I'd expect the end of print magazines before the end of the hobby itself.

KL

Mr. Schleicher's June editorial is a retrospective, on the publishing
history and editorial philosophy of his magazines. The editorial
didn't say this issue was the last, but it did give one to wonder. So
the news is sad but not all that surprising.

Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.


--- In STMFC@..., "Armand Premo" <armprem@...> wrote:

Three railroad magazines have gone the way of steam.This may be

a

harbinger of things to come within the hobby as a whole.Armand Premo
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Miller" <atsf@...>
To: <STMFC@...>
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2008 10:50 AM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: RAILMODEL JOURNAL

To bad, this was my second best mag after RMC. While having

some

modern
stuff, they had very good coverage of our time frame.

Jon Miller
AT&SF
For me time stopped in 1941
Digitrax, Chief/Zephyr systems, JMRI user
NMRA Life member #2623
Member SFRH&MS


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5/23/2008

7:20 AM

Three railroad magazines have gone the way of steam.This may be a harbinger of things to come within the hobby as a whole.Armand Premo

Bruce Smith writes:

"Almost of the data presented here
over the years by Tim Gilbert and others has indicated quite clearly that
boxcars were present (with the exception of home road) in percentages that
resemble the national percentages on just about every road in the country,
thus putting the concept of home road and regional preference in boxcars
firmly into the category of modeler's fantasy.

Note that this DOES NOT apply to individual trains, as our ertswhile list
owner will no doubt point out with his "SP Forwarder" example... They
apply to fleets."

Well, with regard to individual trains, I agree completely with Bruce. However, rather than risk disagreeing with the position I took on this subject two yrs ago, I'll reprint part of what I wrote on June 13, 2006:

"At
any rate, the
data from the '49 Fraley [ for whatever reason ] shows that SP box cars seem
to
exceed their national avg on UP tracks in Wyoming while those of WP seem to
be less than their avg.
My Fraley shows that there were 15 trains [ out of 34 ] with one or less SP
box cars. In fact, 9 had none at all.
Two trains had a total of 42.3% of the SP box cars...27 + 31 cars. I might
point out that "why" doesn't really matter. Two
others had 9 each. Thus 4 trains had 76 cars or 55.8%. 29 trains had 5 or
less SP box cars. Surely, this doesn't sound like a random process at work."

Tim Gilbert wrote:

But over time

- a week or a month - that distribution should average out except for
cases of obvious biases such as the home road, or in the case of Sherman
Hill, the SP's which can be considered as an extension of the home road
(UP) for, at least, lumber loading.

And I replied:

"Ah ha! I think I can agree with that. My point all along has been that
certain RRs probably have more of their box cars...and perhaps other
cars...on the tracks of a RR with a closely integrated operation...UP/SP.
Perhaps UP/C&NW. The cars of other RRs...with some exceptions...might well
follow the national %."

Mike Brock

To bad, this was my second best mag after RMC. While having some modern stuff, they had very good coverage of our time frame.

Jon Miller
AT&SF
For me time stopped in 1941
Digitrax, Chief/Zephyr systems, JMRI user
NMRA Life member #2623
Member SFRH&MS

For what it is worth I was told the authors would be paid and in my case I see that that had already happened.  I believe how they handle their outstanding subscription liability is yet to be seen. 
 
Mont Switzer

--- In STMFC@..., Mont Switzer <mhts_switzerm@...> wrote:

Editor Bob S. called last nigh to advise that June 2008 was the last

issue.  It featured a nice multi-compartment tank car article by
Richard Hendrickson.

 
Mont Switzer 

If so, that's the second Denver-area railroad magazine to fold with
more than a year's worth of my subscription remaining .... Of course,
there will be no refunds.

Dick Eaton
RGM&HS

Editor Bob S. called last nigh to advise that June 2008 was the last issue.  It featured a nice multi-compartment tank car article by Richard Hendrickson.
 
Mont Switzer 




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

On Fri, August 8, 2008 10:34 pm, Russ Boehm wrote:

Nor being a PRR modeler, I'm trying to find out a basic piece of
information regarding this car. I searched the group's messages and the
PRR sites but can't pin down the initial year this series was built.
Some photos have what appears to be a build date o 1934 but the
lettering, to the left of the door, does not incluide the "BLT"
designation.

