In a message dated 2/25/2008 12:59:39 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
rdkirkham@... writes:

Hi - I'm wondering whether Sunshine sells steam ear freight car models
at meets (such as that coming up in Perris) by credit car, or cash only?

Thanks in advance,

Rob Kirkham



As far as I know Martin takes cash and checks.

Rich Orr



**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)

I don't think Lackawanna had any double sheathed box cars with wood
ends or board roofs in the '40s.

Ed

I'd say "The Professor" has offered more than "a little information" on both this forum and others (e.g. MFCL) on numerous occasions. If I say any more in his defense, I'll have to start sending him bills for legal fees!

Carl J. Marsico

Anthony Thompson <thompson@...> wrote:
Todd Stearns wrote:

My point was you could have gave him at least a little information.
You didn't even provide a BRIEF answer, only a sales pitch.

So identifying a source of answers and photos is not "a little
information?" And excuse me, Todd, but there was NO sales pitch. I did
not urge buying the book, nor even praised it as a "must have," only
stated that it contained the information. If you think that's a "sales
pitch" you need to get out more.

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

Todd Stearns wrote:

My point was you could have gave him at least a little information. You didn't even provide a BRIEF answer, only a sales pitch.

So identifying a source of answers and photos is not "a little information?" And excuse me, Todd, but there was NO sales pitch. I did not urge buying the book, nor even praised it as a "must have," only stated that it contained the information. If you think that's a "sales pitch" you need to get out more.

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

On Feb 25, 2008, at 1:50 AM, Todd Stearns wrote:

My point was you could have gave him at least a little information.
You didn't even provide a BRIEF answer, only a sales pitch. I'm not
going to turn this into an argument.

But you HAVE turned it into an argument, Todd, and it's an argument
that recurs from time to time on this list, fueled by a common
misconception that we all ought to be able to get any kind of
information we want from the internet instantly and for free.
Apparently you weren't paying attention when Tony said that he would
have provided a brief answer if there were one that was both brief and
accurate. Those of us who write books about freight cars and other
railroad subjects do exhaustive research and put the results in book
form because it's the only way to convey the information in enough
detail to do the subject justice. If there's a simple answer to a
specific question, we're happy to provide it. But some of the
questions we get amount to "tell me all you know about subject X so I
don't have to buy your book," and I think we're entirely justified in
refusing to do so. I will add that no one writes or publishes books on
railroad history and modeling for the money. Given the amount of time
it takes to research and write a book, authors get paid about 25¢ an
hour. Publishers, of course, have to make a modest profit in order to
stay in business, but if they were really after big bucks they'd be
publishing things like celebrity autobiographies or high class
pornography, where there's a very much larger, and largely uncritical,
audience.

In short, get a clue. Some of what you may want to know about
prototype freight cars is still available only in print form, and
though there are ways to access it without buying the books or
periodicals (finding a library that has them or getting them via
interlibrary loan), they're sometimes cumbersome and take time. Firing
off a thirty second request on the STMFC list won't always get you what
you want, and abusing authors because they haven't made that possible
is inappropriate, not to say immature.

Richard Hendrickson


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

Just found the original posting, should anyone want to know what was (or wasn't) observed:
http://lists.railfan.net/erielack-digest/200108/msg00333.html

and a response from the same forum:
http://lists.railfan.net/erielack-digest/200108/msg00335.html

CJM

Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...> wrote:
On Feb 25, 2008, at 3:14 AM, Carl J. Marsico wrote:

I remember this topic coming up when Ertl released their USRA DS box,
but it may have been on another forum. IIRC, the initial consensus was
that this car was a foobie (like most of the Ertl schemes), but a clip
from a video surfaced where someone claimed to see a USRA DS box in
this scheme.

Yeah, right. And my neighbor's Chihuahua was abducted by little green
men in a flying saucer. In a brief and probably blurry video clip,
most observers would be unable to differentiate a DL&W USRA box car
from a DL&W wood sheathed ARA box car. I'll believe this when (1) I
see the video clip, rather than just hearing about it at third (fourth?
fifth?) hand, and (2) someone like Mike or Ben whose judgment can be
trusted says it's actually a USRA car. This is exactly the kind of
gossip masquerading as prototype research that prompted the
establishment of this list.

