I have had numerous cases of Accumates locking open. I have never had
this problem with the Scale Accumates because the scale draft gear box
is too narrow to allow the coupler halves to separate far enough to
lock.

I have seen this on KD 5s as well. In this case it is caused by wear
on the knuckle stop on the side of the coupler. The stop gets worn down
sufficiently to allow the heel of the knuckle to slide slightly over it
and either jam or stick very briefly. I can often fix this by using
very fine needle nose pliers to slightly bend the bottom corner of the
heel on the knuckle inward so that it once again will hit the stop
firmly and not slide past it.


regards,

Andy Miller

I don't believe Binkley ever made their own sprung trucks (must have been someone else's). The first sprung trucks I bought were the MDC all-metal ones, which were quite nice and cost 75 cents for the kit (had to be assembled), and 75 cents was worth quite a bit more then--something like fifty years ago--than it is now ($1 an hour wage was respectable, so figure an equivalent of $15-16 in today's money). Varney trucks were only 50 cents, as I recall, and came assembled, but they had unit-cast wheelsets and axles in a nasty nylon (with knife-edge flanges), and the sideframes weren't as detailed as the MDC's.
I don't believe Mantua ever made any sprung trucks, and the top-of-the-line were Central Valleys, which I think (it's been a long time, and I am at the office and can't dig through old magazines and catalogues) went for 95 cents for the archbars (the HOn3 version cost $1.10). Their passenger trucks (still sought, as I note, after all these years since production ceased) went for over $2--exact price now forgotten, but probably closer to $3 than $2 (figure $35-40 in today's money)--but the springing was exquisite. They made two kinds of Fox trucks, one with individually-sprung journals--I wonder if one can find that today. Kadee sprung freight trucks were rather late-comers, although pretty much the standard for moe particular modelers by the 1960's.
As for replacement working leaf springs, have you looked in the PSC catalogue? Years ago Kemtron made them from copper and they were (as I recall) also full-elliptical as contrasted with the stamped steel semi-elliptical Silver Streaks (not that modelers back then weren't happy to have Silver Streak kits and trucks--at least I was).
Jace Kahn, General Manager
Ceres and Canisteo RR Co.

You've made my day. Was beginning to think I was one of the last who remembered bent metal tabs & slots for couplers.

What a lot of modelers would find useful are some leaf spring replacements for Kadee trucks. The last ones I have came in a Silver Streak box.

Another item is to put a black blank panel behind the truck springs, this eliminates the daylight issue with the coil springs.

IIRC, the first sprung trucks purchased came in a Binkley kit.

Fred Freitas


--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "S. Busch" <SCSBusch@W...> wrote:

The first time I ever saw
> real looking truck they were HO sprung Varneys or Athearns or
something.

Me too!

> I have never quite recovered, and still prefer real springs.

I'd prefer real prototype springs but I don't think they'd fit plus they'd collapse my
benchwork. (-:}

Pat Wider

_________________________________________________________________
Don�t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/

If injection mold tooling is expensive to produce did Terry Wegman
loose his shirt (or a lot of time) on the PFE -21 kits?

Ed Mines

I have noted Tony's caution that within bounds simply measuring breaking coupler breaking strength may not be too useful in judging coupler quality, if for the only reason that this kind of stress would be experienced only in a true minority of real-time model operating climates.

In this regard, Dennis Storzek told me a number of years ago that he tested the original Accumates by hanging a weight to the end a small string of cars equipped with Accumates that were in turn held on a sloping section of track attached to the ceiling of his basement (where he would leave them). The Accumates were in industry-standard Kadee/Athearn boxes, presumably the ones moulded on Accurail cars. He conducted the experiment both with reference to time, and to weight. The Accumates did finally fail over a certain length of time and with a certain level of weight, but the failure was not in the knuckle, the coupler head, or in the coupler shank per se, the failure was that the coupler shanks eventually twisted within the relatively loose box, opening the coupler halves in the process. Although I do not know this for certain, I have a feeling that it was the observation of this type of failure that persuaded him to design his new Accumate Protos to be engineered with the box as a true integrated system (the AccProto cannot twist or droop in its box).

I have heard before of the occasional scissors-like splitting of the Accumates when being pushed. I have had some occasional issues with Kadee 5s under the same circumstances (the coupler knuckles are pushed open, and for some reason do not close fast enough when the pressure is released) but this is has not been a memorable issue for me.

