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Re: Athearn C&NW 65 ft mill gon

Mike Brock <brockm@...>
 

Tim O'Connor writes:

"Maybe they chose to cater to (gasp!) the post-transition era?? After all many
modelers like those 1960's cars (incredible as it may seem!)"

Well, I suppose it might be incredible to some that "1960's cars" are liked. Personally, it doesn't surprise me at all. However, my guess is that most of the 1949 built cars [ 132001-132099 ] existed in the '60's and probably later than that. Soooo, doing the 132001-132099 class would be useful for both steam era AND post steam era modelers. Doing the 95000-95199 class simply means that someone modeling prior to 1958 would have no use for it. And that's why I left one in my local hobby shop today. Could I renumber it? Certainly. But I have about 400 other cars waiting to be serviced and I decided adding one more might cause a collapse of the railroad room.

Mike Brock

Re: SP A-50-10 Fifty Foot, OB end door Boxcar

Bill Kelly
 

Tony,
Take another look, the A end is sheathed like the sides. There is a 5'-6
1/2" belt rail starting 2'-1" the floor on the sides.This belt rail
extends up a little farther on the A end due to the arrangement of the
depressions in the end. I agree that the end doors do not appear to be
sheathed.

Later,
Bill Kelly


Tony wrote:
Gary, as I read the Cyc drawing (reproduced in my Volume 3)
there was no end lining at either end, but I don't have an interior
photo
to be sure.
Re: Sheetrock by Rail

tbarney2004
 

I can say that it was available in at least some form in the 50's.
The dump...err house (which dates to the early 50's not far from the
O&W Kingston branch - gotta get that STMFC connection somehow)...I'm
currently trying to make somewhat habitable was done with some form of
18" wide sheets of 1/2" thick gypsum board. Mostly paper backed, but
foil backed on the exterior walls (and of course, no insulation in
said walls). Some is also stamped that it's approved for use (can't
remember exact wording) in NYC meeting all applicable NYC and FD
codes. This was finished with a hardshell skim coat of plaster (and
I'd have expected lathe and plaster myself). As for shipping, or who
manufactured the stuff (unless it's marked on the side that was skim
coated I don't remember seeing any manufacturers markings) and where,
I'll have to defer to others. What surprised about it is that outside
of a neighbor or two to have experienced the same thing renovating
their houses, nobody I've talked to (including contractors) has ever
seen the stuff themselves. So I'm wondering if it was a regional
thing in the northeast, or of this would have been a nationwide
product being shuttled around in a myriad of otherwise unremarkable
boxcars?

Tim Barney

--- In STMFC@..., Don Worthy <don_worthy@...> wrote:

Hey fellows, I didn't think that "sheetrock" was around in the 40s
or even the early 50s. Here in the south, homes were still using the
plastered walls and ceilings. Also, during the 50s many homes and
company buildings were using beautiful "real" wood paneling.
So, I'm wondering "when" did "sheetrock" become a wide spread
product?? I have a feeling that it came around in the 60s. I know the
Kaolin companies made big advances in their field and Kaolin (chalk)
is 90% of sheetrock.
Don Worthy

Dennis Storzek <destorzek@...> wrote:
--- In STMFC@..., "espeeac12" <milesinniles@>
wrote:

How was Sheetrock (Drywall) Originally shipped by rail? When? I'm
going
to have a couple of sheetrock loads for my late 1940's-1959 era
layout.
Does anyone show pictures of this early operation? How was it
unloaded?
In boxcars, at least prior to WWII, when my dad was working as a
driver and yardman for various lumber yards in Chicago. The transition
to bulkhead flats came after the war, when plastic wrapping technology
advanced to the point where this moisture sensitive load could be
protected. When I see Dad later this week, I'll ask him when he saw
the first bulkhead flats.