Richard Hendrickson

CASH ONLY or check, Martin does not take credit cards.

Paul Lyons
Laguna Niguel, CA

Hi - I'm wondering whether Sunshine sells steam ear freight car models
at meets (such as that coming up in Perris) by credit car, or cash only?

Thanks in advance,

Rob Kirkham

--- In STMFC@..., "benjaminfrank_hom" <b.hom@...> wrote:

Ben is correct tha the DL&W "Phoebe Snow" first was applied to new
cars delivered during WW2. This was also the advent of the
reappearance of Pheobe in the company's adversing although the train
did not emerge until some years later.

Eventually the road applied the scheme to almost all types of box
cars including some 36' steel framed DS cars built in 1926. But I
believe that all the DL&W USRA DS cars had been rebuilt to steel cars
by WW2, which makes the Atlas car dubious.

Chuck Yungkurth
Boulder CO

Mike (?) wrote:
"Can anyone tell me the earliest this logo would have been used on
the Lackawanna box cars?"

An article in the April 25, 1942 Railway Age features "the
new 'Phoebe Snow' paint scheme" being applied to box cars being
delivered that month, so it dates to at least then.


"The specific scheme can be seen on the Atlas O scale DS box cars.
Here is a link to the Atlas site:"
http://www.atlaso.com/images/specialruns/9314-3.jpg

While the Lackawanna applied this scheme to their 1920s built DS
boxcars, I have not been able to turn up any photos of USRA DS
boxcars painted in this scheme. Caveat emptor.


Ben Hom

On Feb 25, 2008, at 3:14 AM, Carl J. Marsico wrote:

I remember this topic coming up when Ertl released their USRA DS box,
but it may have been on another forum. IIRC, the initial consensus was
that this car was a foobie (like most of the Ertl schemes), but a clip
from a video surfaced where someone claimed to see a USRA DS box in
this scheme.

Yeah, right. And my neighbor's Chihuahua was abducted by little green
men in a flying saucer. In a brief and probably blurry video clip,
most observers would be unable to differentiate a DL&W USRA box car
from a DL&W wood sheathed ARA box car. I'll believe this when (1) I
see the video clip, rather than just hearing about it at third (fourth?
fifth?) hand, and (2) someone like Mike or Ben whose judgment can be
trusted says it's actually a USRA car. This is exactly the kind of
gossip masquerading as prototype research that prompted the
establishment of this list.

Richard Hendrickson

There are reweigh schedules for cars of different types in the editorial pages at the back of the ORER. Hoppers were reweighed more often than box cars, and privately owned cars were reweighed at the owners discretion. In the 1970s I can recall seeing reweigh dates from the 1930s on some tank cars, but not on any other kind of equipment. This also brings up the interval between repacking of journals. I don't know what it was but somehow got the impression that it was around a year and a half. Of course cars got those small paint patches and new repack data when it was done, and it was more often than rewighing. Tony Wagner
Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...> wrote: On Feb 24, 2008, at 7:46 PM, Mark Pierce wrote:

This makes me wonder about reweight dates and location codes.
Weren't cars to be reweighed every couple of years? If so,
wouldn't "foreign" railroads reweigh other railroad's cars if on
their properties at "reweight time"? If so, wouldn't one
see "foreign" reweight location codes on some cars? Perhaps I'm
mistaken and only owner railroads would reweigh their cars which they
could only do when their empty car was on it tracks.

Yes, yes, and yes. Cars were also reweighed off-line whenever repairs
were required which might change the light weight, such as replacement
of a wheel set or truck. Cars were usually re-lightweighed by their
owners, but there were certainly plenty of exceptions. A fairly
comprehensive list of reweigh station symbols for all RRs is in the
STMFC files, and decals have been produced both by Champ and by
Sunshine.

