When I lived in SoCal Terry Wegman engraved a pair of "duckbill" pliers to make drop grabs for P2K gondolas as they do not match any commercially available grabs. You made the U shape the usual way and inserted it into the engraved slot and bent the legs over. Another Dan Smith achieved the same by ACCing a stop on the inside face of one side of his pliers.
http://home.comcast.net/~jerryglow/files/pliers.jpg

Jerry Glow

Thanks Richard,
I did not have the earlier register, but your post really narrows it done to some time between April 1944 and October 1944 since the register cover dates are three months after the effective dates.

I used to live in Merchantville NJ and the portion of the Pemberton Branch that ran through the limits of the town boundaries paid enough taxes to fund the schools in town. They did not call New Jersey the "Gestapo" state for nothing when it comes to property taxes! The railroads have always paid a disproportionate share of the property taxes because they were an easy target.

Best regards,
Tom Olsen
7 Boundary Road, West Branch
Newark, Delaware, 19711-7479
(302) 738-4292

Allen is referring to, I believe, the sidebar on p. 89 in Ted Culotta's fourth installment of the Essential Freight Car series in the July 2003 RMC on NP's double-sheathed boxcars. In the same issue on p. 66 Mike Rose also illustrates building straight and drop grabs (although on cars out of scope for STMFC).

This issue is one of RMC's high-water marks for mid-century freight-car modelers, what with the above articles and techniques as well as two product reviews, one of Sylvan's HO Canadian National autobox and the other of Lionel's O PS-5, and a pictorial of a layout of Hamilton ON in 1958 and Keith Kohlmann's description of the American Motors auto loading facility for its plant in Kenosha WI.

Doug Polinder
Grand Rapids MI




________________________________
Re: Molded-on Grab Irons and grab iron bending device
Posted by: "Allen Cain" allencain@tampabay.rr.com allen_cain
Date: Sat Nov 21, 2009 5:29 pm ((PST))

Folks,



The Mission Model bending jig looks really nice but $90 puts it out of may
range for a specialty tool.



Sometime back one of the magazines ran an article where a piece of sheet
plastic with manufactured scribed slots (siding?) was cut in a triangular
shape with the slots running parallel to the base of the triangle. Then,
you pick the slot that matches the width that you need and lay a piece of
wire in it and simply bend it over the edges of the plastic. Bingo, a grab
iron. The taller the triangle combined with a narrow base gives you a LOT
of slots which vary in length only slightly as you go from one slot to the
next.



I built one of these for a zero cost using scraps from the plastic box and
it works great.



Hopefully my description makes sense.



Allen Cain

ironic: "type" should read "typo"

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Rob Kirkham" <rdkirkham@live.ca>
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 1:56 PM
To: <STMFC@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: Bieber 1947 4th quarter *01 cars (title correction)

Good catch Steve! With "01" tacked on, we'd have a 7 digit number. Allen -
can you clarify if there is a type here?

Rob Kirkham

--------------------------------------------------
From: "steve l" <stevelucas3@yahoo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 8:19 AM
To: <STMFC@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Bieber 1947 4th quarter *01 cars (title correction)

Allen--47902 would be a correct number for a company-service CN car that
was confined to CN rails. But CN 47902_ would have been a 40', 10' i.h.
steel boxcar, built by Canadian Car and Foundry with a flat panel roof and
square-corner SDE's in May or June, 1940 (Swain series 10). I take it
that the final digit of the car number is missing, or ??

Steve Lucas.

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Allen Rueter <allen_282@...> wrote:

Just one CN 47902

--
Allen Rueter StLouis MO

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

Yahoo! Groups Links

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

Yahoo! Groups Links

Good catch Steve! With "01" tacked on, we'd have a 7 digit number. Allen - can you clarify if there is a type here?

