Does anyone have a pic or information on Sunshine's 70.10 MoP 49-51
company built, Beth, fishbelly gondola? I was unaware of it until
reading some old posts on new releases at Naperville.

Jerry Glow

Interesting, Ed. Do you have more information on these holes? Were
they equally spaced? How far in from the car end was the first hole?
Thankfully 1-1/6" is almost exactly a #80 drill bit in HO...

Tim O'Connor

Ed & Tim:



Do you mean holes (round) or slits (for steel banding)? I have seen a lot
of slits for steel banding in the top chord of gondolas on the SP, I have
also seen round holes that threaded rod would be inserted into with nuts on
the bottom for tying down loads. So either would be appropriate.



Paul C. Koehler



_____

From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of
timboconnor@...
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 9:07 AM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Sunshine MP gondola




Interesting, Ed. Do you have more information on these holes? Were
they equally spaced? How far in from the car end was the first hole?
Thankfully 1-1/6" is almost exactly a #80 drill bit in HO...

Tim O'Connor

On Friday, December 23, 2005, at 05:02 AM, jerryglow2 wrote:

Does anyone have a pic or information on Sunshine's 70.10 MoP 49-51
company built, Beth, fishbelly gondola?  I was unaware of it until
reading some old posts on new releases at Naperville.

Jerry,
While these cars are labeled as "Bethlehem" gondola cars, they were all
built by MoPac at DeSoto, Missouri. The MP cars are similar to cars
designed and built by Bethlehem Steel, however, the contour of the
fish-belly side sills were not quite the same. All cars had an inside
length of 52'-6" and came with steel floors and fixed Dreadnaught ends.
The prototype cars are as follows (build dates based on earliest
month-year documented by photograph):

MP 5200-5999, 800 cars built 1951
StLB&M 11100-11599, 500 cars built 5-49
StLB&M 11650-11899, 250 cars built 6-51
I-GN 12000-12499, 500 cars built 3-49
I-GN 12550-12799, 250 cars built 1951

Other nearly identical cars followed in the late 1950s and some of
these received covers for steel coil loading:
MP 21000-21899, 900 cars built 2-57
MP 25000-25499, 500 cars 1-58

I saw Martin for a few minutes earlier this week as he made a short
visit to the St. Louis area. He indicated that about a half dozen of
these MoPac gondola kits were taken to the recent train show in
Oklahoma City. The kit has a one-piece body that comprises the sides
and ends. A 3/4 view builder's photo of StLB&M 11721 is published in
the prototype data sheet provided in the kit.

The prototype cars had 30 lading strap anchors fastened to the exterior
of each side, however, there is no provision for these in the kit. Jack
Spencer's techniques for adding these were shown in RP CYC Volume 3 to
a Life-Like P2K gondola car. In addition, each car side had 26 1-1/6"
diameter holes along the top chord that were used for tying down loads.
The top chord of the model is solid, so these holes will require
drilling. The cars' interiors had no lading anchors.
Regards,
Ed Hawkins



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

Ed, thanks for the very detailed instructions. I did a quick search on
the web and found that a #83 drill is the size I'll need to make the
holes scale size. They may be close to invisible when painted, since
I think paint produces a .003 or greater thickness... Those staples
will require .006 wire! I guess the easiest way would be to make a
jig to fit between two ribs, to position the two staples at the correct
9-1/2" from the top chord.

Tim O'Connor

On Friday, December 23, 2005, at 09:06 AM, timboconnor@...
wrote:

Interesting, Ed. Do you have more information on these holes? Were
they equally spaced? How far in from the car end was the first hole?
Thankfully 1-1/6" is almost exactly a #80 drill bit in HO...

Tim,
The holes in the top chord were 1-1/16" diameter (typo: not 1-1/6" as I
previously stated). They were holes, not slots, and were not equally
spaced from end to end. The holes were positioned longitudinally in
pairs. Holes were 18" apart and each hole was located 9" from the
center line of each outside post. There were 13 outside posts per side,
thus a total of 26 holes per side. The 11 inboard posts were on 3'-7"
centers. The dimension from the outside post at each bolster to the
adjacent post was 3'-10". Thus, the 13 outside posts weren't all
equally spaced either. Laterally, the holes were equidistant from the
inside and outside of the top chord (identified as the top leg of the
bulb angle on the M.P. general arrangement drawing). Since the holes
were 1.0625" (.0122 in HO scale), the #80 bit is slightly too large,
but I'll probably use a #80 anyway.

I'm guessing what the next question will be, so I'm answering it now.
The same 9" center lines used for the holes in the top chord were also
used to locate each pair of the lading band anchors, also called
staples, mounted to the flat side sheets (a total of 26 per side). Each
staple was 3" x 3" and made from 1/2" rod bent at right angles ( |_| ),
except that the horizontal part of the staple was at the top (sorry, I
don't know how to draw this in the correct orientation in an email
message). The top horizontal part of the staple was positioned 9-1/2"
down from the top of the car side.

Four additional lading band anchors per side were installed in an
angular orientation, one each on the outboard side of the 2nd and 3rd
outside posts near each ends of the car. Refer to the photo on page 67
of RP CYC Volume 3 for a pictorial representation of how these are
positioned.
Regards,
Ed Hawkins