Dennis






---------------------------------
Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: Backdating Mather Proto PH&D

red_gate_rover
 

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


Hard to say in the absence of photos from the era you model. However,
later photos of the cars all show them to be mineral red. And the RPI
site, though sometimes useful, is far from being a paragon of accuracy.
Thank you again. I should have written beige and not tan. The
reference is from a 1991 article in RMC that I must have but have not
yet found the right box. I'm finding the RPI site to be useful but
often too sketchy and raising more questions. It's still great place
to start. -Jim Pasquill

Re: Athearn C&NW 65 ft mill gon

Richard Hendrickson
 

On Apr 18, 2007, at 9:15 AM, Mike Brock wrote:

I note that Athearn is producing a C&NW version of the 65 ft mill gon.
I
also note that the Athearn numbers:

Gondola, C&NW #95081 & 95156

do not match the numbers Richard reports in his article in Feb 2006
RMJ nor
do they match those in the '53 ORER [ which match Richard's ]. The
Athearn
cars also have a '58 [ I think ] built date. Rather annoying for those
modeling the steam era. I suppose one could change the numbers. Does
anyone
know if these cars are correct for the late steam era? Wonder why
Athearn
chose such a date...shutting out the transition era modeler?
My 10/58 ORER shows two groups of 65'6" mill gons with numbers in the
95000-95199 series and odd numbers in the 132001-132099 series. The
132000 series cars were built by Pressed Steel in 1949 and had those
numbers from the outset, as shown by a builder's photo in the 1953 Car
Builders' Cyclopedia, confirmed by the 1951 C&NW diagram book. The
95000-95199 series cars are not in the 1/53 or 1/55 ORERs, so the built
date on the Athearn models may be correct. Changing the numbers is, of
course, possible but the rest of the lettering should be compared to
the photo in the 1953 Cyc as there is no guarantee that the lettering
style and arrangement was the same on the later cars as on the earlier
ones.

As to why Athearn chose to model the later cars rather than the earlier
ones, I can tell you that they could easily have modeled the 1949 cars
because I provided Athearn's R&D people with both photos and data on
them. However, I will add my impression that product decisions at
Athearn are not made by, nor apparently even in much consultation with,
the R&D department. They are made by sales people. And most sales
people in the model railroad business are legendary for (1) their
ignorance of, even contempt for, accurate prototype data and (2) their
insightful market research, which consists mostly of exchanging
misconceptions with hobby shop owners who know even less about the
prototype than they do. No surprise, then, that the results often seem
baffling to us prototype modelers.

In short, go figure.

Richard Hendrickson

Re: Sheetrock by Rail

Jim & Lisa Hayes <jimandlisa97225@...>
 

After all this prototype information, you may want to build a flatcar loaded
with Sheetrock.



Sunshine offers ATSF Ft L & N bulkhead flatcars and wallboard loads for
them. There is a review of them in the December 2005 RMC.



Jim Hayes

Portland Oregon

Re: Backdating Mather Proto PH&D

Richard Hendrickson
 

On Apr 18, 2007, at 3:16 PM, red_gate_rover wrote:

Thanks for the reply. This information at least allows plausibility
to simply replacing the brakes and data, at least until such time as
pictures surface. For my purposes that's good enough. However there
is a suggestions on the RPI site that these cars were painted with a
tan paint and not red. Anyone know more? -Jim Pasquill
Hard to say in the absence of photos from the era you model. However,
later photos of the cars all show them to be mineral red. And the RPI
site, though sometimes useful, is far from being a paragon of accuracy.

Richard Hendrickson

Branchline ATSF BX-69 cars

up4024 <thekays100@...>
 

Branchline is showing a set of four Santa Fe BX69 boxcars. These are
50', riveted, single 8' door cars. The catalog number is 10014. The
photo on the web is of a El Capitan car, but no mention is made of the
other three cars in the set. Are they all El Capitan, or do they have
other train names and (I assume) different numbers.

If anyone has this set of cars, I would appreciate it if you could let
me know which slogans and numbers are on them.

Thanks,

Steve Kay

Re: Sheetrock by Rail

George Courtney
 

A search on Wikipedia revealed sheetrock from Plaster City,CA in
1916. Got popular around 1952 with building in the suburbs. From the
postings this seems to be the period some railroads began converting
the flatcars.
George Courtney

Re: Sheetrock by Rail

Jeff English
 

Having been at Rome's house last night, I can vouch for his vintage
sheet rock. My own house, built in 1877, was partially remodeled circa
1926-29 and in those areas the sheet rock has paper labels on the back
that hint at having been printed in 1924.