Rob Kirkham

--------------------------------------------------
From: "steve l" <stevelucas3@yahoo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 8:19 AM
To: <STMFC@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Bieber 1947 4th quarter *01 cars (title correction)

Allen--47902 would be a correct number for a company-service CN car that was confined to CN rails. But CN 47902_ would have been a 40', 10' i.h. steel boxcar, built by Canadian Car and Foundry with a flat panel roof and square-corner SDE's in May or June, 1940 (Swain series 10). I take it that the final digit of the car number is missing, or ??

Steve Lucas.

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Allen Rueter <allen_282@...> wrote:

Just one CN 47902

--
Allen Rueter StLouis MO

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

Yahoo! Groups Links

the space goes in front CN 479_02 should be CN 479202, a pair of pages for 02 has 002, 102, 202, ...,902

--
Allen Rueter StLouis MO




________________________________
From: steve l <stevelucas3@yahoo.ca>
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sun, November 22, 2009 10:19:39 AM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Bieber 1947 4th quarter *01 cars (title correction)


Allen--47902 would be a correct number for a company-service CN car that was confined to CN rails. But CN 47902_ would have been a 40', 10' i.h. steel boxcar, built by Canadian Car and Foundry with a flat panel roof and square-corner SDE's in May or June, 1940 (Swain series 10). I take it that the final digit of the car number is missing, or ??

Steve Lucas.

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups. com, Allen Rueter <allen_282@. ..> wrote:

Just one CN 47902

--
Allen Rueter StLouis MO




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

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

On Nov 22, 2009, at 2:31 AM, <tmolsen@UDel.Edu> wrote:

In regard to the tax dodge that the CNJ had by setting up the lines
in PA as CRP, it has to go back to sometime in 1945. The July 1944
ORER (effective date being April 1944) shows the CNJ only while the
January 1946 ORER (effective date being October 1945) shows both
the CRP and CNJ as separate entities.

So, when were the first cars lettered CRP?<VBG> Its obviously post
April 1944, but if, say it were May 1944, I might need a car lettered
for CRP!

Regards
Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL

Bill, I wish all kits would adopt the simple style of the Accurail
41' gondola kit - basically a flat slab onto which you can readily
apply either an Accurail scale draft gear, Kadee 78, regular Kadee
or any other. The issue with flat cars is that you need two different
end sills -- one with a scale coupler opening and one with the wider
opening for non scale draft geaar. I don't suppose Intermountain did
that did they?

Tim O'Connor

That is correct, Bill, but CNJ was not the only road so burdened. It was, probably, the road most
afflicted, because it wasn't a long distance road with the potential, at least, to offset those
taxes with the revenues from long distance operations. Specifically, the ERIE suffered a great deal
from Frank Hague. But this approach extended through the state government as well, so all railroads
serving New Jersey were highly taxed.

SGL

Part of the reason for the CRP was the remarkably high taxes levied on the
CNJ by the State of New Jersey, which appear to have been based on the
line's revenues throughout the system - including the out-of-state
operations. Some commentary suggests this was a substantial part of the
reason for the CNJ's receiverships in the last century. Certainly, Frank "I
am the Law in Jersey City" Hague began his rise to power by arguing that the
CNJ was undertaxed, and once in power, provided a very high level of social
services by taxing the railroad, perhaps to death. More comments on this
would be welcome.

Regards,
wb

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 5:31 AM, <tmolsen@udel.edu> wrote:

In regard to the tax dodge that the CNJ had by setting up the lines in PA
as CRP, it has to go back to sometime in 1945. The July 1944 ORER (effective
date being April 1944) shows the CNJ only while the January 1946 ORER
(effective date being October 1945) shows both the CRP and CNJ as separate
entities. Remember there is always a 3-month lag between the ORER reporting
date and the ORER front page publication date to allow the railroad
companies to submit their data.

Sometime between October 1952 (January 1953 ORER) and January 1953 (April
1953) both the CRP and CNJ reporting marks were recombined under the Central
Railroad of New Jersey ORER listing.

New Jersey was not buying the two separate railroads dodge and I am sure
the state banged the CNJ for a ton of back taxes and penalties dating back
to sometime in 1945.

