From: byronrose@juno.com

What size were the pivot pins on 1920s era coupler knuckles?

Come on, Byron, you ought to know that D couplers used a 13 3/8" long, 1 5/8"
diameter pin, drilled for a 3/8" X 2 1/2" cotter. Geez, I thought everybody
knew THAT one.

Now, can anyone help me with the correct contour of a USRA striker casting?
The 1919 CBC plans I'm looking at show, looking from the top, a flat striking
surface in some plans and a convex surface in others.

As everyone knows except Bob Hundman, the drawings were only proposals and
don't necessarily represent the cars as built. In fact, the striking
castings on most of the USRA cars were concave. They weren't that way to
start with, but that's how they looked after several hundred abrupt stops.

Seriously, I just looked at a number of builder's photos of several
different USRA car types and the face of the striker casting was flat in
all of them.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Does anybody known anything about Tichys latest offering, an injection
molded (or moulded for our friends north of the border) kit for a war
emergency gondola? I just received notification of its forthcoming
availability and it seems to have escaped my radar entirely. Perhaps
that's because I've been living in a freight car vacuum by not being a
part of that other Internet group. In any case, it's coming in several
varieties, i.e. factory painted 2-3 roads, unpainted and unpainted with a
set of decals for 5-6 roads. I don't suppose there will be any variety
of detailing to match known prototypes, will there be? Like different
ends, brakes, board spacings, steel siding or no siding at all (to match
the car in the IRM)? I guess I'll hang onto my Sunshine/F&C kits for a
while longer.

BSR
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Guys,
Some of you have suggested that the STMFC membership require approval for
entry. I have decided to do that at least for the time being. OTOH, I don't
want to be the Supreme Court [ we have enough of those ] on such matters, so
we'll have to see what transpires. I still believe and hope that the last
sentence in the charter

"Emphasis is to be placed on the study of the prototype with a goal of
producing models of them with as great a degree of accuracy as possible."

will steer those not interested in such a commitment to other sites.

As many of you know, Al Westerfield's server has been down and, therefore,
did not receive word about this group. I have sent him another message
asking him to join. I would appreciate any of you that care to, to suggest
the same.

It has occurred to me, BTW, that the population of this group includes a
very large number of people who own Friends of the Freight Car shirts.
Perhaps we might consider this group to be the internet tool for that august
group.

Mike Brock

Does anybody known anything about Tichys latest offering, an injection
molded (or moulded for our friends north of the border) kit for a war
emergency gondola?....it's coming in several varieties, i.e. factory
painted >2-3 roads, unpainted and unpainted with a set of decals for 5-6
roads. I don't >suppose there will be any variety of detailing to match
known prototypes, will >there be? Like different ends, brakes, board
spacings, steel siding or no >siding at all (to match the car in the
IRM)?...

Byron, as I'm not well connected at Tichy, all I know is what I've heard
second hand. I doubt that there will be variants of the sort you
enumerate, though it's my understanding that they will eventually do the
steel sheathed version. Tichy is apparently using Funaro's research and
decal sets, FWIW. The car body is supposed to be in one piece with
separate ends. What provision has been made for weighting the car remains
to be seen, but with the open side framing below the floor my usual
procedure of slapping some wheel balance weights on the bottom of the floor
obviously won't work.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

It has occurred to me, BTW, that the population of this group includes a
very large number of people who own Friends of the Freight Car shirts.
Perhaps we might consider this group to be the internet tool for that august
group.

Works for me. And are we an august group because we usually meet in August?

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

From: Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@opendoor.com>

Seriously, I just looked at a number of builder's photos of several
different USRA car types and the face of the striker casting was flat in
all of them.

Thanks, Richard. One as-planned detail that was eliminated, but with traces
still left behind, that I found interesting was the SS cars' end sill. While
the 9" channels and cover plate were discarded with, photos of many cars still
show the related 4 x 4 rivet pattern on either side of the striker casting,
with, of course, no rivets in the holes! At least some DS cars (MP and GN for
example) appear to use these residual holes for an interesting side mount
trainline bracket. This same striker appears to have been used on other
non-USRA design cars built later as well, like CB&Q X25's.

Earl Tuson

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In a message dated 12/16/00 3:56:47 PM Eastern Standard Time,
muskoka@ix.netcom.com writes:

It's 2 letters, the first is 'R' and the second (depending on which
sample is viewed) is either 'd', 'Q', or 'x' (i.e. Rd, RQ, or Rx).

