Hi All,

I will be spending the next month or so in Columbia, South Carolina with some side trips to Athens (GA) and Charleston (SC) and was wondering if anyone could suggest possible layouts to see. Please contact me off line.

Thank you.

Gerard

Dr. Gerard J. Fitzgerald
Postdoctoral Fellow, Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

First I want to thank Richard and Tony for their prompt response to my
previous inquiry (message 41795). Nothing like having experts helping
you!
My question was not clearly stated based on the responses. One of the
tank cars used to build the SP sand tower at Dunsmuir has partial
visible markings in my photos, namely: "GATX", "10,000 gallons", and
the first 2 digits of the car number "58xxxx". My guess is that it is a
General American built car and not a SP tank car. Since the sand tower
was built in 1959 and the car has three rows of horizontal rivets (one
on top, one each side down low), I'm guessing it was built between
1930s and 1950s. The car also shows signs that 4 bands were used, with
2 of them on each side of the single dome. The tower was featured in
Trainline issue 62 for reference. I have not found in my searches any
info on GATX tank cars of that vintage. My best estimate of the length
of the lower car is 28 feet (side sheets) based on my photos. Does this
seem reasonable for that era of tank cars?
Thanks for any response, even if this is still not enough info!
Serge

During some research I was conducting regarding flat cars, I came across an interesting photo that might be worth a comment. Recently there was some discussion about the placement of empty flat cars in trains. The photo on pg 256 of Motive Power of the UP shows two 4-12-2's pulling a frt up Sherman Hill. It is noteworthy that both engines are working hard from the evidence of smoke being produced. The photo was taken by noted RR photographer Richard Kindig and the caption notes that the train was a "mile" long. We don't know that, of course, but we can assume that since the train was requiring such an effort by the two engines that maximum train resistance for the engines was likely being encountered. The first car was an empty 40 ft flat car followed by an empty 53' flat car.

Mike Brock

I'm finally getting around to applying the decals to my Central Valley
NP stock car. There is a lettering diagram, but since there are a few
small variations in the lettering available: "Length Inside" vs. "Lgth.
Ins.", and "wrot or cast steel wheels", while I can only see "steel
wheels" on the included diagram.
Geez, they went through the trouble of putting the stuff on the decal
set, I think they might clue you in as to the applicability. The
photos I have are later, color photos, from the 60's (the lettering is
weathered anyhow.) I would assume the lettering diagram is for the
50's-60's, but it has earlier reweigh dates that I will use for my late
30's time period. What else out of the set should I use (or not use?)
Dean Payne

Hello all,

I saw this post on trainorders.com where a poster states that the
original auto-carriers have been sold to a scrap dealer in Texas:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,934896,nodelay=1

This seems plausible, given Amtrak's recent efforts at scrapping or
selling anything that might be considered surplus. If true, however,
it also marks a major loss for preserving the history of both American
passenger trains and the freight car design.

The Auto Train concept and the corporation were widely viewed as an
alternative free-market solution to the passenger train question in
the early-mid 1970's, and the service continues to be one of the more
innovative passenger train operations in the US. Likewise, many of
these cars were built for Canadian National in 1957 (where they were
used in freight service) - and could also be preserved there as well.

The listing for the Walthers model of this car states that they were
important in shaping the design of later hi-cube box cars and
tri-level auto racks -- is this true?

With all this said, does anyone see a way to preserve at least one of
these cars somewhere?

Tom Cornillie

Thanks Frank. All the models are great but Bobby Pitts tankcars wowed me!


Frank Greene <fgreen01@...> wrote:
I created an album containing some of the digital pictures I took at the 2005 Savannah Prototype Modelers Meet: http://frankg290.rrpicturearchives.net/archiveThumbs.aspx?id=5172.

Thanks for looking,

Frank Greene
fgreen01@...








Yahoo! Groups Links








George Hollwedel
Prototype N Scale Models
georgeloop@...
310 Loma Verde Street
Buda, TX 78610-9785
512-796-6883

---------------------------------
Discover Yahoo!
Find restaurants, movies, travel & more fun for the weekend. Check it out!

I created an album containing some of the digital pictures I took at the 2005 Savannah Prototype Modelers Meet: http://frankg290.rrpicturearchives.net/archiveThumbs.aspx?id=5172.

Thanks for looking,

Frank Greene
fgreen01@...

The June 2005 issue of The Keystone Modeler is online at
http://www.prrths.com/Keystone%20Modeler/Keystone_Modeler.htm

Articles of interest include:
- 2005 Annual Meeting Contest Winners
- Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad's Flat Car Fleet by Elden Gatwood
- The PRR's Gondola Fleet Part 17 - G36 Subclass Class Gondolas by Al
Buchan
- Pennsylvania Railroad Class X28 Boxcars by Ben Hom


Ben Hom

I wrote:
"PFW&C = Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne, & Chicago. A PRR Lines West subsidiary;
reporting marks dropped after general PRR renumbering in 1920, though they
(and other subsidiaries) surfaced as ownership markings (seen next to the
car class) on ex-Lines West freight cars."

