built H30 for sand, and larger H32 for soda
ash, as the initial replacements for the non-dedicated box car assemblage.
The change from H30 & H32 to H34's might be explained by the fact that the
welded, and tightly-sealed hatches of the H34 were probably more leak-proof
than the earlier square hatches of their predecessors.



Elden Gatwood



________________________________

From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of Jerry
Dziedzic
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 10:29 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Covered hoppers (was Sand Cars)



I was refreshing myself on my files while Richard was posting his
reply. Some additional information:

The first example of a "built new as covered hopper" for cement
service I've located is the Hercules Cement car built by Standard
Steel in 1928. An 1933 article in Railway Mechanical Engineer cites
Lackawanna as studying designs since 1929. Roads that converted
hopper cars to cement service include DL&W, LV, CNJ, RDG, PRR and
L&NE, all in the early 30's.

The Hercules car was a unique design, never repeated as far as I
know. ACF developed the first mass production design, building a
prototype in 1932. This is the car similar to the Bowser and Kato
products in HO scale.

However, Greenville may have been the first builder to actually
deliver cement cars to a common carrier, filling an Erie order in
1934.

ATSF was ACF's first customer, in 1936. NKP and C&O followed with
orders soon after. ACF also produced the 1790 cu ft variant, the
prototype for the F&C resin kit. L&NE was the first customer for
this car, with deliveries beginning in 1937. DL&W and L&NE operated
the largest fleets of the 1790 cu ft car.

Although ACF promoted both their designs as suitable for various
commodities, including cement, carbon black, flour, and clay, I agree
that the early adopters used them primarily in cement service.

The question about the first use of covered hoppers in sand service
is an interesting one. I'd guess that sand for the glass industry
was the first instance. I believe that most locomotive sanding
facilities were equipped with driers, so protecting locomotive sand
from moisture in transit was not a priority.

Here's a SWAG. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that covered hoppers
in sand service coincided with covered hoppers in soda ash service.
Once the glass industry began investing in bulk raw material
handling, why not soda ash as well as sand?

Jerry Dziedzic
Pattenburg, NJ

--- In STMFC@... <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com> , Richard
Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

Aside from a few odd-ball cars for specific service, the earliest
covered hoppers were converted from conventional hoppers in the
1920s, and the earliest cars built new as covered hoppers appeared

in

the early 1930s, mostly on northeastern RRs where they were used

in

bulk cement service. By the mid-'30s, numerous RRs were getting
small numbers of them on a trial basis (e.g., the Santa Fe got ten
cars in 1936) and larger numbers began to be ordered, especially

in

the northeast, ca. 1940-'41. AFAIK, however, non of these early
purpose-built covered hoppers were used for sand loading; they
remained in the bulk cement service for which they were designed
until many years after WW II.

Richard Hendrickson

Regarding taconite pellets.

After going to the process of extracting the magnetite iron from the
taconite rock, that then mixing it with the bentonite and limestone
to make pellets seems to be counterproductive. After refining the
iron, making pellets is, in effect, diluting it.

So why was it done? Is the hematite the oxidation process creates
considered more valuable than the magnetite?

Wouldn't shipping the pure extracted magnetite be more cost efficient
than diluting it by 35%?


Eric Petersson

Here is a very informative page on chalking up freight cars at CP's Lambton
Yard in Toronto by a retired CP railroader by the name of R. L. Kennedy. I
think that anyone interested in steam era freight cars should give this a read.
Yes, it is specific to CP and Toronto, but it will give you a some great insight
into how it was done during the steam era. Enjoy and learn it's at
http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/chalkitup.html

Happiness, Jerry Stewart

Woodstock, Illinois

________________________________


I saw many such coal sheds in southern Minnesota and Iowa along the CGW during the Fifties. About 15 years ago I chanced upon one in Hampton, Iowa and tried to measure it. I say "tried" because I had no tape measure with me. It looked very much like the one in the photo. I drew a rough diagram of the shed, with the number of loading doors and what I will call customer doors, but it was all guess work. Does anyone know the dimensions typical of such a slanted roof structure?

