Date
1 - 15 of 15
10'-0" PS-1's
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mcindoefalls
I seem to have less gray matter RAM allocated to freight car info
these days, but wasn't the Kurtz-Kraft PS-1 kit a 10'-0" height car? If not, it would be easy to cut down, with its flat molded construction. The major parts were not bad, and using current SOTA ladders, grabs, brake gear and other accessories, building one of these kits might be an enjoyable project. I dimly recall that another manufacturer re-released the KK kits maybe 20 years ago, but apparently that file is corrupted. Walt Lankenau
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Ted Culotta <tculotta@...>
On Mar 2, 2005, at 10:41 AM, mcindoefalls wrote:
I seem to have less gray matter RAM allocated to freight car infoIt might be easier to cut up two Intermountain cars, given that the detail on them is superior to the Kurtz Kraft cars. cannonball car Shops was the company that re-released them. Regards, Ted Culotta Speedwitch Media 100 14th Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94402 info@speedwitch.com www.speedwitch.com (650) 787-1912
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benjaminfrank_hom <b.hom@...>
Walt Lankenau asked:
"...wasn't the Kurtz-Kraft PS-1 kit a 10'-0" height car?" No. The Kurtz-Kraft PS-1 is a 10 ft 6 in IH car. "If not, it would be easy to cut down, with its flat molded construction. The major parts were not bad, and using current SOTA ladders, grabs, brake gear and other accessories, building one of these kits might be an enjoyable project. I dimly recall that another manufacturer re-released the KK kits maybe 20 years ago." Cannonball Car Shops obtained the Kurtz-Kraft dies in the 1980s and marketed the cars, which are still common on the secondary market at reasonable prices, and may still be available from Model Railroad Warehouse, if you can find them on their website: http://www.mrrwarehouse.com/ We used these kits for our PS-1 fleet on the NEB&W, as they were the best available during the early 1980s. A writeup on these models is in Paint Shop in the January 1984 MR. I've still got four or five of these cars, and with many Kadee PS-1 components now available separately, will be using these to upgrade these vintage models. Ben Hom
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Garth Groff <ggg9y@...>
Walt,
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It's been ages since I saw a Kurtz-Kraft car. I believe they are/were available through Model Railroading Warehouse (aka Red Ball). As for other 10' IH PS-1s, I believe the old Roco/AHM car was this height, and it came with a 7' door. Early incarnations of these cars came with separate ladders, which makes upgrading easy. There was also a plug door version, which might save the problem of filling in holes from oversized door tracks. Both are fairly common at swap meets. Walthers, Model Power and Con-Cor offered knock-offs of the Roco tooling, and had the same height. Of course, any of these cars are crude by today's standards, but they do offer possibilities for kitbashing. Who had these things? The New Haven for sure, and IIRC the Mississippi Central (maybe riveted?). ACY and D&RGW apparently picked some up through leases. There must have been others. Now for some real fun, how about a riveted PS-1? Easy to do with Intermountain PS-1 parts on their 10' 6" AAR body or one of the old Front Range bodies. CNW had hundreds, plus ASARCO, CH-P, and I think at least one other road. Also the IC assembled their own with both 6' and 8' doors from Pullman-supplied kits. The ultimate flat kit, actually. I've done both a CNW and an IC, and they are among my favorite cars. Kind regards, Garth G. Groff mcindoefalls wrote:
I seem to have less gray matter RAM allocated to freight car info
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benjaminfrank_hom <b.hom@...>
Garth Groff wrote:
"As for other 10' IH PS-1s, I believe the old Roco/AHM car was this height, and it came with a 7' door." No, this is also a 10 ft 6 in IH car. In fact, every single one of the HO scale 40 ft PS-1s ever offered are 10 ft 6 in IH cars - Kurtz- Kraft/CCS, Roco/AHM/Model Power/Con-Cor/Walthers, McKean/Front Range, Accurail, Intermountain, and Kadee. Ben Hom
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Garth Groff <ggg9y@...>
Ben,
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I have to disagree. I'm pretty sure the AHM/Roco/Walthers cars I had (now all gone, so I can't measure then) were noticeably shorter than 10' 6". I know this was true of the plug door model I rebuilt with a 9' door as an L&C car, as it was quite annoying (and an important part of my freight car epiphany). As I recall, all these cars had the small wale at the top of the ends, so they were intended to represent a 10' 6" car, but that doesn't mean they were the right height. Perhaps the shortness was in the bolsters or underframe. If you have any of these in your collection, please whip out your scale rule and take some measurements, both over the body, and the full height with trucks (allowing for the overly thick running boards). I will be only too happy to be corrected if wrong. Kind regards, Garth G. Groff benjaminfrank_hom wrote:
