Thanks to all. When (I think it was Ted) saw those cars behind the flat I was wondering about the genesis. How long did they stay in the NWP markings? I used to work in an ex-NWP freight depot in Novato on models, it would be nice to have some NWP models now. And, I'll have to look at finding those SP books...I even used to work in Bizerkly in Cutter Labs many moons ago (remember having to reset disk heads on some of the old IBM drives after some of the heavier SP freights went by).

Bob Webber wrote:

Thanks to all. When (I think it was Ted) saw those cars behind the flat I
was wondering about the genesis. How long did they stay in the NWP
markings?

Until scrapped. Survival tables are in the books.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

On Sun Feb 20, 2005 Mike Brock wrote:

Nevertheless, it appears that the Walthers car needs only a few changes to

make the PFE version.
<<

One thing not mentioned by Mike is the board width on the Walthers model.
When originally built, the PFE express cars had "passenger car" wood siding,
which has a width of about 2-1/2" or 2-3/4" ( I don't have a Car Builder's
Cyc here to verify, and I don't remember for sure.) When the PFE cars were
rebuilt with the small facia board, they were built with "freight car" wood
siding, which is 3-1/4" wide. This is noticeable, and it was correctly
modeled on the recent Challenger Imports cars.

Cheers,
Dick Harley

Tony Thompsons new SP freight car book has a good shot of a PE box car
showing this outside brake rod.

Actually, it's a flat car, page 197, but the arrangement was the same on box cars AFAIK.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

The "V mm yy" indicates the date the car was reweighed at Vancouver.

Jim Hayes
Portland Oregon

Tim Gilbert wrote:

If all the boxcars which Fraley reported during the Fall of 1947 were
broken into the two boxcar groups which was adopted in 1954, General
Service Boxcars and Special Service Boxcars, the splits between
eastbound loads and empties & westbound loads and empties, the results
would be (Note - Special Service equates to Automobile Cars) . . .

If this does not separate auto-loader cars carrying assembled automobiles, from the auto-parts cars carrying parts, it's not terribly helpful in making assumptions about the directions of empty traffic, as in:

If the Automobile Cars flowed out from plants in the Mid West, we would
expect to see a significant difference in the east vs. westbound percent
of cars loaded. Instead, the Special Service eastbound percentage was
only slightly less than the westbound percentage.

Auto parts were indeed predominantly manufactured in the Midwest, but certainly not exclusively; and finished autos were built at assembly plants around the country as well as in the Detroit area. Accordingly, loaded and empty cars can go in all directions, though not of course equally so.

In 1956, there were more eastbound Special Service Boxcar empties than
eastbound loads. This is the way it should be given the assumptions
about automobile freight car pools (although the eastbound percent
loaded percent may be a bit higher than "purists" would like to admit).

Not sure what a "purist" in this matter is.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Garth Groff wrote:

NWP had Harriman-design S-40-4, and S-40-5 or S-40-6 (not sure which),
according to Westerfield's catalog. I didn't see any NWP numbers or
photos listed.

The right answer is -4 and -5 (the S-40-6 design is a truss-rod car). Al Westerfield did pioneering research on all the early SP cars for his kit instructions, but occasionally there are errors. I believe that my subsequent work, in the SP Freight Car volumes, has reduced the number of errors in the information we have, as well as adding a few photos.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Bob Webber wrote:

Were the NWP stock cars behind the Cole Bros flat here . . . an SP design or were they pre-SP?

The car number in the photo appears to be NWP 5682 (correct me if that's wrong, Bob). If that is the number, as presented in my volume on SP stock cars, it's an SP Class S-40-5 design from the Harriman era.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Ben, I checked a few ORERs and came up with this:

PRR 648314-648338 (K7)
7/50: 15
4/52-7/52: 3 (as 648317-648326)
1/53: 1 (as 648326)
4/53: 0

PRR 134079-135499 (K7a)
10/63: 3
1/67-4/67: 3 (as 134647-135076)
7/67: 0

PRR 128079-129078 (K8)
10/63: 2
1/67-4/67: 1 (as 128918)
7/67: 0

Ian Cranstone
Osgoode, Ontario, Canada
lamontc@...