Richard Hendrickson

I recall finding this topic previously when a good number of the Ertl cars were being sold at clearance prices, including the DL&W USRA box. For the low prices they were going at, I didn't think it would be cost/time effective to independently look into the video clip issue that had come up, and assumed that I'd probably have this car as repainting/kitbash/trade/sale fodder down the road. I don't think I ever got around to going back to that thread for a "resolution" of the video clip issue, either.

CJM

benjaminfrank_hom <b.hom@...> wrote:
Carl J. Marsico wrote:
"I remember this topic coming up when Ertl released their USRA DS box,
but it may have been on another forum. IIRC, the initial consensus
was that this car was a foobie (like most of the Ertl schemes), but a
clip from a video surfaced where someone claimed to see a USRA DS box
in this scheme."

I'll bet that it was one of the far more common 1925-built 40 ft DS
boxcars that "someone" mistook for a USRA DS boxcar. Given the
quality of the rest of ERTL's lettering, I would NOT be inclined to
give them a break on this one.

Ben Hom

--- In STMFC@..., Malcolm Laughlin <mlaughlinnyc@...> wrote:

would wooden end cars have still been around in the 50's ?

Malcolm,

I have the following ACF Type III wood reefers with wood ends as still
around in the early 50's. This info is from photos in an Ed Hawkins
article, May 2000 issue of Railmodel Journal. This article discusses
the Branchline kits for these cars, and I must add that I do not know
how accurately the Silver Streak cars represent the ACF cars...merely
supplying info on wood-end reefers still around in the 1950's.

Photo of URTX 7578 (series 7000-7699) with MILW herald circa 1951.
See also Branchline model 1213.

Photos of NWX 5106 (4000-5499) in 1956, NWX 15412 in 1953 and 15344 in
1968 (15000-15499). All three of these cars are in the yellow and
green scheme.

Photo of URTX 1560 (1500-1699) in 1948 with NKP markings. See also
Branchline model 1214. Jan '53 ORER lists 54 cars remaining in this
series at that time.

Photo of WRX 9405 (9000-9499) in 1964 with GBW logo to right of doors,
sans-serif lettering. See also Branchline model 9009.

Hope this is helpful,

John Hile
Blacksburg, VA

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

John, I have an undec PSC model. It's a relatively accurate and well
detailed model of a GATC car. But not, please note, of the AC&F cars
operated by SHPX and NATX, which had quite different underframes and
the safety vents on top of the domes, rather than on elbows on the
sides of the domes (some GATC cars also had larger domes with the
safeties on top). Note, too, that those were frangible disk safety
vents, NOT the spring-loaded safety valves required on ICC-103 and
ICC-104 cars for the shipment of regulatory commodities.

Thanks for the info Richard. It will come in handy should one of
these cars turn up again and happen to fall into my hands!

John Hile

In a message dated 2/25/2008 11:58:26 AM Eastern Standard Time,
Carlmarsico@... writes:

I didn't think it would be cost/time effective to independently look into
the video clip issue that had come up, and assumed that I'd probably have this
car as repainting/kitbash/I didn't think it would be cost/time effective to
independently look into the video clip issue that had come up, and assumed
that I'd probably ha

I recall chasing a couple of these video clips and came up blank. One was
in, I think, Herron's Mountain Glory (B&M Mountain Division -- great set of
tapes for steam era freight cars) and a portion of one came by. It was one of
the 45000-series cars, with Murphy ends. Another was in one of the PRR Glory
tapes which also was one of these cars.

If any others pop up I'll add them to the list of things to look at. I
kinda recall hearing about one that I didn't yet pursue, but now I've forgotten
what that was (welcome to middle-age).

Again, it would sure be nice to have a ready-to-run version correctly
lettered. I built a couple of Westerfields and they are correctly lettered for
wartime. One of them is painted in DuPont Centari 5000 in a custom color matched
to a clean sample from a DL&W caboose during a restoration project -- any
freight car or non-revenue rolling stock painted at Keyser Valley Shops got the
same color. Yes, the paint covers a little thick, but smooth. I also built
up four IMWX undec 1937 cars for the same paint day. It's a great novelty to
have a couple of models so painted, decaled with the CDS dry transfers (the
closest to matching that custom typeface on DL&W freight cars; almost all RTR
DL&W carmakers are using modern typefaces which don't look right for the
era). Outdoors in various lighting, they look just like the old slides taken in
the same lighting; in the basement flourescent lighting they look brown --
but lighting is an entirely different subject.

