Charlie,

I agree that we need a greater variety of both hoppers and flats, plus more gons too.

I disagree with this point:

. . . But part of the is that flats probably were among the most
customized and least standardized cars. . . .

I would have to say that stock cars are probably the most variable cars. There were very few standard
designs from manufacturers, and many roads rebuilt old boxcars into stock cars that were absolutely
unique designs. And as for under representation, what do we have in HO right now (outside of resin and
one or two wooden craft kits): Athearn (sort of UP, but with problems), Proto 2000 Mather (mostly leased
by small roads, or in small lots by larger roads), Accurail ex-USRA (GN only), Central Valley (NP only),
Bowser PRR (PRR and only one or two allied roads), maybe some of the Walthers/TM cars (generic, and they
leave a lot to be desired in terms of quality), and the Roundhouse Old Time car (Clinchfield, anyone?).
Many stock cars were also less than 40', and the Roundhouse car is the only one available in a shorter
length. That's all I can think of that are reasonably accurate. The rest are junk, though you might be
able to do something with a few of them.

I guess if you model GN or NP, you are in pretty good shape, since they both are represented by fairly
accurate cars, and both leased Mather cars as well. Just about every other road gets short changed.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

Garth's Words-

unique designs. And as for under representation,
what do we have in HO right now (outside of resin
and
one or two wooden craft kits)> Many stock cars were

also less than 40', and the

Roundhouse car is the only one available in a
shorter
length. That's all I can think of that are
reasonably accurate. The rest are junk, though you
might be
able to do something with a few of them.

I wholeheartdly agree with Garth. I model the
D&RGW/D&SL and my best bet for correct stock cars
comes with plans from old Hawk Kits for D&SL stock
cars. As most know, the Moffat Road hauled sheep,
sheep, and more sheep every fall. None of the
commerical stock car kits look right in maroon behind
a 2-6-6-0...I need some wooden 38' footers!
Kevin Slark


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Kevin Slark writes:

I wholeheartdly agree with Garth. I model the
D&RGW/D&SL and my best bet for correct stock cars
comes with plans from old Hawk Kits for D&SL stock
cars.

I sympathize. I suppose each of us that model a particular RR have similar
problems...some worse than others. The UP, of course, was another large user
of stock cars and they are are only available via the old tech Athearn car
and a Westerfield model of a rather old UP car. I am currently trying to
bring an Atheran car up to more recent "state of the art" but I need many
more cars. I mean, yes, I can point to photos of foreign stock cars on the
UP in Wy [ even a Pennsy one...gasp! ], but populating UP tracks with Mather
cars seems a bit wrong.

Then there's the issue of hoppers. It also seems silly to have Mopac and
CB&Q hoppers sitting under the coaling tower at Harriman but I only have one
legit UP hopper car. Thank goodness for GS gons.

Mike Brock

Garth Groff wrote:

I would have to say that stock cars are probably the most variable cars.
There were very few standard
designs from manufacturers, and many roads rebuilt old boxcars into stock
cars that were absolutely
unique designs. And as for under representation, what do we have in HO
right now (outside of resin and
one or two wooden craft kits)....

I think Garth has missed the point here. Resin kits are the way to go in
modeling stock cars precisely because there were no widely used standard
designs and so many stock cars, especially in later years, were converted
box cars. And in resin we have several classes of Santa Fe stock cars,
several versions of Harriman 36' SP/UP/WP stock cars, several series of
MoPac cars, MILW stock cars, etc. What's currently available covers most
of the RRs that had large stock car fleets pretty well, though I'd like to
see a few others as well (e.g. D&RGW and UP S-40-10s in both standard and
DLS versions). Injection-molded styrene kits for any of these would be a
sure-fire commercial disaster.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Richard,

Resin is great if you need only one or two stock cars. But someone who wants a whole fleet of these
rather complicated cars is going to have to spend a lot of money and time to assemble resin kits (unless
they just collect 'em unassembled in the boxes :~) ).

I agree that a styrene kit for a stock car is going to generate a lot fewer sales than say a boxcar.
However, there were a few standard designs, or close to standard designs, that might be offered in a
QUALITY styrene kit. One possibility is the PC&F SP S-40-8 (or whatever) that was also used on the WP.
The C&O had some 1940's era cars that used Dreadnaught ends and Murphy roofs which I think might have
been similar to those of other roads. It is also possible that somebody might want to tool up a flexible
kit with separate ends and roof like Branchline or Intermountain boxcars that could cover a number of
different roads. I'm sure if this group puts our collective heads together, we could come up with two or
three good examples of multi-road designs.

And of course the D&RGW and UP S-40-10 you mentioned have broad popular appeal. If Accurail can risk the
cost of a unique GN car (albeit with partial tooling from an existing boxcar), why not one of these?