I have thought up a simple experiment in this regard with the Accumate Protos, and will report my results.

BTW, take a good look at a photo in Don Fiehmann's recent RMC article on maintenance where he depicts graphically the potential problems posed by couplers with draft angles drooping out of loose coupler boxes. That one coupler is higher than the other is only a part of the problem.

Dennhy

--
Denny S. Anspach, MD
Sacramento

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Gatwood, Elden" <Elden.Gatwood@h...>
asked - "P.S. So, what are the real reasons no one is doing the
alternate standard offset twin hopper?"

I'd like to see it too; it was used by Erie, my home road, but I think
it's too close to Athearn's and Atlas's cars.

I wonder how many average model railroaders replace their old models
when a new and improved version comes along? Obviously Walthers is
betting that enought will with these cabooses.

Some of the layouts featured in the various model magazines still run
older cars like Athearn reefers, ribbed hoppers and 40 ft. box cars
even though more accurate equivalents are produced.

Ed

Reviewing my post on this subject, I did not make clear that the measured distance between the faces of the draft gear boxes of coupled cars (which is what I measured) is NOT the same as the measured distances between end sills, or car ends. As one can readily observe, the draft gear faces project beyond the end sills differently on different cars, depending upon individual design and construction details of the underframes, and the placement of bolsters.

So, if the draft gear box faces are *correctly placed* on your models, simply measuring the distance between the faces will give you some idea where you might be as related to the distance expected with the prototype with Type E couplers ("30"). If smaller industrial or earlier couplers are modeled, then the expected distance would seem to be about 24".

Denny

--
Denny S. Anspach, MD
Sacramento

On Oct 11, 2005, at 12:45 AM, Eric wrote:

Elden Gatwood wrote:

I came across a write-up for a low pressure limited run injection molded kit. The kit was 168
pieces, of which three were resin and 54 were photoetched, the rest being injection molded. It was
listed at $45.00.

Eric Petersson

OK what is the product and who is the manufacture?
Thank you
Larry Jackman
ljack70117@adelphia.net
It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them.

Hmmm...cabotage. A new word for me. I had hoped my comments would provoke <g> a good explaination and I got it. Thanks. I figured the loading of Canadian cars was probably a rules violation but I wasn't sure.

Bill Darnaby

Montford Switzer wrote:

Responding to Tim Gilbert:

Mont,

I am unclear of what you mean as a "steady source of loads." Is this an
industry or equivalent? By "regular moves" do you mean specific cars
(e.g. ABC Boxcar #123), or the industry, or do you mean regular
shipments of goods in any suitable car available? If the answer above is

specific cars, then what kind of car - boxcar, gon, hopper, etc., and
what road name and car number?

Tim, As Bill continues to share this info I think we will continue to
see the same TYPES of cars moving from the same shipper to same
consignee transporting the same product - soy bean meal. As I plan my
operating scenario I will want to handle the same types of cars in that
service on a regular basis. I'm only modeling the portion of the moves
that were over the MONON.

Mont,

We are in agreement regarding type of cars. But what is the rhyme and reason behind the variety of car owners? Bill's data provides insight into some of the rhyme or reason of behind this variety of owners of boxcars and tank cars.

Each boxcar could carry a variety of commodities while tank cars were restricted to only a few, if not just one commodity. Hence, empty boxcars could be easily reloaded while empty tank cars generally had to return to their original point of loading before they could be reloaded. This difference is reflected in boxcars' loaded car miles being about 76% of total car miles in 1948-49 vs. the tank cars' loaded car mile percentage being only 50%.

Tank Cars were generally leased from private owners or owned by industries; thus, they were not free rollers - indeed, they earned mileage paid by the carrier to the owner instead of the per diem paid to the boxcar owner.

Because boxcars were free rollers because they were capable of showing up on any road different from the owner with a load originated on still another road- in Bill's latest sheet, CB&Q #26046 was loaded on the NKP with bean meal for AK Zinn, and routed NKP-Michigan City-NYC(MC)-Battle Creek. Another example was NP #26144 which was loaded with bean mail for the EW Bailey Co. in Montpelier VT and routed NKP-Toledo-DTSL-Detroit-GTW-Port Huron-CN-St. Albans VT-CV-Montpelier. (Incidentally, this would have been a "legal" routing of a Canadian car because of the transit through Ontario and Quebec.)