It would help if you gave us the numbers, too. There were sooo many series
of reefers the number series might jog someone's memory.

I'm working with a UP conductor's manual recorded in March, 1948, for thru
trains between Laramie and Rawlins Wyoming. Almost every car inital and
number is legible with just a few exceptions - one in particular is nagging
at me: It's 2 letters, the first is 'R' and the second (depending on which
sample is viewed) is either 'd', 'Q', or 'x' (i.e. Rd, RQ, or Rx). The cars
are reefers -- as there are re-icing instructions. The car numbers span a
wide numeric range and the only ORER reefer numbers that match in full are
URTX, so that's what I'm assuming these entries are. 'Cept there is one
entry where he writes in full 'URTX'....

By and large he uses the full car initial. The only exceptions I've noted
are 'Q' for CBQ, and on occassion he leaves off the X on private cars.

So the question I have is there a common nickname for URTX that would
explain the codes I've come across?

Oh, there is one more item of interest: SFRD26384, westbound with a load of
eggs.

-----------------------------------
Dave Nelson

Dave Nelson wrote:

Oh, there is one more item of interest: SFRD26384, westbound with a load of
eggs.

Dave and others,

RD26384 was an Rr-12 reefer, which originally was built in 1928 as an Rr-7.
In 1932, 100 Rr-7s were modified with stage icing and re-classed as Rr-12s
in series 30000-30099. They also had the hatch covers turned around for use
as ventilators and were assigned to banana service. In 1942, 85 cars had the
stage icing removed and were renumbered in the 26351-26450 series. The other
15 cars joined them in 1945.

They were steel framed, wood sheathed with ARA style steel underframes.
Sunshine makes an HO scale resin kit.

I don't know about the other reefers you talk about. I would've guessed RD,
since that was a common shorthand, but it appears that SFRD26384 was called
out differently.

Keith Jordan

Dave Nelson wrote, about some reefers he found in a 1948 UP conductor's
time book:

I've written them down as URTX and I'm assuming they're all reefers,

but the original initials looked like Rd, RQ, or Rx. There is a mix of east
and westbounds here.

road car_nrcar_type contents
URTX 34861 REEFER Candy
URTX 25771 REEFER Mdse
URTX 34840 REEFER Mdse
URTX 4352 REEFER Potatoes
URTX 7325 REEFER Potatoes
URTX 26225 REEFER Potatoes
URTX 14349 REEFER Potatoes
URTX 23819 REEFER Mdse
URTX 25927 REEFER Mdse
URTX 20399 REEFER Cherries?
URTX 14737 REEFER Beer
URTX 34820 REEFER Waste
URTX 34276 REEFER Juice
URTX 63013 REEFER Mty
URTX 36427 REEFER Wine

...could these cars belong to some other owner?

Dave, I'm very doubtful that these are all URTX cars. First of all, there
are a lot of them. I don't know how many cars total are listed in the data
you have, but in 1948 the URTX fleet only totaled slightly more than 6,000
cars, and I'd be very surprised if that many of them were running at that
time on the UP. Secondly, almost all of those numbers could be SFRD cars
(from a fleet that totalled about 15,000 cars). And some of the loads look
like backhaul cargoes for westbound empties, which would explain what SFRD
cars were doing in UP trains. (It might be some help to know which
direction the cars were moving.) Offhand, the one exception that jumps out
at me is 63013, which would almost certainly have been a URTX meat reefer.

I've had some experience trying to interpret the chicken scratches in
conductors' time books, and what it tells me is that reporting marks were
often recorded in a cryptic shorthand that only the conductor himself could
decipher with assurance (and that weren't necessarily consistent from one
entry to another, either). So I'm going to suggest that a lot of those
entries represented "RD," which was common trainmen's shorthand for SFRD.
If you like, I can go through the list and identify possible SFRD classes
(or you can do that yourself from the rosters in the Jordan et. al. Santa
Fe reefer book).

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Richard Hendrickson writes about Dave Nelson's Frt Conductor book:

And some of the loads look

like backhaul cargoes for westbound empties, which would explain what SFRD
cars were doing in UP trains. (It might be some help to know which
direction the cars were moving.) Offhand, the one exception that jumps

out

at me is 63013, which would almost certainly have been a URTX meat reefer.