Garth Groff wrote:
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rwitt_2000 <rmwitt@...>
Garth Groff wrote:
Ben,10' 6". If you have any of these in your collection, please whip out your scale rule and take some measurements, both over the body, and the full height with trucks (allowing for the overly thick running boards). I will be only too happy to be corrected if wrong. Garth you are correct. I cut one down once as an experiment (I still have it) only to find I now had a PS-1 box car with the height closer to the 1932 AAR standard box car. As for the old Kurtz-Kraft/ Cannon Ball Car Shops/ Red Ball PS-1 flat kit... yes, I agree that it would be easier to reduce the height of this flat kit than the others. However, upon closer examination one will notice that the side panel weld seams are located in different positions on the left and right side of the door opening. To get everything correct one would have to cut the sides into pieces and relocate the panels so all the panels were at the correct positions. This will only work if, as in my case, you are modeling ones with 8-ft doors as exhibited in the B&O Class M-67. The old flat kits have another advantage over the others in that one can more easily change the height of the ends to match the sides. Also note if modeling the B&O cars they had ZU overhanging roofs. Regards, Bob Witt
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Benjamin Hom <b.hom@...>
Garth Groff wrote:
"I have to disagree. I'm pretty sure the AHM/Roco/Walthers cars I had (now all gone, so I can't measure then) were noticeably shorter than 10' 6". I know this was true of the plug door model I rebuilt with a 9' door as an L&C car, as it was quite annoying (and an important part of my freight car epiphany). As I recall, all these cars had the small wale at the top of the ends, so they were intended to represent a 10' 6" car, but that doesn't mean they were the right height. Perhaps the shortness was in the bolsters or underframe. If you have any of these in your collection, please whip out your scale rule and take some measurements, both over the body, and the full height with trucks (allowing for the overly thick running boards). I will be only too happy to be corrected if wrong." You learn something new every day... The AHM PS-1 is definitely not a 10 ft 6 in IH car either. The model has post-1950s details for a 10 ft 6 in IH car, with stiffeners in the roof panels nearest the ends, the six small rectangles at the peak of the ends, and the narrow top rib on the ends; however, a side-by-side comparison reveals that it is noticeably shorter than the Kadee model, with a 3-4" difference in the height of the sides. I've uploaded at STMFPH side-by-side photos of the AHM model with the Kadee PS-1 and the IMWX 1937 AAR boxcar. I corrected the photos for, and added red lines to highlight the difference in height of the sides: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFPH/files/PS-1%20Model%20Comparison/ My apologies to Garth. This opens up new uses for these cars - the question is which is the lesser of two evils - cutting down the Kadee PS-1, or cleaning up the AHM model and redetailing. The latter is certainly more feasible with an early run AHM car with its separate ladders and the availability of Kadee parts. (The car in the photo is a later AHM Austrian run with molded-on ladders.) BTW Shawn, were you successful in hunting down those 7-panel Superior doors? Ben Hom
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rwitt_2000 <rmwitt@...>
"Benjamin Hom" wrote:
You learn something new every day...Ben, Those are great illustrations to show the differences. If you have the time you should do the same only compare the Athearn and the MDC 40-ft boxcars bodies to the Intermountain 10'-6" car and the various 1937 AAR standard boxcar bodies to help resolve the question about the exact height of those cars. I contend they are closer to 10'-0" IH cars than 10'-6" IH cars, or about the same height as the body of the PS-1 from AHM/ROCO/Con-Cor/Walthers/etc. Bob Witt
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Richard Dermody <ddermody@...>