Mike Del Vecchio



**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)

Carl J. Marsico wrote:
"I remember this topic coming up when Ertl released their USRA DS box,
but it may have been on another forum. IIRC, the initial consensus
was that this car was a foobie (like most of the Ertl schemes), but a
clip from a video surfaced where someone claimed to see a USRA DS box
in this scheme."

I'll bet that it was one of the far more common 1925-built 40 ft DS
boxcars that "someone" mistook for a USRA DS boxcar. Given the
quality of the rest of ERTL's lettering, I would NOT be inclined to
give them a break on this one.


Ben Hom

I remember this topic coming up when Ertl released their USRA DS box, but it may have been on another forum. IIRC, the initial consensus was that this car was a foobie (like most of the Ertl schemes), but a clip from a video surfaced where someone claimed to see a USRA DS box in this scheme.

Carl J. Marsico

benjaminfrank_hom <b.hom@...> wrote:
Mike (?) wrote:
"Can anyone tell me the earliest this logo would have been used on
the Lackawanna box cars?"

An article in the April 25, 1942 Railway Age features "the
new 'Phoebe Snow' paint scheme" being applied to box cars being
delivered that month, so it dates to at least then.

"The specific scheme can be seen on the Atlas O scale DS box cars.
Here is a link to the Atlas site:"
http://www.atlaso.com/images/specialruns/9314-3.jpg

While the Lackawanna applied this scheme to their 1920s built DS
boxcars, I have not been able to turn up any photos of USRA DS
boxcars painted in this scheme. Caveat emptor.

Ben Hom

My point was you could have gave him at least a little information. You didn't even provide a BRIEF answer, only a sales pitch. I'm not going to turn this into an argument.

Todd K. Stearns

On Feb 24, 2008, at 7:46 PM, Mark Pierce wrote:

This makes me wonder about reweight dates and location codes.
Weren't cars to be reweighed every couple of years? If so,
wouldn't "foreign" railroads reweigh other railroad's cars if on
their properties at "reweight time"? If so, wouldn't one
see "foreign" reweight location codes on some cars? Perhaps I'm
mistaken and only owner railroads would reweigh their cars which they
could only do when their empty car was on it tracks.

Yes, yes, and yes. Cars were also reweighed off-line whenever repairs
were required which might change the light weight, such as replacement
of a wheel set or truck. Cars were usually re-lightweighed by their
owners, but there were certainly plenty of exceptions. A fairly
comprehensive list of reweigh station symbols for all RRs is in the
STMFC files, and decals have been produced both by Champ and by
Sunshine.

Richard Hendrickson

--- In STMFC@..., Anthony Thompson <thompson@...> wrote:

Jim Betz wrote:

How long was it, typically, between re-paints on freight cars

during

the steam era?

Jim, this is documented in some detail in the PFE book,

since the

PFE shop records indicated repainting of the individual classes,

month

by month.
The general comment I was given by the former CMO of PFE is

that

the wood-sheathed cars should be repainted every seven years,

whereas

steel cars could go around twice that long. Of course, PFE in the

steam

era was a prosperous company and had the resources to do things in

a

first-class way. Plenty of railroads didn't; and in addition, PFE

got

its empties back after most trips east, so could carry out a

repainting

schedule. Box cars in particular, as free-runners, might not return

to

home rails for years.

Tony Thompson

This makes me wonder about reweight dates and location codes.
Weren't cars to be reweighed every couple of years? If so,
wouldn't "foreign" railroads reweigh other railroad's cars if on
their properties at "reweight time"? If so, wouldn't one
see "foreign" reweight location codes on some cars? Perhaps I'm
mistaken and only owner railroads would reweigh their cars which they
could only do when their empty car was on it tracks.

Mark Pierce