Not just ex-Lines West cars - at least one Class X25 received "NCR"
(Northern Central Railway) ownership markings in the mid-1920s.


Ben Hom

Roger Robar asked:
"I have a friend who has a clear lantern globe with PFW&C RR etched on it. I
have looked through my 3 ORER's [1932, 1949, 1954] and cannot find this
reporting mark. Can anyone identify this mark?"

PFW&C = Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne, & Chicago. A PRR Lines West subsidiary;
reporting marks dropped after general PRR renumbering in 1920, though they
(and other subsidiaries) surfaced as ownership markings (seen next to the
car class) on ex-Lines West freight cars.


Ben Hom

Pittsburg Fort Wayne & Chicago, part o the Pennsy

Roger H.

I have a friend who has a clear lantern globe with PFW&C RR etched on it. I
have looked through my 3 ORER's [1932, 1949, 1954] and cannot find this
reporting mark. Can anyone identify this mark? TIA. Roger Robar, northern NH
modeling the B&M.

On Jun 6, 2005, at 1:49 PM, stefanelaine wrote:

Thanks for the help Tony, Tim, and Richard. It would seem that at
least the 8K cars would best be painted in SPHX lessee schemes or for
UOCX and Shell.

Would the UOCX cars have been black with the "76" heralds by his time
or could one keep the old silver on black spelled out name lettering?
What about for Shell?. I have some lettered for RPX without a logo and
others with logo. I wonder if these are salvageable?

Herald were not used on black UOCX cars; alum. lettering on black was the rule, at least in the early to mid-1950s. The RPX cars went to Shell of Calif. during WW II and were re-lettered SCCX. Some SCCX cars had the Shell logo, others didn't.

Richard Hendrickson

Thanks for the help Tony, Tim, and Richard. It would seem that at
least the 8K cars would best be painted in SPHX lessee schemes or for
UOCX and Shell.

Would the UOCX cars have been black with the "76" heralds by his time
or could one keep the old silver on black spelled out name lettering?
What about for Shell?. I have some lettered for RPX without a logo and
others with logo. I wonder if these are salvageable?

cheers
Stefan Lerché
Duncan, BC




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

On Jun 6, 2005, at 5:16 AM, Tim Gilbert wrote, responding to Stefan
Lerché's inquiry:

Tony Thompson suggests:

As they are AC&F prototypes, SHPX is more suitable, though I
think there were a few cars inherited by UTL which were AC&F cars

like

these. For other leasing companies buying AC&F cars, see Kaminski's
tank car book.

On December 31st, 1954, there were 158,112 Tank Cars in the US of

which

6,929 were Railroad-owned and 151,183 privately owned. General

American

owned 48,184 (30.5% of 158,112), UTLX owned 42,121 (26.6%) and SHPX
owned 12,071 (7.6%).

As Tony suggests, GATX and UTLX inherited some AC&F design cars as

they

absorbed other private car fleets.

The distribution of tank cars, however, was largely dependent upon who
leased the cars and where were they sent. Tank cars serving an On-Line
industry could be quite restricted. UTLX was just getting into the
leasing chemical tank cars in the mid-1950's so most of their business
was with petroleum companies. GATX's, whose fleet included TCX Texaco
cars, and SHPX's lessees were more diverse serving both the petroleum
and chemical industries, and GATX was the lessor for Armour, Proctor &
Gamble, Swift and, no doubt other non-petroleum companies. If the tank
cars were meant for through traffic exclusively, then perhaps any
"plain
jane" car owner would suffice.

Adding to Tony's and Tim's observations, I would point out that while
both UTLX and GATX operated AC&F Type 21s which they acquired second
hand (and L-L produced models lettered for both), the number of such
cars was very small compared to the overall size of the UTLX and GATX
fleets, which consisted mostly of cars built to the two companies' own
designs. A model tank car fleet representative of the cars that would
have been seen in Calif. during the steam era needs a variety of cars
other than AC&F Type 21s (e.g., UTLX X-3s, '20s vintage GATX, Standard
Tank Car Co., etc.) At present we don't have models of these in HO
scale, but it appears likely that models of some of them will be coming
in the future.

