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?

If that's the market, then BLI can follow up with a sound version. Not
only will F2 cause the milkman to throw the 200 lbs cans out the door, F3
will create the sound of the cans banging and F4 is the sound of distressed
cows being hit by flying cans!

Got Milk? ;-)

regards,

Andy Miller

On Feb 23, 2005, at 5:00 PM, Beckert, Shawn wrote:

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).

While not SP-specific, recently I was watching a video of NH material and there was a train pulled by a 2-10-2 heading back to Maybrook. The consist of the train included a block of many of the NYC steel auto car rebuilds of the 1916 double sheathed auto cars. There were more of them in the block than I could count. I presume they had carried autos to a point on the NH and were headed west for reloading. All had the white bar on the doors indicating the presence of auto loaders.

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

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

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

eric

Jon,

Don't forget that operating doors increase the PLAY VALUE of trains.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

Jon Miller wrote:

STMFC,
Please pardon the bandwidth for this message. I just wanted to update the group with information that RP CYC Vol. 11 was mailed to individuals taking advantage of the pre-publication offer on 2/22/05. The books were actually taken to the post office and were supposed to be mailed on 2/17/05, but a snafu within the post office allowed the books to sit for 5 days inside the post office before being processed and shipped. To all who ordered the book or will purchase the book from a dealer, Pat Wider and I thank you and we hope you enjoy it.

It has come to our attention that an error was made regarding text on page 107 that states, "The Century Foundry parts and D&G's fabulous trucks are the best of their kind but both appear to be out of business." Jim Gerstley has notified me that D&G Models is very much still in business. We sincerely apologize for this error. It is intended that this message will set the record straight for the STMFC discussion group and I have made a corresponding post to the Passenger Car List.

Pat and I are currently working on Volume 12 and I can say in advance that virtually the entire book will be on subject matter relating directly to freight cars.
Regards,
Ed Hawkins

Brilliant! That was just what I needed...a pretty simple construction
actually isn't it?
Thanks Tom

Tony T. or others,

I have just taken the time to go through the SP Freight Cars Vol I
in detail in the stock car chapters to update the appropriate class
pages on my web site (see below:)

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/spcars/byclass/stock/index.htm

and have a question or two:

-I show T&NO ex-SAAP 14810-14968 in my 12/1930 ORER. What were
their original SAAP numbers?

-I show T&NO 6075-6099 as 36'-6", 2596 ft3. I assume these were
renumbered to make room for T&NO 61xxx series box cars. Do you know
the original class(es?)

-I show T&NO S-40-13's listed with SP numbers 78000-78004,
presumably for renumbering in the early 1960's. Do you know if any
of these cars were actually renumbered as such or could these have
been proposed numbers that were never used?

I will be ordering Vol. III tomorrow. I'm very excited about this
new book.

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

--- In STMFC@..., "Jon Miller" <atsf@i...> wrote:

Studying the comments on the (BLI express) reefer I noticed something that not on the
web site about this car, "operating doors".

Wow, maybe the little guy throws out milk cans, too!

Walt

Mark,

I have recently built two Tichy War Emergency gons. I found the decals in both kits to be very brittle and difficult to handle. After losing a few decals, I solved the problem by overspraying the remaining decal sheet with Floquil KrystalCote.After allowing this to dry, the decals handled quite satisfactorily - much like Champ or Microscale out of the envelope. (Luckily, I had two sets to work with).

I cannot comment on the accuracy of the D&H hopper set, but I did find inaccuracies in the gondola decals and had to resort to my decal bone pile to improve upon the accuracy of the car lettering. Also, the print quality of the decals was less-than-desired. I would look for an alternate source of decals as I question that the kit supplied decals are worth the effort.

Jim Kubanick
Morgantown, WV

Dave Nelson:

Ted, do you know what quality product he gets using this process

as compared

to say, Al's way?

I'm not Ted, don't even play one on TV, but I'll take a shot at this.

Martin has been using the technique for several year for gons.
There's nothing intrinsically inferior about it - it's just flat
casting, but with the parts standing up instead of flat on the
master pattern plate. He could have done the ends and sides
individually, as he did with the side panels on his 10th anniversary
Santa Fe Ga-8 kit, but he (or Frank) chose to assemble them into a
box.

The mold is thicker than with conventional flat casting, but as long
as you put the filled mold in vacuum to remove air trapped in the
deep slots, everything's fine. You don't let the mold cure in
vacuum, of course, unless you're after foam parts.

Tom Madden

A note on the BLI General American reefers. I received a new catalog
from them. It's really nice, sort of like Lionel catalogs of long ago.
Studying the comments on the reefer I noticed something that not on the web
site about this car, "operating doors". This prompted me to call them and
explain that I hoped they didn't look like the Atlas doors as I'm sure they
would lose a bunch of sales. I also told them I had cancelled my order
until I see good prototype shots of the model on the web site.
I doubt one person will get their attention but if all of you guys email
(or call) them they might think about it.
Also these cars are not due until June or so I was told.

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

Ditto for mine.

Request to Tichy for replacment went unanswered. So I purchased another set and oversprayed them lightly with Dullcote and managed to get them on the car. I would use them again in the future only as a last resort.