As for other 10' IH PS-1s, I believe the old Roco/AHM car was thisGarth, You have it reversed. The original car(s) were tooled with cast-on ladders. They can be identified with the markings on the underframe which say "Made in Austria" and a logo in a square box with the letters "ahm" inside. The cars were later re-tooled (new molds) with separate ladders and bore the markings "Austria" and a diamond box with the letters "roco" inside. This applies to both the PS-1 (so identified in an AHM catalog of the era) and the plug door "reefer". While the "old" and "new" bodies appear superficially the same, a close examination of both shows they were produced with distinctly different tooling. I have examples of both cars in both versions if anyone wants more information. To the best of my knowledge, the Con-Cor cars were the Roco tooling and I believe the Walthers car was a revised version of the Roco tooling. Dick
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Doug Brown <brown194@...>
The B&O M-67 is a 1957 10'-0" car with the six small rectangles on the
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ends. Dec. The riveted (not welded) end has four ribs on the top and five on the bottom. 1982 MM has a photo of 470687. A strange mix of the old and the new. On the subject of PS-1's, I noticed that PS used eight foot crossbearer spacing on some seven foot door cars (e.g. RUTLAND 104, 8-54) and some six foot door cars (e.g. CIM 16021, 7-64), as can be seen from the side sill rivets on the photos in the same MM article. They also used nine foot crossbearer spacing on some eight foot door cars (e.g. CNW24739, 11-58). Doug Brown
-----Original Message-----
From: Benjamin Hom [mailto:b.hom@worldnet.att.net] Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 8:36 PM To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [STMFC] Re: 10'-0" PS-1's Garth Groff wrote: "I have to disagree. I'm pretty sure the AHM/Roco/Walthers cars I had (now all gone, so I can't measure then) were noticeably shorter than 10' 6". I know this was true of the plug door model I rebuilt with a 9' door as an L&C car, as it was quite annoying (and an important part of my freight car epiphany). As I recall, all these cars had the small wale at the top of the ends, so they were intended to represent a 10' 6" car, but that doesn't mean they were the right height. Perhaps the shortness was in the bolsters or underframe. If you have any of these in your collection, please whip out your scale rule and take some measurements, both over the body, and the full height with trucks (allowing for the overly thick running boards). I will be only too happy to be corrected if wrong." You learn something new every day... The AHM PS-1 is definitely not a 10 ft 6 in IH car either. The model has post-1950s details for a 10 ft 6 in IH car, with stiffeners in the roof panels nearest the ends, the six small rectangles at the peak of the ends, and the narrow top rib on the ends; however, a side-by-side comparison reveals that it is noticeably shorter than the Kadee model, with a 3-4" difference in the height of the sides. I've uploaded at STMFPH side-by-side photos of the AHM model with the Kadee PS-1 and the IMWX 1937 AAR boxcar. I corrected the photos for, and added red lines to highlight the difference in height of the sides: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFPH/files/PS-1%20Model%20Comparison/ My apologies to Garth. This opens up new uses for these cars - the question is which is the lesser of two evils - cutting down the Kadee PS-1, or cleaning up the AHM model and redetailing. The latter is certainly more feasible with an early run AHM car with its separate ladders and the availability of Kadee parts. (The car in the photo is a later AHM Austrian run with molded-on ladders.) BTW Shawn, were you successful in hunting down those 7-panel Superior doors? Ben Hom
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Doug Brown <brown194@...>
The ends are the same height.Sorry, no photos. The top of the side to
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the top of the tabbed sill measures 10 feet. Doug Brown
-----Original Message-----
From: rwitt_2000 [mailto:rmwitt@indy.rr.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 8:48 PM To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com Subject: [STMFC] Re: 10'-0" PS-1's "Benjamin Hom" wrote: You learn something new every day...Ben, Those are great illustrations to show the differences. If you have the time you should do the same only compare the Athearn and the MDC 40-ft boxcars bodies to the Intermountain 10'-6" car and the various 1937 AAR standard boxcar bodies to help resolve the question about the exact height of those cars. I contend they are closer to 10'-0" IH cars than 10'-6" IH cars, or about the same height as the body of the PS-1 from AHM/ROCO/Con-Cor/Walthers/etc. Bob Witt Yahoo! Groups Links
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Shawn Beckert
Ben asked:
BTW Shawn, were you successful in hunting down those 7-panel Superior doors? Not yet. I haven't had a chance to try the phone number for Dan Hall that Paul Gehrett gave me the other day; it's been a bit hectic here at work. Rest assured that I will; Dan makes (or did make) a lot of different styles of Superior doors, including some that were used by the Cotton Belt. Shawn Beckert
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Doug Brown <brown194@...>
I compared an Athearn body shell with a Blueprint 40' boxcar shell. The
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Athearn is about six inches shorter, measured with the bottom of the end as a baseline to eliminate differences in riding height. In the IMWX vs. AHM PS-1 photo, the AHM car is riding higher above the rails, making it look higher than it is. If this is so, why have we been calling the Athearn car a 10'-6" boxcar? Does this mean it really represents most of the square corner '37 cars, not just three? Doug Brown
-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Brown [mailto:brown194@tc.umn.edu] Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 11:10 PM To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [STMFC] Re: 10'-0" PS-1's The ends are the same height. Sorry, no photos. The top of the side to the top of the tabbed sill measures 10 feet. Doug Brown -----Original Message----- From: rwitt_2000 [mailto:rmwitt@indy.rr.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 8:48 PM To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com Subject: [STMFC] Re: 10'-0" PS-1's "Benjamin Hom" wrote: You learn something new every day...Ben, Those are great illustrations to show the differences. If you have the time you should do the same only compare the Athearn and the MDC 40-ft boxcars bodies to the Intermountain 10'-6" car and the various 1937 AAR standard boxcar bodies to help resolve the question about the exact height of those cars. I contend they are closer to 10'-0" IH cars than 10'-6" IH cars, or about the same height as the body of the PS-1 from AHM/ROCO/Con-Cor/Walthers/etc. Bob Witt Yahoo! Groups Links Yahoo! Groups Links
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buchwaldfam <duff@...>
Very enlightening photos. However, if the AHM car is 10 feet tall,
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then the ends aren't accurate. They still have the thin dart above 4, then 5 full size wales. A photo I have of a New Haven 10' IH PS-1 shows that they still had the 4/5 ends, but the top edge of the end wasn't present. It looks likd Pullman just chopped 6", including the thin dart, off of the top of the ends. Since the AHM car still has the thin dart, the full size wales are then too small. If you sand off the thin dart, there will be too much flat area at the top. I'd suggest getting some separate Intermountain PS-1 ends, and replace the existing ends, if you are going to use an AHM car. Rather than try to clean up the door tracks and ladder/grabs on an AHM model, it may be easier to "pull a '32 ARA bash" on an IM car; glue the roof on, then scribe a line below the top-horizontal weld line (between the vertical side panels and the thin, top horizontal strip just below the roof ). Then sand down the remaining sides to remove the 6" of excess height. The roof will hold the thin horizontal strips in the right location and keep them steady while you sand a little on their lower edge to clean them up. Then when you glue the top back on, the strips will be at the correct width to line up with the reworked sides. Since the cut is at a weld line, nothing should need to be done with the seam. Since the ends only need to be reworked at the top, where the surface is flat, they can be filled in with some flat Evergreen (since they probably got messed up a bit when the sides were reworked). Alternatively, the encs could be removed altogether, and replaced with some separate IM ends (I think they are from the IM 50' PS-1) that have been shortened. Finally, you'd have to scrape off the stiffening dents on the end roof panels. Now, I haven't tried this yet, but that's basically what I did to make a Clinchfield '32 ARA car out of an IMWX '37 car. (Yup, the body's a little too wide, but what the hey!) Regards, Phil Buchwald
--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Benjamin Hom" <b.hom@w...> wrote:
I've uploaded at STMFPH side-by-side photos of the AHM model with the Kadee PS-1 and the IMWX 1937 AARboxcar. I corrected the photos for, and added red lines to highlight thedifference in height of the sides:lesser of two evils - cutting down the Kadee PS-1, or cleaning up the AHMmodel and redetailing. The latter is certainly more feasible with an earlyrun AHM car with its separate ladders and the availability of Kadee parts.(The car in the photo is a later AHM Austrian run with molded-on ladders.)Superior doors?
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