Richard, you know more about this sort of thing than I do, but both the PRR and the NYC had pretty
sizable fleets of stock cars. Except for a horrid AHM monster and maybe resin, the NYC fleet has never
been tapped. The PRR had a lot types than just converted X31 whatevers. These are both important roads
with large followings, and both operated frequent stock trains. How about a Milwaukee road car, another
large stock operator?

I don't mean to spark an argument here, but I do think there are possibilities for styrene stock car kits
if done right.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff


Richard Hendrickson wrote:

--- "Garth G. Groff" <ggg9y@...> wrote:

both the PRR and the NYC had pretty
sizable fleets of stock cars. Except for a horrid
AHM monster and maybe resin, the NYC fleet has never
been tapped. The PRR had a lot types than just
converted X31 whatevers. These are both important
roads
with large followings, and both operated frequent
stock trains.

I believe that there is a conversion based on the
Bowser X31 to model these cars. There is interest by
one resin manufacturer in the NYC designs that were
produced by the 1,000s in the '00s and '10s. see some
at:
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/stock/nyc22352main.html
http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/stock/nychr23547main.html

These NYC cars appeared all over the New Haven, so I
have a particular interest in seeing them.

Regards,
Ted

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--- In STMFC@y..., "Garth G. Groff" <ggg9y@v...> wrote:

I would have to say that stock cars are probably the most variable

cars. There were very few standard

designs from manufacturers, and many roads rebuilt old boxcars into

stock cars that were absolutely

unique designs.

Amen. And whenever F&C gets around to retooling the Wabash S/S
automobile boxcars of which there were thousands, they can do the
Wabash stock car next--built from these same cars.

Victor Baird
Fort Wayne, Indiana

What I said before about NYC caboose kits is also true of
basically any NYC pre 1940 prototype, that is I'd pay well
and in multiple for for good kits of these...including stock
cars.

LR King

--- "Garth G. Groff" <ggg9y@...> wrote:

both the PRR and the NYC had pretty
sizable fleets of stock cars. Except for a horrid
AHM monster and maybe resin, the NYC fleet has never
been tapped. The PRR had a lot types than just
converted X31 whatevers. These are both important
roads with large followings, and both operated frequent
stock trains.

Specifically for PRR circa 1944:

K7 - converted from X23 boxcars...approximately 75 cars
K7A - converted from X24 automobile cars...approximately 1,500 cars
K8 - X29 based, approximately 1,000 cars

Of course, I keep lobbying for the H25 hopper at 5261 cars (#12 on the list
of the top 30 classes of PRR cars for that era
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/BFSpages/PRR/carclasses.html)
...geez, I'm starting to sound like Brock and those %$@#%^ Hart
whatchemacallits!

Happy Rails
Bruce

Bruce F. Smith V.M.D., Ph.D.
Scott-Ritchey Research Center
334-844-5587, 334-844-5850 (fax)
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" - Benjamin Franklin
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Garth G. Groff wrote:

The PRR had a lot [more] types than just converted X31 whatevers.

Not a whole lot types, but three older classes in the steam-era:
Classes K7, K7a, and K8, of which none are available outside of
brass. And Pennsy did run solid stock trains from Chicago to Jersey
City - see "The Last Stand of Stock Cars in the East" by Rich Burg in
the January 1993 RMC.

Ted Culotta added:

I believe that there is a conversion based on the Bowser X31 to model
these cars.

There is - a Class K11 conversion kit offered by John Greene's
Bethlehem Car Works Sparrows Point Division, where you get an X31a
body plus parts and styrene for the sides and door. Have one, but
haven't built it yet - besides, Bowser did retool their X31a dies to
produce this car as well. Unfortunately, this whole paragraph is off
topic for this list since the cars didn't appear until the early
1960s after our cutoff date.


Ben Hom

Richard,

Resin is great if you need only one or two stock cars. But someone who
wants a whole fleet of these
rather complicated cars is going to have to spend a lot of money and time
to assemble resin kits (unless
they just collect 'em unassembled in the boxes :~) ).

Nobody I know has ever claimed that prototype modeling is easy (or cheap).

....If Accurail can risk the
cost of a unique GN car (albeit with partial tooling from an existing
boxcar), why not one of these?

Accurail's GN car required new tooling only for the sides and doors.
Everything else came directly from their USRA box car kit. Otherwise there
never would have been an Accurail stock car.

It's true that there was some stock traffic east of the Missisippi, but not
even the magisterial PRR or the NYC ran stock on anything like the scale of
the major western RRs. In 10/50 the Pennsy owned 2313 stock cars and the
NYC 1673. Compare that with the Santa Fe (7346),UP (4407), MILW (3683),
CB&Q (3573) and SP (2934). As for the C&O, you want a styrene stock car
kit for a RR with a fleet of 236 cars, only 100 of which were the type you
described? Give me, as we say, a break.

