Good friends,

Attached is a photo I took of a Seaboard low-side gondola at Dillwyn, Virginia on the then-CSX Dillwyn Subdivision (now Buckingham Branch RR) around 1986. It appears to be an ex-NC&STL car, which would put it within our era of interest. Likely it was rebuilt with the sides strengthened. Any comments on its origins and original series numbers?

The car is on a short siding that served Seay Milling Co., the local Southern States affiliate. This track was rarely used by Seay, and served (and still does) as a holding track to stash cars; the Dillwyn yard being pretty small. It was likely bound for loading at the Koppers woodlot about 1/2 mile further down the line. Koppers was, and still is, one of the branch's major shippers, but their track only holds 3-4 cars. Raw ties are still loaded there and sent to an off-line creosote plant.

Stashing freight cars on somebody else's siding until needed is likely a pretty common thing on most railroads, but something we rarely do on our layouts. Something worth considering for how you operate your freight cars.

Yours Aye,


Garth Groff

I have finished Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range single-sheathed Box Car 3332.  It is an Accurail  kit, number 4406.  I have included a photo of the car prior to final paint and weathering with molded ladders removed and drop grab iron ladders and other DMIR details added. If you are interested, photos and writeup of the build including paint match are now on my blog I have to share photos and writeup of modeling projects on my Minneapolis & Northland Railroad Company.   If you would like to take a look please do at the following link:

http://mnrailroadcab100.blogspot.com/
 

Lester Breuer

Attachments:

• 45B0830D-2F7C-4189-AAEA-D8DB2065B053.jpeg

Archer rivets and their clones have changed the way many of us approach kitbashing and scratchbuilding.  But while looking at some prototype photos for current projects I noticed that what I really need are rust colored rivets, and they need to be applied after painting the car.  I know most of you apply the rivets then paint the car, but I model post-1960 for the most part, when most riveted cars would have lost the paint over the rivets.  Paint doesn't stick to rivets well, and that isn't just a post-1960 problem.

Thoughts?

Scott Chatfield

I'm curious about the covered hopper in the scan attached (hopefully).  Image is on the Santa Fe in Medicine Lodge, KS 1952.

It is no doubt a Carbon Black hopper, any ideas on the owner and reporting marks.  I'm guessing Colombian Carbon Co.  From this angle the car looks like it could be modeled from the F&C kit, and I think this style of hopper was offered by Railshop and Overland.

Seems odd that this car would be on this particular branch line.  The only non-agricultural traffic on this line to my knowledge is gypsum mining and wallboard manufacturing.  There would be petroleum production in this area, but no refineries.  No interchanges with foreign roads on this branch.  Any speculation why this car would be out here?

Photo credit goes to William O Gibson, Medicine Lodge, Kansas 1952.  "Santa Fe Engine Picture Taker" p.21.

Regards,
David Snook
Wichita, KS

Attachments:

• CoveredHopper.jpg

On Sep 28, 2019, at 7:21 PM, Richard Scott <rlscott5709@gmail.com> wrote:

Here's a photo of my most recent freight car project, an O-scale D&RGW
double-sheathed automobile car. I built it from a Rails Unlimited
resin body, painted it with Polly Scale acrylics, and lettered it with
Protocraft decals. The 200 cars in the Rio Grande's 61200-61399
series were built by the Mount Vernon Car Company in 1925. Most
remained in service into the 1960s, with the final car, 61346, going
off the roster in 1969.


I have other photos of my steam-era freight cars in "Dick Scott's
models," currently on the first page of our photo section.


Dick Scott



<D&RGW 61346_2.JPG>

Along with that, alloys and various improvements allowed for less

labor intensive means of creating a supporting structure that was

"smaller", stronger,  & better use of resources and more flexible.

The straight channel sill was found to be sufficiently strong and

reduced rivets, time and steel.  When weldments came on line that

further reduced time and materials.  A jig ended up doing the work

(or allowing far fewer to work) on the whole structure at the same time.

The same thing happened for passenger cars, but it took a lot longer

(for a variety of reasons).  the sill does more than "just" impart

structure to the frame, it can also lower CoG and provide additional

stiffness in specific planes (that otw might fail in certain

circumstances).  A Standard Pullman was called a battleship for the

keel (sill) and the heavy riveted side frame and skin that mimic the

(essentially, pre-Dreadnought) Battleship construction.

People tend to forget that huge swaths of industry and society have

seen a sudden and virtually entire loss of functions.  The Milk

industry  (& usually associated ice industry) is one large example

(used to be 10 ice houses & 4 milk concentrators within 5 miles of

here) .  But at the same time, the consequences of specific

construction methods - of buildings, roads, autos, and freight cars -

all changed heavily in the 1910-1940 era.  A great many methods WERE

regulated out of existence, a great many were simply passed by events.

For instance....driving through beautiful downtown Elgin today, most

of the large brick buildings making up a semi-industrial corridor are

gone in the last 20 years - and in the resulting open space, you can

see that now passed over tech, the pay phone (complete with sign

pointing at it) now used mangily by dealers of all sorts.  But no one

regulated land lines (esp. pay variants) out of existence, some few

remain, but the rest have simply outlived their usefulness (and may

yet be regulated out of existence due to their use in crimes).

At 01:56 PM 9/28/2019, Dennis Storzek wrote:

>And still in use long after the cut-off date of this discussion

>group. TTX 89' flatcars have fishbelly underframes. The reason we

>don't see any on house cars built after 1930 or so is designers

>finally realized the design was overkill; it added weight whereas a

>straight sill was sufficiently strong.

> 

>Dennis Storzek

> 

Bob Webber