Best regards,
Tom Olsen

Thomas M. Olsen
7 Boundary Road, West Branch
Newark, Delaware, 19711-7479
(302) 738-4292
tmolsen@udel.edu <tmolsen%40udel.edu>

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

Yahoo! Groups Links







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On Nov 22, 2009, at 10:05 AM, William Keene wrote:

I have not seen the 70-ton flat cars yet. What is the method of
installing the couplers on these cars. The experience I had with the
IM reefers with the press fit coupler box cover resulted in removal
of the entire box and installation of new boxes to install the
Sergent couplers. Hopefully the flat car uses some other method than
the press fit coupler box cover.

Bill, the coupler box covers on the IM flat cars are neatly held in
place by small flat head screws.


Richard Hendrickson

I have not seen the 70-ton flat cars yet. What is the method of
installing the couplers on these cars. The experience I had with the
IM reefers with the press fit coupler box cover resulted in removal
of the entire box and installation of new boxes to install the
Sergent couplers. Hopefully the flat car uses some other method than
the press fit coupler box cover.

Bill Keene
Irvine, CA

On Nov 22, 2009, at 8:19 AM, peteraue wrote:

InterMountain just confirmed that the HO scale 70 ton flat cars
will be available as undecorated kits. The stock number will be
43799, the list price US $ 19.95. This will be a much better
solution than trying to get the laser-cut wood deck off without
braking anything.

While I tend to prefer kits to RTR models, for all of the reasons
that are often advanced on this list, IM's painting and lettering on
the flat car models is very good and the decks come off to be thinned
down very easily, with just a bit of gentle work with a single edge
razor blade. The excessive thickness of the wood decks shouldn't
discourage anyone from buying a RTR model and fixing the deck, as
there is really no danger of breaking anything.

Richard Hendrickson

On Nov 22, 2009, at 2:31 AM, <tmolsen@UDel.Edu> wrote:

In regard to the tax dodge that the CNJ had by setting up the lines
in PA as CRP, it has to go back to sometime in 1945. The July 1944
ORER (effective date being April 1944) shows the CNJ only while the
January 1946 ORER (effective date being October 1945) shows both
the CRP and CNJ as separate entities.

In fact, it started some time in 1944, as i said in an earlier post.
The CNJ and CRP are listed separately in the 1/45 ORER.

Richard Hendrickson

Part of the reason for the CRP was the remarkably high taxes levied on the
CNJ by the State of New Jersey, which appear to have been based on the
line's revenues throughout the system - including the out-of-state
operations. Some commentary suggests this was a substantial part of the
reason for the CNJ's receiverships in the last century. Certainly, Frank "I
am the Law in Jersey City" Hague began his rise to power by arguing that the
CNJ was undertaxed, and once in power, provided a very high level of social
services by taxing the railroad, perhaps to death. More comments on this
would be welcome.

Regards,
wb

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 5:31 AM, <tmolsen@udel.edu> wrote:

In regard to the tax dodge that the CNJ had by setting up the lines in PA
as CRP, it has to go back to sometime in 1945. The July 1944 ORER (effective
date being April 1944) shows the CNJ only while the January 1946 ORER
(effective date being October 1945) shows both the CRP and CNJ as separate
entities. Remember there is always a 3-month lag between the ORER reporting
date and the ORER front page publication date to allow the railroad
companies to submit their data.

Sometime between October 1952 (January 1953 ORER) and January 1953 (April
1953) both the CRP and CNJ reporting marks were recombined under the Central
Railroad of New Jersey ORER listing.

New Jersey was not buying the two separate railroads dodge and I am sure
the state banged the CNJ for a ton of back taxes and penalties dating back
to sometime in 1945.

Best regards,
Tom Olsen

Thomas M. Olsen
7 Boundary Road, West Branch
Newark, Delaware, 19711-7479
(302) 738-4292
tmolsen@udel.edu <tmolsen%40udel.edu>

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

Allen--47902 would be a correct number for a company-service CN car that was confined to CN rails. But CN 47902_ would have been a 40', 10' i.h. steel boxcar, built by Canadian Car and Foundry with a flat panel roof and square-corner SDE's in May or June, 1940 (Swain series 10). I take it that the final digit of the car number is missing, or ??