Specifically, was this car introduced prior to 1939? Would it have been
as far west as California by 1939?

Thanks in advance for any help the group can provide.

Russ

Russ,

Yes and a conditional yes (not in great numbers)

In addition, the BLT date is to the right of the door, not the left and
would be the original built date for the X24 boxcars from which the K7A
were converted. These dates would be circa 1918. The conversions
occurred in the mid 1930s and were essentially complete by 1937. The date
to the left of the door is the reweigh date and merely reflects the last
time the car was reweighed, in this case within 30 months of the date you
are modeling.

Regards
Bruce

Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL

On Fri, August 8, 2008 7:44 pm, armprem1 wrote:

I would like to reopen the dialogue on freight car distribution.I am
aware that to some, it may have been discussed ad nauseam.I firmly
believe that we tend see more freight cars within their own region
than by size.What is your opinion?Armand Premo

Armand,

First, it is probably not really appropriate to make such a broad
statement. We know that car distributions varied by type. Thus hopper
cars were far more likely to be home road and regional, while gons were
more likely to be regional and boxcars and flat cars were national in
distribution for much of the steam era. Reefers and tank cars followed
ownership distributions for the most part for originating loads, but were
widely distributed for terminating loads, especially for reefers. For
example, lettuce was still going to come in PFE reefers, even if you were
on an FGE road but the vast majority of produce originating on that road
would be in FGE/BRE/WFE owned cars.

For roads like the Rutland, you have to ask what it means to see lots of
NYC and PRR boxcars? This should not be taken to necessarily mean a
regional bias, since these were two of the largest fleets in the nation.
The question has to be were these cars present in greater numbers than
indicated by their percentage in the national fleet because of the
Rutland's proximity to these roads? Almost of the data presented here
over the years by Tim Gilbert and others has indicated quite clearly that
boxcars were present (with the exception of home road) in percentages that
resemble the national percentages on just about every road in the country,
thus putting the concept of home road and regional preference in boxcars
firmly into the category of modeler's fantasy.

Note that this DOES NOT apply to individual trains, as our ertswhile list
owner will no doubt point out with his "SP Forwarder" example... They
apply to fleets.

Regards
Bruce

Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL

Nor being a PRR modeler, I'm trying to find out a basic piece of
information regarding this car. I searched the group's messages and the
PRR sites but can't pin down the initial year this series was built.
Some photos have what appears to be a build date o 1934 but the
lettering, to the left of the door, does not incluide the "BLT"
designation.

Specifically, was this car introduced prior to 1939? Would it have been
as far west as California by 1939?

Thanks in advance for any help the group can provide.

Russ

I've just posted a couple photos of the prototype of the brackets PSC is producing at:

http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/photos/browse/ce48

If anyone installs some and wants to post a picture of the finished model, feel free to ad them to this folder.

On cars with end sills the standard mounting location for mounting the angle cock often had the trainline running just below the end sill, or through a hole in it. Either made it easy to attach the angle cock firmly. When freight cars (especially boxcars) started to use steel ends without a separate end sill, the result was the angle cock kind of hanging out in the breeze. One early solution was a cast bracket riveted to the side of the center sill, but eventually it was found that a simple bent piece if 3/8" plate was cheaper to fabricate and easier to repair. This sort of mounting became perhaps the most commonly used during the later part of the era we are interested in. Variations were limited to either clamping the pipe directly with the U bolt (which was the older style) or clamping the back of a revised angle cock with the U bolt in the groove provided for it. In HO scale, this really sin't going to be a visible difference. The other common variation is that some brackets riveted to the bottom flange of the end, while others had a 90 deg. bend so they could mount to the outer face of the end. Since the investment casting process could not produce a scale thickness flange to go against the end, the PSC part is the type that mounts underneath. If the model requites the flange on the face of the end, this is better added as a separate part, a bit of .005" styrene butted to the top of the PSC bracket, with a couple of shaved off rivets applied to it's face. The PSC part has a substantial mounting peg that can be glued into a hole drilled with a #72 drill (.025" dia.) in the bottom of the end.

