The kit was first offered by AW Enterprises (the former Oriental brass importer) in about 1995 and that is when I first assembled one of them (its was in Cocoa Beach last week). The car is a wood side and ends hopper with a steel under frame and 4 fours hinged to the side sills. The instructions go back to 1995 and the model is based upon an article appearing in Model Railroader years before then.

The instructions, despite the brake gear being in the end of the car like a hopper, call for attaching 2 brake levers to the steel sill under the car and attaching the rods to them and then to the trucks. No brake cylinder or anything to activate the brake levers and if the doors are opened, they hit the brake levers!
I plan to omit the orphan brake levers and craft some door hinges for the sides for my F&C kits of this wonderfully strange GN model.

gary laakso
south of Mike Brock
vasa0vasa@earthlink.net

Don't forget that True Trains of Canada also has a 1937 AAR design box car model.
They make the roof and end variations found on Canadian-built cars.

http://www.truelinetrains.ca/freight-cars/1937-40-box-car

Tim O'Connor

Tim,
The Branchline Yardmaster '37 AAR car has a very nice underframe, good enough
that I like them for replacing IM and RC underframes. It has what I believe to
be an earlier variation--the single stringer on each side of the center sill.


The car side, while having molded on ladders, is nicely done. It does share the
offset-crimped side sheathing of both the RC and IM cars, but proportioned
better to my eye. I have thought of making a better '37 boxcar by using the
Yardmaster kit, substituting the ends with Intermountain 4/5 ends and shaving
off the side ladders/brackets. This saves the wretched work of removing the end
ladders and brake gear from the ends. Unfortunatley, Intermountain ends are
about 0.020" narrower. I have one end installed where I off-set the end towards
the right side, allowing flush fitting along the ladder-less side of the end.
The off-set at the left is not so noticeable because the ladder's presence pulls
the eye from the edge.

It has been stated before about the history of the RC and IM '37 AAR cars. Both
cars were were built by the same in-house toolman at Intermountain, who
continued on with the error he did on the earlier built O-scale '37 AAR. The
error was the two stringers, they were layed out as 3 stringers equidistantly
spaced. I think that someone must have mentioned that these cars had only 2
stringers, whereas the CNC programer simply omitted one of the 3 stringers. Jack
Spencer removes these poorly spaced stringers, and applies replacement correctly
spaced home cast resin stringers. My friend Wayne Madison milled his RC
underframe to remove the stringers, built replacements from Styrene, and made a
mold. Now he simply cuts the underframe from inside the bolsters outward, places
the two end pieces into the mold, and fills in with resin. A lot of work up
front, but now quite speedy for the numerous cars converted.

It is interesting that somehow the toolmaker had to redo the roof CNC program,
where he made the raised portion of the rectangular panels the width of lower
portion, which is wider by the beveled edges on both sides. The resultant roof
has a goofy appearance from this mistake. Not all results improve after repeated
efforts, it would seem.

-Andy Carlson
Ojai CA




________________________________
From: "timboconnor@comcast.net" <timboconnor@comcast.net>
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, January 15, 2013 8:09:16 AM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: 1937 Modified and Unmodified AAR Box Car



The only defect on the Red Caboose (IMWX) kits is the incorrect floor stringers
-- which others

have copied, thank you very much! (It happens when vendors copy instead of doing
their own

research.)

Does the Atlas (Branchline) 1937 AAR kit have the same error in the floor
stringers?


Tim O'Connor

----- Original Message -----
From: "Arved" arved_grass@yahoo.com>

Thanks Clark. I usually assume Atlas Trainman products to be on the crude side -
built to a low price point. I was surprised to find an undec kit, and even more
surprised to see seperate roof and ends, etc. About the only concession to the
price point seems (so far) to be cast on ladders and grabs. Dare say, this is a
finer kit than the Bowser X31F I paid twice as much for!