Steve Lucas.

InterMountain just confirmed that the HO scale 70 ton flat cars will be available as undecorated kits. The stock number will be 43799, the list price US $ 19.95. This will be a much better solution than trying to get the laser-cut wood deck off without braking anything.
Peter Aue

In regard to the tax dodge that the CNJ had by setting up the lines in PA as CRP, it has to go back to sometime in 1945. The July 1944 ORER (effective date being April 1944) shows the CNJ only while the January 1946 ORER (effective date being October 1945) shows both the CRP and CNJ as separate entities. Remember there is always a 3-month lag between the ORER reporting date and the ORER front page publication date to allow the railroad companies to submit their data.

Sometime between October 1952 (January 1953 ORER) and January 1953 (April 1953) both the CRP and CNJ reporting marks were recombined under the Central Railroad of New Jersey ORER listing.

New Jersey was not buying the two separate railroads dodge and I am sure the state banged the CNJ for a ton of back taxes and penalties dating back to sometime in 1945.

Best regards,
Tom Olsen

Thomas M. Olsen
7 Boundary Road, West Branch
Newark, Delaware, 19711-7479
(302) 738-4292
tmolsen@udel.edu

Tim O'Connor wrote:

Tony, your 84/16 is roughly a 5:1 ratio. There must be some amount of double counting since GN/SP interchanged some amount of traffic at Klamath Falls, although it's probably not a lot.
At the same time, not all of SP's Cascade traffic went through Redding, but was diverted via the Modoc line between K-Falls and Nevada.

The statistic I provided was a comparison of SP traffic over the combined Cascade and Siskiyou Routes, to and from Oregon, vs. the amount of traffic on the GN-WP Inside Gateway. It does NOT include the Modoc line, which would increase SP's proportion (of something). I don't see how it relates to whatever GN did north of K Falls.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@signaturepress.com
Publishers of books on railroad history

Allen

I'm not sure it's accurate to list singletons as "strays" just
yet. Let's wait until we have all 100 data sets before we can
get a full picture of the reporting marks distribution. To get
accurate confirmation of Tim Gilbert's thesis of proportional
distribution of box cars, we'd really need to know which of the
reporting marks belong to box cars. By his thesis the number of
off-line box cars should be close to the percentages of those
reporting marks in the national fleet.

ALTHOUGH: The data may be quite skewed by the postwar recession!
Just as during a depression, recessions often result in off-line
cars being sent back home much sooner, and empty, instead of
being loaded over and over again off-line for new destinations.

IOW it may be fun to sift all this data but unless one models
this part of the country in 1947, it may have no other use.

Tim O'Connor

If you model this period, note that in 1950, there were 3,436 freight
cars lettered CNJ, but 7,878 cars lettered CRP -- In other words, two
thirds of the fleet had been relettered CRP!! By 1953, the totals are
1,950 and 8,174 respectively -- So by Jan 1953 over 80% of the fleet
was now lettered CRP. And of the cars still lettered CNJ, there were
no postwar box cars and very few all-steel cars (mostly hoppers). The
largest CNJ series in 1953 was 757 "Box, Steel, Z-Bar" (21000-21799).

Unfortunately, the 1955 and 1959 ORER's lump all of the CNJ freight cars
together and do not list which cars retained CRP reporting marks. But
by 1965 the reporting marks of cars are listed, and CRP has disappeared.
By that time CNJ had acquired the LNE reporting mark, and those cars are
listed by themselves.

Tim O'Connor

----------------------------------------------------------------
Well, Schuyler, in fact you ARE wrong, at least partly. CRP was
established in 1944 as a separate operating branch of the Central RR
of New Jersey, and remained so until ca. 1954, when the courts ruled
that it was an illicit tax dodge. After 1954, the cars with CRP
reporting marks were gradually re-integrated into the CNJ roster,
though there cars running around lettered CRP through the 1950s and
into the 1960s.

Richard Hendrickson