The next issue is going to be mating the air hose, either PSC brass hoses, DA plastic hoses, or the new Hi Tech rubber hoses to the wire train line. The prototype gives us some help here, as the AAR recommended practice was to use a 10" long "double strength" ( now known as schedule 80) pipe nipple as the pipe that connected to the angle cock, so if the trainline was damaged, it was easy to replace this short piece of pipe. Most piping diagrams simply show a common threaded coupling connecting these pipe nipples, but in the 1930's Westinghouse Air Brake Co. developed the "Wabcoseal" system of compression fitting that could seal to unthreaded pipe. This had the advantage of not requiring rotating pre-bent pipes to make up the joints, and apparently some roads felt that using these Wabcoseal fittings on the nipple couplings made it less likely that the trainline threads would be damaged. I haven't been able to find a drawing of one of the Wabcoseal couplings yet, but they are about six inches long, with a hex fitting on each end that tightened the compression ring. One shows in the photo I posted, directly below the car end and a lot show in both Dr. Hendrickson's and Larry Klien's recent freight car books. These were substancially larger than the pipe diameter, and can be modeled with a bit of wire insulation or a bit of hypodermic tubing, allowing a substantial joint to be made between the wire trainline and whichever air hoses one chooses to use.




Dennis Storzek
Big Rock, IL

I can just see someone trying to pump air through the hoses now.
Working air brakes?? Hmmmmmmmmmmm...never say never.

Steve Lucas.

--- In STMFC@..., "Manfred Lorenz" <germanfred55@...>
wrote:

Great news Denny! Thanks to the capable modellers.

So what will be the prospect of an automatic brake hose? Some ideas

are

already bugging my mind.

Manfred

--- In STMFC@..., danspach@ wrote:

Through the efforts of three other members of this list, Chad

Boas,

Dennis Storzek, and Mont Switzer, Precision Scale is now

producing a

very

nice brass angle cock bracket that is designed to hold the nice

PSC

air

hoses. Of course, they also hold any other air hose with a .020"

or

smaller "pipe".

--- In STMFC@..., "armprem1" <armprem@...> wrote:

I would like to reopen the dialogue on freight car distribution.I am
aware that to some, it may have been discussed ad nauseam.I firmly
believe that we tend see more freight cars within their own region
than by size.What is your opinion?Armand Premo

On this topic, my opinion doesn't count for much, since I don't have
original data. With due respect, I turn the question back. In regard to
the freight-car distribution on (for example) the Rutland, what are the
numbers? I intend the question in a friendly spirit of inquiry. It's
conceivable that the answer could be different from one railroad to
another, or even from one location to another on a sufficiently large
railroad.

-- Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.

I would like to reopen the dialogue on freight car distribution.I am
aware that to some, it may have been discussed ad nauseam.I firmly
believe that we tend see more freight cars within their own region
than by size.What is your opinion?Armand Premo

If you're considering using rivets, I just tried the Archer decal
rivets for the first time and they are great, and very easy to use.

http://www.archertransfers.com/AR88001.html

I find it much easier to work with than trying to glue on the
individual rivets. oh, and they were the first decals I've applied to
anything in 20 years.

Randy Hammill
http://newbritainstation.com

--- In STMFC@..., "wmcclark1980" <walterclark@...> wrote:

Group,

In my quest for information to speed my complete nervous breakdown

<g>

I'm interested in how one would simulate the carriage bolt heads in,
among other things, wooden running boards? I've looked at the
included resin and plastic running boards in several resin kits from
Al Westerfield and Martin Lofton, and the Red Caboose 1937 AAR box
cars, and can't figure out a way to do the bolt heads if I replace

the

resin and plastic running boards with real wood. Right now I have
something in excess of 100 resin and plastic kits that need wooden
running boards, and have wracked my brain for ideas. Nothing

surfaced

so I'm posing the question to this group.

Thanks,

Time stopped in November 1941
Walter M. Clark
Pullman, Washington, USA

Norm Larkin wrote:

A while back, Bill Darnaby put together summaries of his experience

assembling resin kits and posted them to the list. He asked if it was
something the list would be interested in seeing on a regular basis. I
don't remember any response from the list, but I know that I found the
info extremely interesting. Summaries like his would be a valuable tool
for the less experienced resin modeler.