Jeff English
Troy, New York
(where some residents are still not proud enough to come right out and
say they're from Troy, resorting to the vague phrase "in the Albany, NY
area")

--- In STMFC@..., "Rome" <r111369@...> wrote:

Don Worthy <don_worthy@> wrote:

Hey fellows, I didn't think that "sheetrock" was around in the 40s
or even the early 50s...

My house is in the Albany, NY area, was built in 1941, as well as the
rest of the houses in our neighborhood, and they all have sheetrock
walls. My grandfather's house in Vermont was built in 1955, he was a
finish carpenter and used sheetrock on all the walls. However, my
parents house, also in Vermont, was built in 1903, and used the
plaster and lath technique.

Rome Romano
Re: Backdating Mather Proto PH&D

red_gate_rover
 

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

More to the point, the years during which various RRs leased cars from
Mather varied, and most of Mather's leased box cars weren't built (or
rebuilt from stock cars) until ca. 1931-'32. The PH&D did, however,
lease 400 40'4" IL box cars from Mather beginning in the late 1920s.
That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm not aware of any photos
showing the PH&D's Mather box cars ca. 1929, so there's no way to know
whether the lettering was the same as the '40s/'50s vintage lettering
applied to the models.
Thanks for the reply. This information at least allows plausibility
to simply replacing the brakes and data, at least until such time as
pictures surface. For my purposes that's good enough. However there
is a suggestions on the RPI site that these cars were painted with a
tan paint and not red. Anyone know more? -Jim Pasquill

Re: "Longitudinal" hopper

David Smith
 

I DID say that if it was out of era, that was all I needed to know. <grin>

Dave Smith

On 4/18/07, Anthony Thompson <thompson@...> wrote:

> # Ga-168 Hopper Cars Series 76700-76999 built 1969 longitudinal
hoppers
# Ga-170 Hopper Cars Series 64025-64038 built 1969 copper concentrate
service
Might these be just a TAD out of era for this list, Tim?

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@...<thompson%40signaturepress.com>
Publishers of books on railroad history


--
David L. Smith
Allentown, PA
dlsio4@...

Re: "Longitudinal" hopper

Anthony Thompson <thompson@...>
 

# Ga-168 Hopper Cars Series 76700-76999 built 1969 longitudinal hoppers
# Ga-170 Hopper Cars Series 64025-64038 built 1969 copper concentrate service
Might these be just a TAD out of era for this list, Tim?

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

Re: "Longitudinal" hopper

Anthony Thompson <thompson@...>
 

The purpose built 1963 B-L-H cars are odd enough in themselves. I don't know what their center of gravity was but it must have been rather high.
It is certainly odd looking. It was evidently a B-L-H idea; I showed the demonstrator car in my volume on SP gondolas. The cars SP bought differ only slightly from the demo. I think part of the reason for the high underbody was because there were half-width longitudinal doors.

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

Re: Sheetrock by Rail

Anthony Thompson <thompson@...>
 

Tim O'Connor wrote:
I guess I should look in the flat cars book -- were any of these F-70-7 conversions?
Yes, I think you should, and yes.

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

Re: "Longitudinal" hopper

Tim O'Connor
 

Richard, that is what I was trying to figure out -- if they were built
before 1961 or not. I agree since I think that they are, I haven't said
anything more about them.

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
Uh, guys, not to be a grouch about it, but all these e-mails about cars
built in the 1960s are way out of era for this list.

Richard Hendrickson
Re: "Longitudinal" hopper

Richard Hendrickson
 

Uh, guys, not to be a grouch about it, but all these e-mails about cars
built in the 1960s are way out of era for this list.