Is it up to the standards of a Red Caboose kit? I don't think so. We'll have to
see - if I can get any of the RC 1937 cars. This 1937 AAR boxcar has the rounded
corners. I assume Intermountain does, too, based on what I've seen on the web
site. So unless Intermountain runs the square corner cars from Red Caboose,
that's going to leave a hole in what's available.


Warmest regards,
Arved Grass
Fleming Island, Florida

Arved Grass wrote:
"I'm guessing the 5/5 Dreadnaught end being the spotting difference for the 10' 6" IH that distinguishes the "modified" cars. I can't find a standard 1937 AAR design box car that has 5/5 ends, and I can't find a modified 1937 AAR design without. So if I can see the end, I can spot the difference."

Don't take this personally, but you're having trouble seeing the forest for the trees, Arved, and the piecemeal resposes you're getting from the list membership isn't helping matters.

Another approach regarding these cars is taking them in context with the rest of the freight car fleet. When breaking down a train or yard photo, I like to take a known car and use that as a baseline for comparison. For example, if I can confirm that there is a PRR round roof boxcar in the photo, I know that's a 10 ft IH car, which gives me a benchmark for comparison of other cars in the photo. The 6 inch height difference is readily apparent when spotting these cars in a yard photo or train.

If you have an individual car photo without context, you'll probably able to see the reporting marks, which means you can cross check it against raw data such as an ORER, or analysis such as an article or research tables.

Ends is a spotting feature, but as pointed out by other posters, it's not an absolute spotting feature for these cars as the 10 ft IH cars had more end variations than you realize - Deco (C&O) and Buckeye (Erie) ends are two of the examples. (See the Ed Hawkins table referenced earlier today).


Ben Hom

Arved Grass wrote:
"Is [the Branchline Yardmaster kit] up to the standards of a Red
Caboose kit? I don't think so."

You've completely missed the point. These kits were never meant to be on the level of the Red Caboose/IMWX kit or Branchline's own Blueprint series kits - they were meant to be higher-quality easy-to-assemble entry-level kits, and were very succesful in that regard.

"We'll have to see - if I can get any of the RC 1937 cars."

Don't forget about the original IMWX incarnation of the kits, which are also readily available on the secondary market.


Ben Hom

Thanks everybody for the help it has given me a ton of information to work with.

I did try importing an end view into skethup and traced the lines using the distantce between the rails as scale and it worked really well.

Thank you,
Scott Mcdonald

Charlie,

I think you're way over thinking this. Look in the archives. Bill Darnaby has posted a number of resin "reviews" that were very helpful (his X-3 write up is saved in my projects mailbox!). Focus on assembly of the kit, accuracy and steps to improve accuracy. Alternative assembly approaches that make it easier are also good. I don't think I really care about how the box holds up or how to order (unless it is some special part and not the actual kit).



Regards

Bruce


Bruce F. Smith

Auburn, AL

https://www5.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/


"Some days you are the bug, some days you are the windshield."

__

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| / 4999 PENNSYLVANIA 4999 &#92; | ||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||

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| O--O &#92;0 0 0 0/ O--O | 0-0-0 0-0-0

On 1/14/2013 6:30 PM, Anthony Thompson wrote:

Note on the car end that compartments A and B have quite different capacities, so although the two domes look equally spaced from the tank ends, the dividing bulkheads must be offset a fair amount.

It would appear that seeing that row of rivets (around the tank),
near the rear dome, that would be the smaller tank.

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

Oh, and they also used the square corner ends through 1940.

Randy

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Arved" wrote:

I'm guessing the 5/5 Dreadnaught end being the spotting difference for the 10' 6" IH that distinguishes the "modified" cars. I can't find a standard 1937 AAR design box car that has 5/5 ends,

Ahh, but the CP had over 9,000 1937 AAR Standard (not modified) had 5/5 welded dreadnaught ends. Both square and curved ('W') corner variations. These were built from 1937 to 1946.

Neither the CN or CP built Modified Standard Cars, they built the 1937 Standard cars until 1946-7 before switching to Post War design cars.