As for Type 21s, both Union Oil Co. of Calif. (UOCX) and Shell of
Calif. (SCCX) had sizable fleets of 8K gal. cars (L-L offered correctly
lettered models of both, but some of the Shell cars had reporting marks
and numbers only, without the Shell emblem). 10K four-course Type 21s
were less common on the west coast. About the only examples I can
think of offhand were a small number of them owned by Chartrand's
Traffic Service (CHAX 102-109) and though Ted Culotta was making noises
about producing decals for these cars, that will have to wait until
after he has completed his coast-to-coast move.

Richard Hendrickson

Ian Cranstone wrote:

On 6-Jun-05, at 2:29 PM, Beckert, Shawn wrote:

Can anyone hazard a guess as to when Mobil went to this
plain-jane paint and lettering scheme for their tank cars?

A quick look at my reporting marks list shows that the MOBX reporting
mark was first listed in 4/1960. Tim Gilbert noted that MOBX was not
listed in his 4/1961 ORER, but this is incorrect -- in fairness to Tim
though, the ORER folks made it tough for him: Instead of being listed
with the Mobil Oil Company cars with other reporting marks (ANPX, GPCX,
MPCX & SMX) on page 668, they are listed under a separate Mobil Oil
Company listing on page 667.

Ian,

Thanks for the correction. 1960 still makes it the MOBX mark a "baby boomer" a la O'Connor phenomena.

Tim Gilbert

On 6-Jun-05, at 2:29 PM, Beckert, Shawn wrote:

Can anyone hazard a guess as to when Mobil went to this
plain-jane paint and lettering scheme for their tank cars?

A quick look at my reporting marks list shows that the MOBX reporting mark was first listed in 4/1960. Tim Gilbert noted that MOBX was not listed in his 4/1961 ORER, but this is incorrect -- in fairness to Tim though, the ORER folks made it tough for him: Instead of being listed with the Mobil Oil Company cars with other reporting marks (ANPX, GPCX, MPCX & SMX) on page 668, they are listed under a separate Mobil Oil Company listing on page 667.

It does look like they could work for my 1967-era layout (although they were probably very infrequent visitors to Canada), but not so well for the steam-era folks. I'd still have to dump those ACI labels though.

Ian Cranstone
Osgoode, Ontario, Canada
lamontc@...
http://freightcars.nakina.net

On Jun 6, 2005, at 10:53 AM, Beckert, Shawn wrote:

Can anyone hazard a guess as to when Mobil went to this
plain-jane paint and lettering scheme for their tank cars?

Not necessary to hazard a guess. Photos show that by the late 1950s, most SMX cars were painted black with reporting marks and numbers only. The change from SMX to MOBX started in 1961; cars under both SMX and MOBX reporting marks are listed in the 1/62 ORER. Unfortunately, it appears that the car numbering system was changed at the same time so it is difficult (and perhaps impossible) to reconstruct what the numbers of the cars in the photos were in the SMX era.

The first of the two photos was of a mid-'20s vintage GATC car; the second shows a 10K gal. AC&F Type 21 insulated car.

This certainly would be an easy paint job to replicate,
though neither of these cars looks like something available
in H.O., at least not yet.

The insulated 10K Type 21s are coming from Life-Like before the end of this year, though not in this P/L scheme.

Richard Hendrickson

More online photos from Ted's website, one from 1939, the other from
1944:
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/gon/prrgon/prrgsmain.html


Ben Hom

Beckert, Shawn wrote:

List,

Can anyone hazard a guess as to when Mobil went to this
plain-jane paint and lettering scheme for their tank cars?

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/misc-frt/mobx2119awb.jpg


http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/misc-frt/mobx4179awb.jpg


This certainly would be an easy paint job to replicate,
though neither of these cars looks like something available
in H.O., at least not yet.

Shawn,

It might be an easy scheme for a "Baby Boomer" modeler as the MOBX reporting mark was not listed in the April 1961 ORER, but it was in the January 1967 ORER. MOBX replaced a whole bunch of sundry Socony Mobil reporting marks like ANPX, GPCX, MPCX and SMX which were shown in the April 1961 ORER. SMX replaced the SVX mark in the April 1955 ORER. I do not know when precisely these changes were made as my dating is limited to the ORER's I own.

Generally, Socony Vacuum/Mobil because of its origin as the Standard Oil Co. of NY, used UTLX as their supplier of tank cars except those companies, some of which became divisions, they acquired after the break-up of the trust in 1911. Generally, most of the cars which became MOBX were based in the Mid-West, Oklahoma & Texas.

Tim Gilbert

List,

Can anyone hazard a guess as to when Mobil went to this
plain-jane paint and lettering scheme for their tank cars?

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/misc-frt/mobx2119awb.jpg


http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/misc-frt/mobx4179awb.jpg


This certainly would be an easy paint job to replicate,
though neither of these cars looks like something available
in H.O., at least not yet.

Shawn Beckert