Equally important, modelers of eastern RRs tend to view stock cars in much
the same way that those of who model western roads (with the exception of
Mike Brock, of course) view hoppers: who needs 'em? When Life-Like issued
the Mather stock car kits, they got a lot of complaints from the
east-of-the-Missisippi contingent about producing kits for cars that nobody
wanted or needed when there were so many other prototypes (often hoppers
were mentioned) that everyone was desperate to get. Life-Like's stock cars
sold well in other parts of the country, of course, as well as being warmly
welcomed by the B&O guys. Still, there's no point in bucking market
resistance, even when the resistance arises out of ignorance.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Richard,

I think I didn't make my point clear. While not certain, I was speculating that the C&O stock car might
be a manufacturer's standard design or close enough in some respects to those of other roads. This would
make it one possible candidate for a flexible kit. If it is not close to a standard design, then I would
be interested to have other members of this group identify such cars (say with similar side arrangements,
with the possibility of interchangeable roofs and ends).

I will not dispute the market forces you cite, but I still believe (or hope) that a properly engineered
flexible kit which could fit several close prototypes might find a market niche.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

Richard Hendrickson wrote:

Richard,

I think I didn't make my point clear. While not certain, I was speculating
that the C&O stock car might
be a manufacturer's standard design or close enough in some respects to
those of other roads. This would
make it one possible candidate for a flexible kit. If it is not close to a
standard design, then I would
be interested to have other members of this group identify such cars (say
with similar side arrangements,
with the possibility of interchangeable roofs and ends).

Garth, AFAIK there was no such standard or de facto standard design for
stock cars, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

While not certain, I was speculating that the C&O stock car might
be a manufacturer's standard design or close enough in some respects
to those of other roads.

The C&O 95200-95299 series was based on the ARA 1932 boxcar design,
but with straight side sills, a lower inside height of 8'7", and an
outside metal roof. The only 'standard' design was an almost direct
copy of the PRR K8, adopted by the ARA around 1930, by which time the
new-built stock car business had dwindled to a trickle.

David Thompson

David Thompson said:

The C&O 95200-95299 series was based on the ARA 1932 boxcar design,
but with straight side sills, a lower inside height of 8'7", and an
outside metal roof. The only 'standard' design was an almost direct
copy of the PRR K8, adopted by the ARA around 1930, by which time the
new-built stock car business had dwindled to a trickle.

As reported in the 1928 Cyc, a standard design was submitted to letter
ballot in 1927 and approved, for both single-deck and double-deck types.
Drawings for this car are in the 1940 Cyc and perhaps elsewhere.
How many, if any, of these standard cars were built for railroads, I
don't know. Perhaps Richard can add something here.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 http://www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroads and on Western history

David Thompson said:

The C&O 95200-95299 series was based on the ARA 1932 boxcar design,
but with straight side sills, a lower inside height of 8'7", and an
outside metal roof. The only 'standard' design was an almost direct
copy of the PRR K8, adopted by the ARA around 1930, by which time the
new-built stock car business had dwindled to a trickle.

Tony Thompson added:

As reported in the 1928 Cyc, a standard design was submitted to letter
ballot in 1927 and approved, for both single-deck and double-deck types.
Drawings for this car are in the 1940 Cyc and perhaps elsewhere.
How many, if any, of these standard cars were built for railroads, I
don't know. Perhaps Richard can add something here.

Offhand, the only major RR I can think of that bought ARA standard stock
cars was the L&N. From the 1920s onward, most RRs that needed additional
stock cars got them by rebuilding obsolete box cars.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

<<Offhand, the only major RR I can think of that bought ARA standard stock
cars was the L&N. From the 1920s onward, most RRs that needed additional
stock cars got them by rebuilding obsolete box cars.>>

Southern Railway bought 353 new stock cars in two orders from Ralston Steel
Car Company. These were delivered during 1938-39.

Jack Wyatt

<<Offhand, the only major RR I can think of that bought ARA standard stock
cars was the L&N. From the 1920s onward, most RRs that needed additional
stock cars got them by rebuilding obsolete box cars.>>

Southern Railway bought 353 new stock cars in two orders from Ralston Steel
Car Company. These were delivered during 1938-39.

True, but they weren't built to the AAR standard design.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

Richard H commented

~Offhand, the only major RR I can think of that bought ARA standard
stock
~cars was the L&N. From the 1920s onward, most RRs that needed
additional
~stock cars got them by rebuilding obsolete box cars.
~

The Seaboard seems to have something rather like an ARA car - I have a
scan of a drawing originally posted by Denis Blake which looks like an
ARA stock car - basically a 40' SS box car with slatted sides and wooden
ends

Aidrian

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The Seaboard seems to have something rather like an ARA car - I have a
scan of a drawing originally posted by Denis Blake which looks like an
ARA stock car - basically a 40' SS box car with slatted sides and wooden
ends.

Hmmm. The only 40-ft SAL stock cars I could find were series 7900-7949
(later renumbered to 3020-3054), and those were 1940s conversions from
the class B3 boxes built in 1926.

David Thompson, and they kept the corrugated steel ends...