Norm Larkin

I enjoyed Bill's summaries also and have save many as documents. His
summaries also produced an exchange of information between list members.
I recall he asked about the brake arrange for the B&O M-27 from Sunshine
and it turned out that I made a sketch of one and posted a scan from my
field notes.

Bob Witt
Indianapolis, Indiana

Wow, what a long thread...

I'm new here, although you may have seen me on other sites. This seems
to be as good a place to start. I will continue to read through the
older posts, so forgive me if I repeat something that's already been
said.

I agree about the quality of the instructions being lacking in some
models, and not just resin ones. Right now I'm focusing my efforts on
models from three companies: Speedwitch, Westerfield, and Sunshine.

The reason is simple. I've spent the last two years or so studying the
New Haven Railroad, because that's what I'm modeling. But eventually,
the bulk of the roster will consist of freight cars from other roads.
In most cases I have no idea which models are accurate, or what changes
need to be made. If there's a review on a model with this information
somewhere, then I can add it to the list. Or if it appears in an
article like Ted's Essential Freight Car series I have the info I need
and don't have problem picking up a model from another company.

I came to this decision through experience. The first resin kit I
picked up was an F&C kit. It's a nice kit. But the instructions are
lacking. In addition, there wasn't any information available (on the
site or the packaging) to tell me what era it would have run.

So I built it to the best of my ability at the time. Several months
later I learn that they were all scrapped before my era. In addition, I
had not learned as much about the basic construction of freight cars.
So the brake gear isn't quite right on the underbody, and I have a
brake step with a ratchet and pawl, along with an Ajax power brake
wheel, etc.

In this particular kit there were 4 different ends. There was no
indication as to which ends to use, and I never did find out which was
appropriate.

In the end, it's not really a big deal to me, I look at it as a
learning experience and as practice for other models. But some basic
information about the parts that come with the kit, and which ones are
appropriate (especially if there are multiple options) would make a big
difference.

But this is not an issue for the resin kits alone. Most of the
manufacturers give little information about the cars they release. As
an example of what I'd like to see, Branchline lists the build date and
if appropriate, additional dating information right on the box. So the
last time I was at a hobby store and decided to pick up another kit,
the only ones I ended up considering were the Branchline ones. Because
I had no idea if the other kits were appropriate.

On the other hand, it bugs me that I have to go ask the same questions
(or do the same research) that I know somebody else has already done. I
went through every single post on the NHRHTA forum to gather what
information I could when I started researching the New Haven Railroad.
People keep asking the same questions, and it's simply because finding
the answers can be so difficult when a large percentage of the
information is out-of-print or scattered among collections across the
country.

So I've been putting together a website for my railroad, and one of the
key purposes is to share whatever information I find so it's readily
available for others.

Anyway, I'll keep going through the posts here to dig up what I can,
but I'm sure I WILL have a few questions now or then...

Randy Hammill
http://newbritainstation.com

Thanks to Chuck and the other list members who responded. I shall need to dig out the RMC issue (which I'm pretty sure I have, as I was subscribing
at the time (and have resubscribed the last year or two after a lacuna of some years).
The entire question may be moot, as the car is a GLca, lettered with Champ decals, and I wonder whether Berwind had any of those. The view of the
CV way freight in Willimantic was great--and I have a twin USRA hopper already lettered for C&I (very old Champ set, pieced out with CDS alphabet set),
too.

Jace Kahn, General Manager
Ceres and Canisteo RR Co.

Date: Wed Aug 6, 2008 6:54 pm ((PDT))

Those Berwind hoppers seen on New England railroads may well have been
carrying anthracite to small coal dealers for the home ehating trade. I
have seen a color slide of the Susquehanna Coal Co at Glen Lyon PA (on
the PRR) where BWX cars are being loaded with anthracite in August of
1966. Glen Lyon is just south of Nanticoke.

On the slide BWX 2573 can cleary be seen. This was one of the unique
cars owned by Berwind that were rebuilt GLa cars, as I recall. In the
background there at least four Berwind GLa cars.

The Susquehanna Coal Co was orginally controlled by the PRR and was
spun off when the anthracite roads had to divest themselves of mining
interests. It may well be that the Susquehanna Coal Co in 1966 was part
of Berwind.

Chuck Yungkurth

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