The distribution of ownership of Boxcars from the Swift Processing Plant resembles somewhat the distribution percentages of boxcar owners in wheel reports that I have parsed from the SOU's Washington Division in the Fall of 1946 and the UP's Wyoming Division in the Fall of 1947. They do not correlate perfectly with each other. But for modelers not having the advantage of a wheel report, or cars pulled from Frankfort, a good starting point in selecting what the owners of foreign boxcars should be on a layout would be based on the percentage of boxcars a specific railroad owned of the national fleet.

There is nothing wrong about modeling "specific" cars which may have
appeared once or sporadically over time on the prototype's line. For
instance, if modeling a line like UP's Sherman Hill, any of the 720,000
different boxcars in the US could have appeared on that line. Most
people's budget including Mike Brock's cannot afford 720,000 different
boxcars. So a selective compression of the model boxcar fleet has to be
done whereby ABC boxcar #123 represents itself plus, at another time ABC

#456, or, perhaps, the neighboring road's DEF #789 if ABC and DEF do not

own enough boxcars in the national boxcar fleet to warrant a separate
model for each road.

Tim, Agreed. Specific cars would be a bonus. One could model a car
based on Bill's records and plop it on the layout at the right place
(interchange with NKP at Frankfort) and take it off after it empties out
and is reloaded toward it home road. Example, NKP interchanges ATSF
1234 to MONON at Frankfort for delivery to a point north toward Chicago.
When empty the car would be loaded for or forwarded empty to Chicago and
into staging. The car might be allowed to wander onto the layout at
some future time representing the entire series of car for that RR.

I like to build freight car models so I won't mind building one that is
not used all the time. Yes, it will have to represent other cars in
that same series that might should up anywhere else on the parts of the
MONON that I am modeling.

I certainly want to make sure my freight trains have all of the known
types of cars carrying the regular moves whether it be the daily
shipment of bean meal, RCA TV cabinets, coke, coal, etc. It is the
single car shipments that will be harder to deal with and may end up
getting cars at random for lack of more specific info.

I guess that you will not be modeling CIL #1 at least between June 1947 and June 1948 because it was used to originate only one load, and terminate none on the MONON. Seriously though, gauging how many and what cars were loaded with merchandise or used team tracks is the bane of a prototypical modeler. What bails you in terms of ownership of boxcars is the starting point of percentage of boxcars owned by a road of the national boxcar fleet.

Bill's data just solved another mystery as what was moving in MONON
freight trains to I can more accurately model them.

I would think that Bill's data has helped you with boxcars and tank cars carrying bean oil; the data has not shown the distribution of owners among hoppers, gons, reefers or tank cars carrying different commodities than bean meal.

Tim Gilbert

Tim O'Connor wrote:

It is highly unlikely that violations would go unnoticed, thanks
to the DAILY accounting of cars for per diem purposes. Perhaps there
was some kind of quid pro quo to balance the "violations" or perhaps
those cars actually did have the duty paid on them and we just don't
have those records. Knowing how carefully railroads kept records (and
were required to do so by the ICC) I'm sure that real violations of
the law were the exception and not the rule.

Full agreement, and well stated. I only meant that there evidently WERE exceptions, whether as violations or from some arrangement we haven't documented, and therefore that SOME Canadian cars did get reloaded for U.S. destinations. As Tim Gilbert said, it's abundantly obvious that this was rare, from statistics alone.

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

Gene,

There is nothing in my library that records an F class built with a plow. My records do not go back further than 1919, so it may be, although I don't think it happened.
What may be the case is a car bought, or appropriated from the PRR, and rebuilt with a plow assembly in Iowa. My reasoning is that all of the old pix I have studied show a "V" type, high curved top plow attached to the pilot of a 4-4-0, or a 4-6-0.
Others are more well versed in MW equip. than I, so there might be a slim chance someone can provide proof positive.
My money is on not likely.

Fred Freitas

Allen - Can you email me a photo? - Al Westerfield

Responding to Tim Gilbert:

Mont,

I am unclear of what you mean as a "steady source of loads." Is this an
industry or equivalent? By "regular moves" do you mean specific cars
(e.g. ABC Boxcar #123), or the industry, or do you mean regular
shipments of goods in any suitable car available? If the answer above is

specific cars, then what kind of car - boxcar, gon, hopper, etc., and
what road name and car number?