To add a little bit to this [ and I believe I've mentioned it before, but
maybe on the PCL ] , the first volume of Terry Metcalfe's UP Modeler shows
photos taken in 1957 of some of the cars in an Eastbound UP mail train taken
at Sidney, Nebraska [ on the Overland Route ]. Included are photos of: REX
1604, PFE 661, ATSF 4000, ACL 3048, PRR 2248, NRC 672, REX?, and SP 5713...a
box car assigned to express service. All of the others are express reefers.

Mike Brock

I'm afraid I side w/Richard on the date issue. By 1960, I was
looking for older freight cars still in photographable condition and
had ZERO interest in the contemporary equipment except as it impacted
my job in the NYC mechanical department.

My model railroad has been designed and is operated as a dual era
railroad: 1926 and Oct. 1948. The '48 date would be more like '44
except that I couldn't resist a certain group of west coast logging
wengines which were sold off in 1948.

As several of my close modeler friends are fond of saying, "a PS-1,
what's that?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
email: m_robin@cheatriver.com
alias kathe@cheatriver.com

smail: Max S. Robin, P.E. voice: 973 - 627 - 5895
Cheat River Engineering Inc. or: 973 - 627 - 5460
23 Richwood Place / P. O. Box 289
Denville, NJ 07834-0289

I too dislike styrene handrails. My normal attachment mode is 5
minute epoxy, solder, or (last choice) ACC.

Max

Welcome back Byron!!

And just what size were the rivets used on the thousands of channel
side hoppers on the WM to secure the channels to the side sheets and
framing?

Max

On Mon, 18 Dec 2000 14:12:08 -0000 "Max Robin" <m_robin@cheatriver.com>
writes:

Welcome back Byron!!

And just what size were the rivets used on the thousands of channel
side hoppers on the WM to secure the channels to the side sheets and

framing?

Thank you Max.

As I recall from the 2-3 WM channel sides that I saw several years ago in
Harrisburg, the rivets are slightly larger than the ones used in box car
siding. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say they were probably 1/2"
rivets with a full 1" diameter head. In HO modeling terms, the NWSL
.010" rivet set would be awful close, especially after painting.

I recently saw a GA drawing of WMs built in the 30s but didn't have time
to study such details. If I get another chance, I'll let you know.

Or, next time I'm in H'burg, I could measure them on the cars still
extant, those being of the 1952 rebuilt variety. I will probably be
there this spring.

Byron
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Jeff Aley inquires earnestly

What's the latest on Branchline freight cars? Do they have
a version of their 50' box car that has a 10'6" IH and 4/4
early IDE's that can be used to model the UP A-50-18 and
A-50-21?

The answer is manifold as usual. NO, Branchline 50 foot kits
do not include any 4/4 IDE's, since that car's design is too
late for those pre-1950 ends.

HOWEVER, I expect Branchline to produce 4/4 IDE's for their
40 foot kit, since that would allow BL to apply quite a few
additional paint schemes on the same AAR body style.

BUT, both the UP A-50-18 and the A-50-21 have the wrong style
of side sheathing (alternate center rivet) and more importantly
the wrong number of panels (4&7 vs 5&8). So if Branchline were
to produce those UP cars we would have to sneer at them, no?

Long ago I asked Martin Lofton why he didn't do some UP A.C.R.
cars. (He later did the B-50-32/33 and A-50-16.) He replied he
didn't think UP models would sell very well. I don't know why
he thinks that is so. I'd love to see more accurate UP kits.
As an SP modeler I've been blessed the last 10 years -- every
major SP 40 foot box car from the 1920's to the 1950's is now
available, and a fair number of 50 foot cars are too. The UP
modelers (and I am one) have far fewer to choose from.

Timothy O'Connor <timoconnor@mediaone.net>
Marlborough, Massachusetts

I've just been studying the Red Caboose's web site for their PFE reefers. Maybe I've missed something, but I don't see any explanation of the "TW" designation. Is this something they made up for non-PFE cars? - John Nehrich

On 12-20-00, John Nehrich asked:

I've just been studying the Red Caboose's web site for their
PFE reefers. Maybe I've missed something, but I don't see
any explanation of the "TW" designation. Is this something
they made up for non-PFE cars?

Since everyone else seems asleep, I'll venture a first cut answer from
here at work without my PFE book (I took it home during our move). PFE
sold some it's R-30-9's to wineries for wine transport. I believe they
took the ice bunkers out and made the cars essentially wine tank cars,
hence the 'TW' designation. I don't have an ORER here to check that ARA
designation, but that's the gist of it.

Dick Harley