Richard Hendrickson

Re: Sheetrock by Rail

Chet French <cfrench@...>
 

--- In STMFC@..., "Douglas Harding" <doug.harding@...>
wrote:

I just toured the US Gypsum plant in Fort Dodge, Iowa with the CNW
Historical Society in March. We learned that Sheetrock is a
trademark name,
like Kleenex or Frigidaire. That US Gypsum has been making it since
1916 and
further that US Gypsum began mining the gypsum rock in the Fort
Dodge area
in the 1880/90's. All product was shipped by rail. Someone
mentioned the
developments along the CGW, CNW and IC in the Chicago area. All
three of
those railroads serve Fort Dodge, home of some of the largest gypsum
deposits in the country. Prior to the meat industry, gypsum made
Fort Dodge
and industrial center. It was also the birthplace of the "Cardiff
giant"
(Google that if do don't know the story). Today US Gypsum, National
Gypsum
and one or two others are still active in Fort Dodge making
wallboard and
related products.

Early products were shipped in boxcars. Later flats were converted
with low
bulkheads for shipping Sheetrock. Also gyp rock was shipped out in
gons, as
gyp rock was used in several other industry applications. Fort
Dodge had
some of the purest deposits to be found. The early rock was mined
underground using small mining railroads. Today it is all stripped
mined and
hauled in truck. But the plants still have rail service if needed.
The IC built two series of bulkhead flat cars for wallboard loading
late in the time frame covered here. Cars 60100-60199 were built in
1959 and cars 60200-60299 in 1960. Both groups of cars were built by
the railroad's own shop and had 6'-6 1/2" height bulkheads. More
bulkhead flat cars were built, and some existing flatcars had bulk
heads added, after 1960.

Chet French
Dixon, IL

Re: "Longitudinal" hopper

Russ Strodtz <sheridan@...>
 

Tim,

We are getting way out of scope here. Roofed coal gons, not
hoppers belonged to Big Stone Power. Those covers have been
removed. Motivation was different. The Montana Sub-Bituminous
is very fine and they were trying to prevent losing coal to
the wind going across the prairie. The arms on the roofs were
designed to work with a modified dumper. They limited the
roof's travel. Cars are still in service today without the
roofs.

Russ

----- Original Message -----
From: timboconnor@...
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Wednesday, 18 April, 2007 13:59
Subject: Re: [STMFC] "Longitudinal" hopper



Could these be the prototype in question?

# Ga-168 Hopper Cars Series 76700-76999 built 1969 longitudinal
hoppers
# Ga-170 Hopper Cars Series 64025-64038 built 1969 copper
concentrate service

Milwaukee also tried the wind resistance idea -- they built
hoppers designed
with a top that was mechanically closed as the train slowly
rolled. The cars had
these big 'arms' sticking up IIRC.

Tim

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Russ Strodtz" <sheridan@...>
> Tim,
>
> Yes it does but the AT&SF seemed to be full of
> these oddball ideas. If you take a three bay
> GA-122, remove the hoppers and replace with
> lengthwise doors and build up or borrow flat car
> ends, that model on e-bay is what you are going
> to end up with.
>
> Somewhere I have photos of their attempt to reduce
> the wind resistance of modern coal hoppers by
> putting bonnets over the open end areas. The test
> process even included a locomotive with a boom
> sticking out about 30' forwards to put wind
> measurement instruments.
>
> The purpose built 1963 B-L-H cars are odd enough
> in themselves. I don't know what their center of
> gravity was but it must have been rather high.
>
> Russ Strodtz
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: timboconnor@...
> To: STMFC@...
> Sent: Wednesday, 18 April, 2007 12:36
> Subject: Re: [STMFC] "Longitudinal" hopper
>
>
>
> Russ I think you are right that the prototype car was built
for
> copper concentrates. SP had some really weird looking cars
> built around the same time period for that commodity. That
> model of a hopper car on a flat car body just looks silly
IMO!
>
> Tim O'Connor



Yahoo! Groups Links

Shameless Commercial Announcement - II

branchline@...
 

Shipping to dealers today is the next batch of assembled RTR Branchline Blueprint cars. A full list available at http://www.branchline-trains.com/blueprint/rtr/rtr7.htm

Note that this group includes a number of General American plug door boxcars as featured in the newest RP Cyc. (Of course, I'm sure Ed has come up with information that I didn't have when we did these but....)

I now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion....

Bill Schneider

136921 - 136940 of 198818