Tim, As Bill continues to share this info I think we will continue to
see the same TYPES of cars moving from the same shipper to same
consignee transporting the same product - soy bean meal. As I plan my
operating scenario I will want to handle the same types of cars in that
service on a regular basis. I'm only modeling the portion of the moves
that were over the MONON.

There is nothing wrong about modeling "specific" cars which may have
appeared once or sporadically over time on the prototype's line. For
instance, if modeling a line like UP's Sherman Hill, any of the 720,000
different boxcars in the US could have appeared on that line. Most
people's budget including Mike Brock's cannot afford 720,000 different
boxcars. So a selective compression of the model boxcar fleet has to be
done whereby ABC boxcar #123 represents itself plus, at another time ABC

#456, or, perhaps, the neighboring road's DEF #789 if ABC and DEF do not

own enough boxcars in the national boxcar fleet to warrant a separate
model for each road.

Tim, Agreed. Specific cars would be a bonus. One could model a car
based on Bill's records and plop it on the layout at the right place
(interchange with NKP at Frankfort) and take it off after it empties out
and is reloaded toward it home road. Example, NKP interchanges ATSF
1234 to MONON at Frankfort for delivery to a point north toward Chicago.
When empty the car would be loaded for or forwarded empty to Chicago and
into staging. The car might be allowed to wander onto the layout at
some future time representing the entire series of car for that RR.

I like to build freight car models so I won't mind building one that is
not used all the time. Yes, it will have to represent other cars in
that same series that might should up anywhere else on the parts of the
MONON that I am modeling.

I certainly want to make sure my freight trains have all of the known
types of cars carrying the regular moves whether it be the daily
shipment of bean meal, RCA TV cabinets, coke, coal, etc. It is the
single car shipments that will be harder to deal with and may end up
getting cars at random for lack of more specific info.

Bill's data just solved another mystery as what was moving in MONON
freight trains to I can more accurately model them.

Mont Switzer







Yahoo! Groups Links

CP #223472

This was a 10 panel 1937 "AAR" design box car with 5/5 ends (resin
part from Dan Kirlin/Sylvan) and "flat panel" roof (also Kirlin/Sylvan).
From series 221000-223949. Not sure of builder or date. AJAX brakes.
Jim Sands posted an excellent photo of one of these on his web site.

CN #522526

This was a 10 panel AAR style box car built by Canadian Car & Foundry
in 1948 (series 522500-523999) with 4/4 IDE-2 ends (rolling pin with
short top rib), 8-rung ladders and rectangular panel roof. This is a
match for the Intermountain "Canadian" box cars.

Tim O'Connor

Hi Tim,

I think it's fun to identify Santa Fe boxcars, and it might help someone who wanted to include some Santa Fe cars on a Midwestern layout.

So long,

Andy


Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
Model Railroader magazine
asperandeo@mrmag.com
Phone: 262-796-8776, ex. 461
Fax: 262-796-1142
www.modelrailroader.com

It is highly unlikely that violations would go unnoticed, thanks
to the DAILY accounting of cars for per diem purposes. Perhaps there
was some kind of quid pro quo to balance the "violations" or perhaps
those cars actually did have the duty paid on them and we just don't
have those records. Knowing how carefully railroads kept records (and
were required to do so by the ICC) I'm sure that real violations of
the law were the exception and not the rule.

There are several aspects of couplers and most of these have
been discussed in the previous posts:

Appearance, coupling distance, reliability, size, size of draft
gear box, whether or not they have a magnetic pin, how strong
they are, how well the train stays together during operation, etc.

If my memory serves me correctly in the following of this thread
no one has mentioned the topic of "interoperability". If you are
building a contest/shelf model you don't care. If you have a layout
where all the freight cars are "controlled" and you -can- all have
the same couplers on them then you don't care. If you don't do
any ... or very much ... switching then you don't care as much. But
if you are talking about a layout that has lots of different guys
bringing their equipment to operate then you care - a LOT.
On layouts where lots of people are contributing the current
"standard" coupler is the Kadee #5. Simply because that is what is
on most of the cars in most of the train cases. Not necessarily what
we might like to admit but it is "the truth".