On Feb 25, 2005, at 8:41 AM, Tim Gilbert wrote:

PS - Ted Culotta - since you model Hartford CT in 1947, you should
probably pay more attention to those numbers than the 1956 ones.

Tim:

Rest assured, if it is post-1947, I ignore it entirely. Being a rubber-gauger, multi-era guy can get expensive very fast with my tastes. Things are expensive enough here in 1947!

Regards,
Ted Culotta

Speedwitch Media
100 14th Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94402
info@...
www.speedwitch.com
(650) 787-1912

Mike Brock wrote:

It is also interesting to note that SP was assigning cars to
particular
routes. Thus, some auto or auto parts cars would be assigned to
travel from
a specific location...a plant where a particular part was built...to
an
assembly plant [ such as the one at Melrose ]. Tony points out that
these
assignments varied quite a bit. Union Pacific also assigned cars in a
similar fashion.

The way I understand it (and Tony will correct if I have it wrong),
automobile
and auto-parts cars were assigned to pools, with each railroad
contributing a
number of cars based on the percent of traffic they garnered from a
particular
plant. The more business you got from a facility, the more cars you
had to put
in the kitty. Thus you could see SP, UP, PRR, etc. all assigning cars
to certain
plants.

The problem for modelers is to discover which cars were in what pools
in a given
year - a very hard thing to find out (I've been trying).

Whatever power the auto companies had over pools of cars may have been somewhat muted by the demands of WW II and the boxcar shortage immediately after WW II.

Of the 267 cars cited as carrying eastbound lumber per my Fall 1947 Fraley Wheel Report, the twenty-nine automobile cars comprising the XA's (6), XAB (1), XAR's (6) and XMR's (16) somewhat refute that control of at least the direct of empties to the manufacturers in the "Rust Belt." Granted only three of the 29 were SP XMR's (plus one SSW XAR), but there were only sixteen SP General Service Flats carrying lumber eastbound reported by Fraley.

If all the boxcars which Fraley reported during the Fall of 1947 were broken into the two boxcar groups which was adopted in 1954, General Service Boxcars and Special Service Boxcars, the splits between eastbound loads and empties & westbound loads and empties, the results would be (Note - Special Service equates to Automobile Cars) :

Eastbound Westbound
Type Boxcar Loads MT's % Ld. Loads MT's % Ld.
Special Service 36 2 94.7% 72 - 100.0%
General Service 273 12 95.7% 354 - 100.0%
Unknown 1 - - 4 23 14.8%
Total 310 14 95.7% 430 23 92.9%

If the Automobile Cars flowed out from plants in the Mid West, we would expect to see a significant difference in the east vs. westbound percent of cars loaded. Instead, the Special Service eastbound percentage was only slightly less than the westbound percentage.

Reviewing the Fall 1946 SOU wheel report does not provide any clues - there were only eight special service boxcars reported by Conductor ESB on the Washington Division of a total of 1,182 total boxcars.

In a 1956 UP Wheel Report between Grand Island NE and Council Bluffs IA, there were 660 boxcars reported of which 85 were Special Service. The breakdown of directional loads and empties follow:

Eastbound Westbound
Type Boxcar Loads MT's % Ld. Loads MT's % Ld.
Special Service 20 34 37.0% 21 - 100.0%
General Service 350 21 94.3% 204 - 100.0%
Combined 370 55 87.1% 225 - 100.0%

In 1956, there were more eastbound Special Service Boxcar empties than eastbound loads. This is the way it should be given the assumptions about automobile freight car pools (although the eastbound percent loaded percent may be a bit higher than "purists" would like to admit). While there was a boxcar shortage in 1956, it was pale in comparison to the one in 1947. Auto companies, therefore, had more leverage to flex their muscle with the railroads in 1956 than they could in 1947, or that would be my interpretation of the numbers.