Frank Brua

As has already been noted, the EJ&E and IHB are hardly "small railroads." Indeed, they are officially Class 2 Terminal Lines (if I remember the terminology correctly). Terminal roads don't get a cut of the line haul, but they do charge their connections a "switching fee" which can be substantial.

I don't think Class 2s had to contribute cars to the national fleet in proportion to their revenue like Class 1s did, but many of them had significant originating traffic and it behooved them to own cars to protect the needs of their shippers. This would explain the EJ&E's and IHB large fleets. I also got the impression the NYC used the IHB as a way to make sure their steel-service empties got sent back to the Chicago end of the system rather than simply being dropped off at the nearest NYC interchange. which you could do with a car marked "NYC".

Class 3 lines, what are tradiationally thought of as shortlines, do not have to contribute cars to the national pool, and their connecting Class 1s have to supply cars for interchange traffic. Shortlines only had to own enough cars to meet their own captive movements, like LCL service, or in the case of the Yosemite Valley, limestone service between a quarry and an on-line Portland cement plant. Only shortlines that had a lot of originating traffic, or needed special cars to handle their interchange traffic, owned cars that freely roamed the national rail network. One example that comes to mind is Buffalo Creek, which served a bunch of flour mills. I gather the BCK didn't have a lot of interchangable cars until after WW2, however.

The other big exceptions to this rule were the switching lines owned by steel mills like USSteel and Bethlehem. They often had a bunch of gons to protect their originating finished steel products traffic.

It wasn't until the Incentive Per Diem craze of the '70s that many "normal" shortlines leased their own boxcars, and that was driven by other considerations, not originating traffic. Besides, that's well after the period covered by this list.

Scott C

Mark

All of mine came apart in the water until I painted them with the decal saver.

Larry Smith

Ted, do you know what quality product he gets using this process as compared
to say, Al's way?

Dave Nelson

Ed,

Can't wait for that volume to go to print! Thanks to Mr. Wider
for doing this research.
Knowing that there were several lengths, widths, and patterns
of ribs over the various series of rib side cars, I understand that
the following may not be generally true. However, I've crawled
around on some of these cars including one (made into an ice cream
stand!) in Duluth, Minnesota, and also measured a rib side caboose
which is parked in New Lisbon, Wisconsin. I won't admit to climbing
on any others. ;> I have noticed that the lap joints do not occur
under every rib. I've observed that the panels overlap only every
other rib. I'm looking at a Bob's Photo shot of MILW 24711, which
has the "intermediate ribs", and the shadow under the rib is
darker/heavier, and also a little bit more jagged(indicating a lap
joint instead of just a joggle in the sheet metal)underneath the
(starting from the top)2nd, 4th, and 6th rib. The 1st, 3rd, and 5th
ribs are merely pressed into the middle of the sheet. Also, the
panel between the 6th rib and the side sill appears to be a separate
piece, with a "flat" as opposed to hat section joggle which laps
over the side sill.
The caboose exhibited spot welds, but also a lot of continuous
bead welds. There were bead welds at random locations along the lap
joints. Repairs maybe?
Also: Yes, the flat panels on the short ribbed cars are flush
with the ribbed panels, and do not appear to allow any additional
clearance; the grabs and ladders still extend out beyond the ribbed
panels. The flat panels that I've seen were bead welded to the
ribbed panels.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck on the article!

Regards,
Phil Buchwald


--- In STMFC@..., Ed Hawkins <hawk0621@s...> wrote:

STMFC,
I have been asked by Pat Wider to share with you the following
information he has compiled on Milwaukee Road rib-side cars. This

and

more will be in an article in a future volume of Railway Prototype
Cyclopedia. Please advise if you have any information to the

contrary.

Regards,
Ed Hawkins

* The car sides were fabricated using narrow, individual,
longitudinal side-sheet strips or panels that extended between

the

doors and ends and were joined to one another using spot

welding. The

"ribs" were not separate pieces attached to the car sides but

were

actually corrugations pressed into the individual longitudinal
side-sheet panels. The panels overlapped one another with the

only

visible seams being created at the bottom of the panels just

below the

ribs, much like roof shingles.

I am looking for some underbody or close up views of the outside

brake

rigging used on PE SS boxcars to allow negotiation of tight curves.
I'm interested in how to model the brake staff connections etc...
thanks in advance
Stefan Lerché
Duncan BC Canada

Try these:

http://home.att.net/~pullmanproject/PE_1.jpg
http://home.att.net/~pullmanproject/PE_2.jpg
http://home.att.net/~pullmanproject/PE_3.jpg

I took those at Perris CA in 1988. The bluish regions in PE_2 and
PE_3 are from dodging those areas to make the brake chain and
linkage more visible.

I'll leave those photos up for a day or two.

Tom Madden

Hello everyone,

I'm considering using Tichy #9029 decals for USRA and panel side
hoppers for an upcoming D&H hopper project. I've heard that these
decals don't take well to setting solutions. Does anyone who has
experience with these decals care to comment? Also, how accurate are
these decals?

Thanks,
Mark Heiden