So my point is that if a new coupler is going to be accepted ...
rapidly ... it needs to operate well with the #5.

And, regrettably, none of the "better" couplers we have out now
operates as well with the #5 as they should. That's probably due to
a design aspect of the #5 (that little 'lip' on the very end of the
face?). But the bottom line is that if a new coupler doesn't play
well with the existing #5 then its acceptance is going to be slower
than it would if it did - considerably.

BTW - the #58s and #78s don't seem to couple and uncouple with
each other as well as the number 5's do either! They're "acceptable"
but they aren't as reliable as the #5's when using an uncoupling
ramp -and- they take quite a bit longer to uncouple using a pick.

- Jim ... dreaming of an HO car with operational cut levers
that 'interfaces' with the #5 ... I've always been
a -big- dreamer ... but I still have a large supply
of #5s and continue to install them on all but a
few cars.

On Oct 11, 2005, at 8:01 AM, bierglaeser wrote:

Please see eBay listing Iowa Terminal RR Snow Plow Motor #60 DUPLICATE
Slide-NR Item number: 6568698378.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Iowa-Terminal-RR-Snow-Plow-Motor-60-DUPLICATE- Slide-
NR_W0QQitemZ6568698378QQcategoryZ71011QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I've had an opportunity to take a close look at the short flat car and
some parts, notably the stake pockets, have 'PRR' cast into them.

Could this be a former PRR class F22 or F23 flat car? If yes, does
anyone know how such an item would have made its way to Mason City,
Iowa?
Did the PRR convert any F22 or F23 flats to snow plows?
TIA.
Gene Green

Gene,

Yes, this appears to be an F22 or F23. It has been discussed several times, and is the subject of an unproven legend that it was "stolen" from the PRR. See message 27798 for the story.

Regards
Bruce

Bruce F. Smith
Auburn, AL
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" - Benjamin Franklin
__
/ &#92;
__<+--+>________________&#92;__/___ ________________________________
|- ______/ O O &#92;_______ -| | __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ |
| / 4999 PENNSYLVANIA 4999 &#92; | ||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||
|/_____________________________&#92;|_|________________________________|
| O--O &#92;0 0 0 0/ O--O | 0-0-0 0-0-0

Montford Switzer wrote:

Responding to:

What can be learned from these NKP List of movements which can be used
on your or anybody else's layout of the 1945-1955 era?

Tim Gilbert

Tim:

I learned the specifics of a steady source of loads that moved in both
directions out of Frankfort, IN on the MONON's Indianapolis branch
including the portion that I am modeling. It appears that some of the
moves were regular in nature. The data also allows me to pursue
modeling specific cars the appeared in this service and well as justify
others that "hopefully" appeared covering this work. So it works for me
and should do as well for anyone who's RR appears in the car routing
info.

Mont,

I am unclear of what you mean as a "steady source of loads." Is this an industry or equivalent? By "regular moves" do you mean specific cars (e.g. ABC Boxcar #123), or the industry, or do you mean regular shipments of goods in any suitable car available? If the answer above is specific cars, then what kind of car - boxcar, gon, hopper, etc., and what road name and car number?

There is nothing wrong about modeling "specific" cars which may have appeared once or sporadically over time on the prototype's line. For instance, if modeling a line like UP's Sherman Hill, any of the 720,000 different boxcars in the US could have appeared on that line. Most people's budget including Mike Brock's cannot afford 720,000 different boxcars. So a selective compression of the model boxcar fleet has to be done whereby ABC boxcar #123 represents itself plus, at another time ABC #456, or, perhaps, the neighboring road's DEF #789 if ABC and DEF do not own enough boxcars in the national boxcar fleet to warrant a separate model for each road.

Tim Gilbert

Please see eBay listing Iowa Terminal RR Snow Plow Motor #60 DUPLICATE
Slide-NR Item number: 6568698378.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Iowa-Terminal-RR-Snow-Plow-Motor-60-DUPLICATE-Slide-
NR_W0QQitemZ6568698378QQcategoryZ71011QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I've had an opportunity to take a close look at the short flat car and
some parts, notably the stake pockets, have 'PRR' cast into them.

Could this be a former PRR class F22 or F23 flat car? If yes, does
anyone know how such an item would have made its way to Mason City,
Iowa?
Did the PRR convert any F22 or F23 flats to snow plows?
TIA.
Gene Green