Tom

A prior post states that coal doors were nothing more than worn out
grain doors. Perhaps this was true as coal shipping was dying out in
the sixties however of research I have done, in at least the
Duluth/Superior area, extensive bookkeeping was kept of both the
grain doors and coal doors used in boxcars and these were kept
separate. The cost for this bookkeeping and maintenance operation was
pooled between the railroads in the ports that used these services.
Doors for grain and coal were repaired and stored until needed and
then tracked until returned. Records were kept of what went out and
what came in, and repair costs. Of the doors themselves, grain doors
were built of one by lumber, coal doors were built of two by lumber.
I believe the value of a coal door, in 1940's was figured at 10
dollars each, which when you look at what a dollar bought in those
days, was enough to ensure it's safe return by the consignee.
If you model grain elevators that ship or receive grain, send a
boxcar back now and then returning the grain doors. I would imagine
the coals doors went directly back as coal loading is quite rough on
a cars interior and only older cars would be used for this. See
the "Return mty's via" list in the files.
The coal shipped in boxcars seemed to go predominantly to small
or smaller towns


To answer the question asked, "how common was this?" remember it is
the consignee or buyer who determined the mode of shipment. Yards
could and did refuse shipments that did not come as requested.


As far as coal sheds, the best statement would be is that they
are still all over in a lot of smaller towns. Look at older lumbers
yards in particular as the lumber yard often dabbled in carrying coal
also. There is a beautiful curved shed I saw several years ago down
in Dyersville, Iowa (Field of Dreams) on the old IC. Sheds on some
rail lines did differ in that they are lower with the roof and doors
being the predominant feature. There are other regional differences
in that were wood was cheap, wood structures predominated, however
Lloyd Keyser sent me several photos of large concrete structures
in the Michigan UP so that is not always true. I will try to post a
few pictures of some sheds and other options for small town modeling
from the presentation I gave at Naperville some time
ago. Jim Dick - St. Paul

Photos of models shown at Prototype Rails 2008/Cocoa Beach can now be seen in the photo section of the STEDN Yahoo Group in the albums Prototype Rails and Prototype Rails-2. You probably have to join the group to have access to the photos but you don't have to concern yourself with receiving messages from the group because there should be none.

To subscribe:
STEDN-subscribe@...

The photos shown were taken by Andy Harman, Greg Komar and myself. Regretfully, I was having battery problems [ both personal and with my camera ] late Saturday evening and neither Andy nor Greg knew that their photos would be the "official" shots of the meet. One of the problems with this coverage is that I failed to get ownership of all the models and that's why the photos are where they are. I'm in the process of having various attendees try to identify shots at which time I'll insert the model owner's name.

So, if you know who the owner is, please let me know.

Mike Brock

--- In STMFC@..., "gn3397" <heninger@...> wrote:

Here is a photo of a coal shed in Mohall, ND as it looks today.
Mohall is also on a GN branchline (at least in our era).

trackside:

http://www.grainelevators.ca/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/5358/cat/1702

Here is the backside, where the delivery truck (or customer's
vehicle, if they were willing to trade sweat equity for a discount on
the coal) would pull up to be loaded, by scoop shovel, of course.

http://www.grainelevators.ca/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/5355/cat/1702

Great photos of a still extant coal shed. Of interest is the door at
the one end that seems to have been reversed to make a double door;
this may be an after the fact conversion, or it may have been built
this way, my guess to turn the space in those bays into warehouse for
feed or whatever.

I've seen similar sheds throughout Wisconsin and Iowa. Sheds at small
town elevators tend to be about this size, But I recall seeing block
long sheds along the CGW in Iowa (Dyersville, I think, but it was long
ago) and at a fuel dealer on the C&NW right by the Soo Line crossing
in Waukesha, WI (gone now). For help with sizing from photos, that
drop siding tended to show 5" to the weather.

Dennis

--- In STMFC@..., "proto48er" <atkott@...> wrote:

Jerry -

Thanks for the excellent post on covered hoppers! There was one
covered hopper constructed by AC&F about 1910 for Anheiser(sp?) Bush
brewing company, but the design was apparently not repeated until the
cars you mentioned. I have a copy negative of the builder's photo at
home somewhere. It may have been for hauling grains.

A.T. Kott

There was also a single 75 ton, 3942 cu. ft. covered hopper for grain
service turned out by CP's Angus shop in 1919. The car looked
surprisingly modern except for having four conical outlet hoppers. I
think making grain-tight outlet gates was the downfall of these early
designs. There is a photo of this car in Wayner's Freight Car
Pictorial (a true eclectic selection of one-of-a-kinds) on page 15.
The cubic capacity I cite is from the 2/29 ORER.

Dennis