It's never simple, is it?

Randy
--
Randy Hammill
True Line Trains
http://truelinetrains.com
--
http://newbritainstation.com
Modeling the New Haven Railroad 1946-1954

Arved, I think either the CP or CN had some 1937 AAR 10'0" box cars with 5/5 ends.
Dan Kirlin made resin castings for them. Of course many of the 1937 cars had ends that
were not "dreadnaughts" at all.

Tim O'Connor

If you mean the rectangular panel roof made by IMWX, yes. Many folks (esp me!) regard
this roof as the finest example of an RP roof ever done in HO scale. Many others (e.g. IRC)
have tried and failed miserably, enough to provoke a gag reflex when I look at one.

Tim O'

Arved

The vast majority of the 10'6" modified 1937 box cars have 5/5 ends, while most of the
10'0" cars have 4/5 ends. Both types of cars had S-corner and W-corner versions of those
two ends. Most had lap-seam side panels while others had crimp-seams. And a few had
thinner side sheets that required intermediate posts recognizable by so called A.C.R. rivets
in the middle of the side panels.

Tim O'Connor

Mike and others, here's a start on a format for resin kit reviews, I've got 31 resin freight cars on the layout so I have a pretty good start on some that I've built. Let me know if there's an area I've overlooked or you'd like added.

- Decals - accurate to the RR or manufacturer picked a close computer font and how to fix if the builder wants to (Westerfield or Jerry Glow's used in lieu of the kits original ones).
- Instructions - step by step, clear photos, painting instructions or paint recommendations or the instructions leave a lot to be desired.
- Packaging - box holds up to storage
- Castings - warped sides or body or surface bubbles or cleanly cast.
- Accuracy of parts compared to photos.
- Ease of assembly
- Ordering information
- Historical background
- How many around in 1940 and 1956 (my ORERs).

Charlie Duckworth

The only defect on the Red Caboose (IMWX) kits is the incorrect floor stringers -- which others
have copied, thank you very much! (It happens when vendors copy instead of doing their own
research.)

Does the Atlas (Branchline) 1937 AAR kit have the same error in the floor stringers?

Tim O'Connor

And the Murphy Roof? LOL.

Phil

--
--
Phillip Blancher
http://about.me/phillipblancher

Southern Pacific. That's what I'd recommend. Can use the wood running boards too. :-)

Remember Phil, there is ALWAYS room for one more beautiful Southern boxcar!
;>)
Fenton Wells

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:28 AM, Phillip Blancher <pblancher@gmail.com>wrote:

**


Sweet. Thank you for the reference document. Very informative.

Phil

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Benjamin Hom b.hom@att.net> wrote:

Phil Blancher wrote:
"I am still trying to figure out what to model with the IMWX Square
Corner car I have."

Teaching you how to fish:
http://www.steamerafreightcars.com/prototype/frtcars/1937aarpdfmain.html

Some of these prototypes will require further modfications to the kit

(Viking

Roofs; Sylvan aftermarket roofs and ends for some of the Canadian

prototypes),

but there are some on this list that you can do from this kit with

minimal work.

Ben Hom


------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

--
--
Phillip Blancher
http://about.me/phillipblancher

--
Fenton Wells
3047 Creek Run
Sanford NC 27332
919-499-5545
srrfan1401@gmail.com


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sweet. Thank you for the reference document. Very informative.

Phil

--
--
Phillip Blancher
http://about.me/phillipblancher

Phil Blancher wrote:
"I am still trying to figure out what to model with the IMWX Square
Corner car I have."

Teaching you how to fish:
http://www.steamerafreightcars.com/prototype/frtcars/1937aarpdfmain.html

Some of these prototypes will require further modfications to the kit (Viking
Roofs; Sylvan aftermarket roofs and ends for some of the Canadian prototypes),
but there are some on this list that you can do from this kit with minimal work.


Ben Hom