Hope this helps, Tim Gilbert

PS - Ted Culotta - since you model Hartford CT in 1947, you should probably pay more attention to those numbers than the 1956 ones.

It looks like the cars are in the NWP 5670-5729 series, class S-40-5 built by Ralston in 1916. We do indeed have kits for all the NWP versions, both original and modernized - Al.

I am building a 1952 built Gondola that has had Side boards added to
increase the capacity. The plans are in Mainline Modeler from a few
years ago. The Decal sheet that comes with an extention kit the SPSHS
sells has several built dates. Where could I get info on what cars
were converted. (the received new numbers in the 235xx range from
23,XXX range. Also there is a marking "V mm yy" on the car. The
detail sheet has several of these too. Does anybody know what these
mean. Steve Fuchs

--- In STMFC@..., Bob Webber <zephyr1@a...> wrote:

Were the NWP stock cars behind the Cole Bros flat here:
http://rswebber.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=90344

an SP design or were they pre-SP?

Bob,

The cars in the photo behind the circus flat appear to be from SP
class S-40-5, see below:

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/spcars/byclass/stock/s040-05.htm

The NWP also had stock cars of class S-40-4, see below:

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/spcars/byclass/stock/s040-04.htm

This is only mention of NWP stock cars in Tony's book. There is a
photo of an NWP S-40-4 on page 267. It does not appear that they
were ever re-numbered as SP cars.

Lee A. Gautreaux - The RailGoat
http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/

Hi all;
I was wondering if any of you had any information, photo sources, or
other data on the following classes of PRR flat cars:

FMP
F21
F30F
F32
F41D
F41E (an F41 re-built w/cushioned underframe for auto frame service)
F41F
F46
F48 (89' bulkhead flat)
FD3
FW2

Thanks for any leads you can provide.

Elden Gatwood

On Feb 25, 2005, at 7:29 AM, John Fitts wrote:

While we're on the topic of F&C, is anyone familiar with their 1070 express reefer (discontinued, but there are still kits floating around). Is it anything like in a class with the Sunshine (also discontinued) or the Sylvan (Canadian prototype) models?

If these are the NYC prototypes, the answer would be no. This is way before Steve improved either his casting or patterns.

Regards,
Ted Culotta

Speedwitch Media
100 14th Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94402
info@...
www.speedwitch.com
(650) 787-1912

While we're on the topic of F&C, is anyone familiar with their 1070 express reefer (discontinued, but there are still kits floating around). Is it anything like in a class with the Sunshine (also discontinued) or the Sylvan (Canadian prototype) models?

Ted Culotta <tculotta@...> wrote:
On Feb 23, 2005, at 6:52 AM, Dean Payne wrote:

F&C finally got around to sending me replacement needle
beam/queenposts castings for my hopper bottom GN box. (This has been
over six months, two letters, three emails... but I got my parts!)
Reviewing the instructions, I may have made a mistake. The
instructions say "Cement the 'C' channels directly to the two center
beams with the 'C's facing out." I remember being puzzled...
Do the C channels go NEXT to or ON TOP of the center beams? The
illustrations and photos supplied with the kit do not show which is
meant, I suppose it can be taken either way. I may need to fix my
mistake! The underframe detail is considerable, and merits getting
it right before proceeding.

Dean:

On top of.

Regards,
Ted Culotta

Speedwitch Media
100 14th Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94402
info@...
www.speedwitch.com
(650) 787-1912


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Guys;
Unfortunately, the F&C decals, at least for the WE gon, are not very
good, either. I was so perturbed with the mistakes I dumped them and
re-lettered with a Middle Division set for my PRR car. I would,
however, love to know where I could get some good N&W or NYC decals for
the steel rebuilds.

Elden Gatwood

Bob,

NWP had Harriman-design S-40-4, and S-40-5 or S-40-6 (not sure which), according to Westerfield's catalog. I didn't see any NWP numbers or photos listed. Try http://www.westerfield.biz/ . Too bad the number on the car in the photo you posted is so fuzzy.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

Bob Webber wrote: