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  2. likeability bias in model freight car selection

likeability bias in model freight car selection

rashputin1 <rashputin@...>
 

--- In STMFC@..., "rwitt_2000" <rwitt_2000@...> wrote:


Jerry Glow wrote:

IMHO you need to study your interchange partners and patterns. It is
less likely that a nearby road's cars would be on yours than a distant
one. Not impossible but to me, less likely. Of course we all are PRR
modelers regardless of what we call our railroad <G> but in my case
that
is VERY true as PRR interchanged with my modeled MP mainly in St Louis
and many cars were subject of Dick Kulbs (and others') photos in
Texas.

I agree with Jerry although I would add that its the customers that
determine the freight car traffic patterns.

In each area industries determine the shipping patterns. As a counter
to
Jerry's assumption that interchange is more likely with "distant"
railroads I provide the following example. In Madison Wisconsin, the
Milwaukee Road served the University heating plant, but the coal
contract was with mines in southern Illinois. So the coal came via the
Illinois Central usually in their hoppers. The IC interchanged with
the
Milwaukee Road. The MILW took the hoppers, spotted them at the
unloading
facility in the coal storage yard for the heating plant. They were
unloaded and returned empty to the IC. All this activity occurred
within
an area of one square city block.

Bob Witt


I started out planning to use the mix Bruce Chubb recommended in
hisbook, "How to Operate your model railroad", then modifying it to
reflect large shippers and industries in the area I'm modeling. I have
managed to stick pretty close to it now that I've been buying the cars I
need. It's an interesting article but the basic premise is
straightforward. Based on talking yardmasters,Jim Hediger found that
the consensus was the following:


Home Road 50%
Primary Connections 25%
Secondary Connections 15%
Others roads and private owners 10%



Box Cars 43%
Flat Cars 4%
Stock Cars 3%
Gondola 12%
Hopper 32%
Covered Hopper 2%
Tank 1%
Refrigerator 3%


(the above car types are the result of averaging the six railroads
usedas examples in the article)


I got the majority of my fleet (about 2/3 of the cars I planned for)
based on the above ratios, then got the balance based on the large
shippers and receivers I plan along with the major connections involved
in serving them. I have a "thing" for short Covered Hoppers so
it was sometimes tough to stick to the plan, but I just remembered that
I had the other third of the fleet to plan another way and was able to
stick with it. Once I started adding hoppers, I ended up with closer to
50% of my roster based on the above and 50% based on the large
industries I serve.


I weather by taking one car of the appropriate type for each of the
online and modeled industries on my layout, then weathering that car as
I think it would be if that were the only shipper/recipient the car ever
serviced. I repeat that with a second and sometimes a third car for
that industry, each with a different roadname. From that pair or trio
per industry, I go to groups of three or five cars of a type and weather
each group based on one ofsix route profiles I made up that vary in
degrees of "grubby". That leaves the cars that always pass through such
as coal drags and reefer expresses, etc. I weather those blocks of cars
based on what their real world route would have been, then looking over
the route to determine what level of grubby seems appropriate. Things
from the Southwest have a whole different set of weathering colors and
degree of weathering than do cars from industrial areas in the East or
Midwest, for example.


This ended up with a lot of cars with the same road name but very
different weathering and blocks of cars that look like they all went
through the same type ofweathering. My reefers are something of an
exception since I figure they're washed or repainted a good bit more
often than other cars. I based that on what I recall as a child when
there was never a problem telling if a white reefer was white, grey, or
some off white color which means they were washed or painted often. The
same is true of PFE cars I have although they're usually in blocks of
the same degree of weathering, some blocks very clean, some mildly
grubby. (I finally got a couple of books on reefers, and the approach I
was using seems fine based on what the real world reefer companies were
doing back then.) One thing, though, I found that weathering all the
trucks at least moderately, no matter what degree of weathering the car
has, seemed to make everything look better when a train rolls past or
when the cars are among many others in a yard. Setting large groups of
cars out in a temporary yard (rows of straight track on a 4x6) the mix
looks pretty realistic to me. I know the times are a lot different, but
the local Southern yard has pretty much the same look inspite of there
being much different car types.



I think using some basic formula is the best way to start, but not
really the way to build your entire fleet. You may want to do 50% of
your cars to a formula rather than two-thirds if you have some special
types of cars you really like, but you'd still have a large percentage
of your fleet looking like what was found to be areasonable mix based on
interviewing folks in the real world.





Regards,

Robert Hume
Scott Pitzer
 

--- In STMFC@..., "Gatwood, Elden J SAD " <elden.j.gatwood@...> wrote:
B&O was the same! Dull but still bright Red fading to pink early classes
(M-26 & M-27 classes), to browner C&O-influenced recent rebuilds,
----------------------------------------------------
I think Elden momentarily forgot the 1960 cut-off date of this list when referring to C&O influence on B&O's car fleet. That started (just) a few years later.
Scott Pitzer
Gatwood, Elden J SAD
 

Jim;

To follow up, on "Simple, grubby, common, random, no apparent purpose, bad
boys..... ", probably a pretty good description, but not 100% grubby, in
fact. If you look through color yard shots, and the body of Paul Winters
photos, you see certain themes:

1) randomness and sometime groupings; common and then some rare ones;
2) lots of rust, some good, fading, but obviously weathering; a few in new
paint, or newly-rebuilt;
3) whatever is there is strongly representative of where and when. 30th
Street on the Mon had mostly PRR gons, and then gons in general, Shire Oaks
mostly PRR hoppers, lots of P&LE because of Monongahela Rwy interchanging,
28th Street (Strip) - produce reefers, etc.
4) Many different variations of "Freight Car Color", but class dependent

B&O was the same! Dull but still bright Red fading to pink early classes
(M-26 & M-27 classes), to browner C&O-influenced recent rebuilds, really
rusty to pretty new black hoppers, nice grey to filthy grey covered hoppers,
horrendous (particuclarly O-27 classes) to brand-new gons.

Frankly, the most difficult part of this, I think, is the weathering. You
can't just spray on a coat of Grimy Black and call it "steam-era"-suitable
weathering. EVERY car had a different life, and it showed! This is now, by
far, the most time-consuming, and thought-provoking segment of my hobby.

Elden Gatwood

-----Original Message-----
From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of
jim_mischke
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 3:16 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Re: likeability bias in model freight car selection





Maybe its a growing orderliness I see in my HO scale fleet that is
uncomfortable. Like a home flower garden. Each car has a purpose. And I like
every single car.

There is an underlying orderliness to real railroading too, it's just that I
rarely glimpse all the themes in a real railroad yard. I am never privy to
the waybills and wheel reports in real time. If I do see wheel reports, it is
some deep research from a surviving wheel report in a 1950's era where I
hadn;t been born yet. I was not there.

So my experience with real railroad yards (grubby, seemingly random, some
very ugly cars, full of surprises) is different than my own model rairoad
yard (much cleaner, purposeful, fabulous cars everywhere, no surprises).

Maybe I should swamp my railroad theme with PRR cars. Simple, grubby, common,
random, no apparent purpose, bad boys..... :)

--- In STMFC@... <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com> , "sparachuk"
<sparachuk@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@... <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com> , James
Mischke <jmischke@> wrote:
James: I am in accord with what you are doing. It's too bad you feel
there's something wrong with it, though. I like the idea of walking around my
HO scale yard going "Oh, look! A B&O wagontop!" "Wow! An X-23!" "A CPR
mini-box!" I can't see them anymore in real life so I can at least see them
at home. Of course if you want to get some cars you hate I suppose that's up
to you. But you'd probably love them, too.

Stephan Parachuk
Toronto



We've discussed how to achieve a fleet look, a pseudo random feel
for freight trains on our model railroads in many different ways on
this steam era list.


.... I have discovered a bias in my stash. I like everything.
It is not acquired if I do not like it.
SUVCWORR@...
 

Initially I used the random number generator in Excel and assigned a unique number to each car.?? Using the built-in parameters and playing with the numbers, I was eventually able to make it work.? Since then I have ?moved to Ship It.

Rich Orr

-----Original Message-----
From: destron@...
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Wed, Jun 3, 2009 7:41 pm
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: likeability bias in model freight car selection



Where might one find such a randomness generator?

Frank Valoczy
Vancouver, BC

SUVCWORR@... wrote:

Jim,



Perhaps as discussed on this list previously, you need to expand your
fleet beyond the cars that are needed to serve your industries on a
regular basis.? Add those cars that will only show up every 4 or 5
operating sessions and then those that will show up once or twice a year.?
Using a random selector program for these "special" cars will usually
result in one or two of them each operating session and to some extent
remove that sameness with each session.



Rich Orr


-----Original Message-----
From: jim_mischke <jmischke@...>
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 2:15 pm
Subject: [STMFC] Re: likeability bias in model freight car selection






Maybe its a growing orderliness I see in my HO scale fleet that is
uncomfortable. Like a home flower garden. Each car has a purpose. And I
like
every single car.

There is an underlying orderliness to real railroading too, it's just that
I
rarely glimpse all the themes in a real railroad yard. I am never privy
to the
waybills and wheel reports in real time. If I do see wheel reports, it
is some
deep research from a surviving wheel report in a 1950's era where I hadn;t
been
born yet. I was not there.

So my experience with real railroad yards (grubby, seemingly random, some
very
ugly cars, full of surprises) is different than my own model rairoad yard
(much
cleaner, purposeful, fabulous cars everywhere, no surprises).

Maybe I should swamp my railroad theme with PRR cars. Simple, grubby,
common,
random, no apparent purpose, bad boys..... :)



--- In STMFC@..., "sparachuk" <sparachuk@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., James Mischke <jmischke@> wrote:
James: I am in accord with what you are doing. It's too bad you feel
there's
something wrong with it, though. I like the idea of walking around my HO
scale
yard going "Oh, look! A B&O wagontop!" "Wow! An X-23!" "A CPR mini-box!" I
can't
see them anymore in real life so I can at least see them at home. Of
course if
you want to get some cars you hate I suppose that's up to you. But you'd
probably love them, too.

Stephan Parachuk
Toronto



We've discussed how to achieve a fleet look, a pseudo random
feel for freight trains on our model railroads in many different
ways on this steam era list.


.... I have discovered a bias in my stash. I like everything.
It is not acquired if I do not like it.



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Doug Rhodes
 

Hello Frank

There is a random number generator function in Excel. Have a look at the help screens for it, where some of the examples will apply to this problem.

Send me an email off-list if you'd like some help setting it up.

Doug Rhodes

----- Original Message -----
From: destron@...
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 5:41 PM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: likeability bias in model freight car selection





Where might one find such a randomness generator?

Frank Valoczy
Vancouver, BC

SUVCWORR@... wrote:
>
> Jim,
>
>
>
> Perhaps as discussed on this list previously, you need to expand your
> fleet beyond the cars that are needed to serve your industries on a
> regular basis.? Add those cars that will only show up every 4 or 5
> operating sessions and then those that will show up once or twice a year.?
> Using a random selector program for these "special" cars will usually
> result in one or two of them each operating session and to some extent
> remove that sameness with each session.
>
>
>
> Rich Orr
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jim_mischke <jmischke@...>
> To: STMFC@...
> Sent: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 2:15 pm
> Subject: [STMFC] Re: likeability bias in model freight car selection
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Maybe its a growing orderliness I see in my HO scale fleet that is
> uncomfortable. Like a home flower garden. Each car has a purpose. And I
> like
> every single car.
>
> There is an underlying orderliness to real railroading too, it's just that
> I
> rarely glimpse all the themes in a real railroad yard. I am never privy
> to the
> waybills and wheel reports in real time. If I do see wheel reports, it
> is some
> deep research from a surviving wheel report in a 1950's era where I hadn;t
> been
> born yet. I was not there.
>
> So my experience with real railroad yards (grubby, seemingly random, some
> very
> ugly cars, full of surprises) is different than my own model rairoad yard
> (much
> cleaner, purposeful, fabulous cars everywhere, no surprises).
>
> Maybe I should swamp my railroad theme with PRR cars. Simple, grubby,
> common,
> random, no apparent purpose, bad boys..... :)
>
>
>
> --- In STMFC@..., "sparachuk" <sparachuk@...> wrote:
>>
>> --- In STMFC@..., James Mischke <jmischke@> wrote:
>> >
>> James: I am in accord with what you are doing. It's too bad you feel
>> there's
> something wrong with it, though. I like the idea of walking around my HO
> scale
> yard going "Oh, look! A B&O wagontop!" "Wow! An X-23!" "A CPR mini-box!" I
> can't
> see them anymore in real life so I can at least see them at home. Of
> course if
> you want to get some cars you hate I suppose that's up to you. But you'd
> probably love them, too.
>>
>> Stephan Parachuk
>> Toronto
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > We've discussed how to achieve a fleet look, a pseudo random
>> > feel for freight trains on our model railroads in many different
>> > ways on this steam era list.
>> >
>> >
>> > .... I have discovered a bias in my stash. I like everything.
>> > It is not acquired if I do not like it.
>> >
>>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> (Yahoo! ID required)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
> !DSPAM:1291,4a27159b25631598212402!
>
Tim O'Connor
 

I like all freight cars, but I especially like to have several
versions of the same car that were around at the same time --
like a weathered original car, a repaint, and maybe a rebuild.
To me that conveys more than anything how dynamic the business
was, and it conveys a sense of the passage of time -- not just
a snapshot of a single moment. This is especially fun as a late
50's - early 60's SP modeler, since SP began renumbering and
repainting lots of cars after 1955, and acquired the T&NO in
the early 60's. So there was just a huge mish-mosh of cars,
reporting marks, and numbers belonging to just one railroad.

Tim O'Connor

At 6/3/2009 10:21 PM Wednesday, you wrote:
There's a lot to be said for having one of everything as far as freight cars go. For me, the uglier the car, it seems the more likely I am to have it. (An HO F&C Lehigh Valley "wrong-way" boxcar comes to mind when mentioning ugly cars--I've yet to decal it over a year after building it. Yet a logbook out of the elevator that provided much of the traffic on my line show at least one of these cars loaded with grain.)

Keep in mind that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". And if you model a proto-freelanced road, you can even have the STMFC equivalent of unicorns and griffins carrying your own line's reporting marks! :)

Steve Lucas.
Jim Betz
 

James,

===> You are -not- alone! Welcome to the club.

Reading between the lines what I think you are saying is that you
are concerned that your selection process will end up with "not enough
variety" ... due to the fact that everything you buy is something that
"strikes your fancy" - for one reason or another. And you are concerned
that you may end up with a fleet of freight cars that all fit the
premise of "eye candy" (to your eye) ... but don't necessarily represent
an "appropriate" mix/variety for your layout.

The first question you need to answer is "what is -appropriate- ... and
who gets to decide the answer?". (Hopefully you will answer that with an
enthusiastic "I do!".)

Then you need to ask yourself "what are -my- goals for this layout
(collection of freight cars)?". When you have those 'answers' then
you can assess your current freight car fleet and answer the question
"do these fit my goals?".

And then you can decide if you need to "adjust" your freight car fleet ...
or revisit the question of "what are -my- goals?"

Many have stated on this group (and others) that having "a 'correct'
mix of freight cars ... that are appropriate to the era(s?) and RR(s?)
being modelled" ... is important. I agree with that ... sort of. I'd
agree a lot more readily if that is changed to "having a freight car
fleet that doesn't scream 'this is far too biased in ____ direction to
be believable for the era(s?) and RR(s?) that are being represented'
is what is important."
What I'm saying is that it is a -lot- more important (to me) that
the fleet not show a huge 'wrong' bias ... than that it represent some
'perfect' mix. After all - the perfect mix 'changed every day' ...
Having stated all of those wiggle words ... I certainly ascribe to
the idea that the closer you are to the 'perfect' mix the more
realistic your layout will look. Well, actually maybe not. I know
what makes a layout seem 'wrong' and I know when they seem 'right'.
I guess I'm a kind of "I don't know nothing about Model Railroading -
but I know what I like" kind of guy. *G*

In fact, I believe that it was the experience of going to layouts where
"almost all the cars were Pennsy (whatever RR you want to fill in)" that
prompted the entire dialogue about "what was the freight car mix in the
year ____" thing/research.
I'm not saying that the research is wrong. I'm not even saying that if
you decide that the mix shown in the research is what you want to do that
you are wrong/misguided. I -am- saying that "as long as your freight car
fleet doesn't show some -huge- bias that makes the visitor take notice of
stuff such as "boy, there sure are a lot of ____ RR cars here" and then
to say "seems like too many to me" ... that you've achieved most/all of
the goals of doing/using the research on what the mix was on a particular RR
in or on a particular era/decade/year/season/month/day. (So far I don't
know of any one who has taken it more specific than that ... so far?)

If your layout is targetted to the Yosemite Valley in the month of August
of 1939 (sorry Jack - I just -had- to use your layout as an example ... too
many people have pointed to you and said stuff like "there goes the father
of the recent movement towards prototypical model railroading") ... then you
have a very specific/narrow focus and you need to pay a lot of attention to
the 'appropriateness' of your freight cars. If your layout is "somewhere on
the SCL and sometime in the transition era" then you have a much broader
brush to wield.
And let's not forget to mention the guys who have changed their
layout to represent something other than what they had at the time! I
know some guys who have gone -much- more prototypical accurate ... and
others who have decided to go just the opposite.
Hey, I'm even willing to guess that Jack's YV even has a car or
two on it that Jack admits is 'questionable'. But I think he'll probably
add that the real reason for the question mark is due to the lack of
available data/info and so he had to wing it on those cars. There's
nothing wrong with that. Absolutely nothing. And when I visit Jack's
layout I instantly get a feeling of its "rightness".
What I -do- hear guys saying is stuff like ... "just because you are
modelling the NP in 1948 doesn't mean that it looks 'right' when 90% of
the freight cars on the layout are NP". And, even more commonly, the
"geez, that layout really ran great ... but I was kind of 'shocked' to
see an ice reefer train pulled by a steamer meeting a stack train with
a pair of GEVOs on the point."

The choices are yours - and you can change them.

Isn't this a -wonderful- hobby!!!

For myself ... I started out with one RR (the GN), then I decided to
expand that to 5 RRs (the BN and its 4 primary predecessors), then I cut
it back to just the GN, then I added in two other "secondary interests"
(the SP&S and the DM&IR). My primary era interest has remained 'in the
transition era' thruout ... but that hasn't stopped me from breaking that
'rule' ... just about any time I wanted to. And enough so that I could
pretty easily 'populate' a layout with one era today and a different era
tomorrow ... such as the SP&S in 1948 one day and the GN in 1968 the next.
I'm currently trying, rather UN-successfully to be honest, to cut back on
my 'collection' (the hobby-shop-in-the-closet syndrome) and to get more
"focused" on my core interests. I'm making a little progress on that -
but hey, that new release of the 'blank gons' is just too nice to pass up!

I remain ... weak-willed in San Jose ... Jim

P.S. It's nice to know there are others out there like me! *VBG*
Steve Lucas <stevelucas3@...>
 

There's a lot to be said for having one of everything as far as freight cars go. For me, the uglier the car, it seems the more likely I am to have it. (An HO F&C Lehigh Valley "wrong-way" boxcar comes to mind when mentioning ugly cars--I've yet to decal it over a year after building it. Yet a logbook out of the elevator that provided much of the traffic on my line show at least one of these cars loaded with grain.)

Keep in mind that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". And if you model a proto-freelanced road, you can even have the STMFC equivalent of unicorns and griffins carrying your own line's reporting marks! :)

Steve Lucas.

--- In STMFC@..., "jerryglow2" <jerryglow@...> wrote:

Not to discredit your approach but I've never been a "one of everything" modeler (or as I phrased it Noah's Arc divided by 2). I prefer more commonly seen items and absolutely love "the same but different" ie two similiar cars with minor detail variations.

Jerry Glow

--- In STMFC@..., Frederick Freitas <prrinvt@> wrote:

Jim, Jerry, list,

                    My study of my modeling area, the PRR panhandle Divn in
th Ohio River environment has shown that the most numerous interchange
cars from nearby roads were hoppers for coal loading. Granted, this is a
muliple steel mill location, so you almost expect it.
         The rest of the traffic is from across the states. There's eastern cars,
such as NH, B&M, B&A going west /south west; and every roadname
west of St Louis heading east. My bigest challenge currently is finding
info abouot the FGE icing facilities in Wheeling and Benwwod, WV. I
may have to invest in more FGEX reefers to balance the fleet.
         I whole heartedly agree with Tony, if you like it, then add it to
your fleet. Just about one of everything went through a given point
at sometime. I just had photo of a helium car show up on my modeled
section of the PRR; so I'm off to fiind one of them for upgrading.

Fred Freitas
destron@...
 

Where might one find such a randomness generator?

Frank Valoczy
Vancouver, BC

SUVCWORR@... wrote:


Jim,



Perhaps as discussed on this list previously, you need to expand your
fleet beyond the cars that are needed to serve your industries on a
regular basis.? Add those cars that will only show up every 4 or 5
operating sessions and then those that will show up once or twice a year.?
Using a random selector program for these "special" cars will usually
result in one or two of them each operating session and to some extent
remove that sameness with each session.



Rich Orr


-----Original Message-----
From: jim_mischke <jmischke@...>
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 2:15 pm
Subject: [STMFC] Re: likeability bias in model freight car selection






Maybe its a growing orderliness I see in my HO scale fleet that is
uncomfortable. Like a home flower garden. Each car has a purpose. And I
like
every single car.

There is an underlying orderliness to real railroading too, it's just that
I
rarely glimpse all the themes in a real railroad yard. I am never privy
to the
waybills and wheel reports in real time. If I do see wheel reports, it
is some
deep research from a surviving wheel report in a 1950's era where I hadn;t
been
born yet. I was not there.

So my experience with real railroad yards (grubby, seemingly random, some
very
ugly cars, full of surprises) is different than my own model rairoad yard
(much
cleaner, purposeful, fabulous cars everywhere, no surprises).

Maybe I should swamp my railroad theme with PRR cars. Simple, grubby,
common,
random, no apparent purpose, bad boys..... :)



--- In STMFC@..., "sparachuk" <sparachuk@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., James Mischke <jmischke@> wrote:
James: I am in accord with what you are doing. It's too bad you feel
there's
something wrong with it, though. I like the idea of walking around my HO
scale
yard going "Oh, look! A B&O wagontop!" "Wow! An X-23!" "A CPR mini-box!" I
can't
see them anymore in real life so I can at least see them at home. Of
course if
you want to get some cars you hate I suppose that's up to you. But you'd
probably love them, too.

Stephan Parachuk
Toronto



We've discussed how to achieve a fleet look, a pseudo random
feel for freight trains on our model railroads in many different
ways on this steam era list.


.... I have discovered a bias in my stash. I like everything.
It is not acquired if I do not like it.



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Yahoo! Groups Links

(Yahoo! ID required)









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!DSPAM:1291,4a27159b25631598212402!
SUVCWORR@...
 

Jim,



Perhaps as discussed on this list previously, you need to expand your fleet beyond the cars that are needed to serve your industries on a regular basis.? Add those cars that will only show up every 4 or 5 operating sessions and then those that will show up once or twice a year.? Using a random selector program for these "special" cars will usually result in one or two of them each operating session and to some extent remove that sameness with each session.



Rich Orr

-----Original Message-----
From: jim_mischke <jmischke@...>
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 2:15 pm
Subject: [STMFC] Re: likeability bias in model freight car selection






Maybe its a growing orderliness I see in my HO scale fleet that is
uncomfortable. Like a home flower garden. Each car has a purpose. And I like
every single car.

There is an underlying orderliness to real railroading too, it's just that I
rarely glimpse all the themes in a real railroad yard. I am never privy to the
waybills and wheel reports in real time. If I do see wheel reports, it is some
deep research from a surviving wheel report in a 1950's era where I hadn;t been
born yet. I was not there.

So my experience with real railroad yards (grubby, seemingly random, some very
ugly cars, full of surprises) is different than my own model rairoad yard (much
cleaner, purposeful, fabulous cars everywhere, no surprises).

Maybe I should swamp my railroad theme with PRR cars. Simple, grubby, common,
random, no apparent purpose, bad boys..... :)



--- In STMFC@..., "sparachuk" <sparachuk@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., James Mischke <jmischke@> wrote:
James: I am in accord with what you are doing. It's too bad you feel there's
something wrong with it, though. I like the idea of walking around my HO scale
yard going "Oh, look! A B&O wagontop!" "Wow! An X-23!" "A CPR mini-box!" I can't
see them anymore in real life so I can at least see them at home. Of course if
you want to get some cars you hate I suppose that's up to you. But you'd
probably love them, too.

Stephan Parachuk
Toronto



We've discussed how to achieve a fleet look, a pseudo random
feel for freight trains on our model railroads in many different
ways on this steam era list.


.... I have discovered a bias in my stash. I like everything.
It is not acquired if I do not like it.



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

(Yahoo! ID required)
Schuyler Larrabee
 

-----Original Message-----
From: James Mischke
I've noticed something about my growing freight car fleet.
Although I have researched appropriate B&O freight cars in
detail, found foreign freight cars and prototype ladings for my
B&O Pittsburgh theme, strove to keep lettering schemes simple
(freight cars became loud in the 1960's but not much before),
and found appropriate mixes of freight car types .....

.... I have discovered a bias in my stash. I like everything.
It is not acquired if I do not like it. For all practical
purposes, I am gardening. So my yard and trains have this
Better Homes and Gardens feel to them, a cultivated look, not
the grubby randomness of real yards. No surprises. No weeds.
No bad boys. Everything has a documented purpose, yet things
seem too orderly.

Jim, if it will help you feel better about this, I am >>certain<< that this list can help you out by
specifying a collection of Truly Uglee Cars you will be >>required<< to obtain. It would be best if
they are hard to come by so you would have to scratch-build them, so you would come to appreciate
their ugliness all the more. If it were not, I believe, era-inappropriate for you, I'd personally
nominate the box-on-flat-car sulphur cars used in Florida. As Tim said, membership in a club (even
a good one) can expose you to things you'd rather not have seen . . . .

SGL





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jerryglow2
 

Not to discredit your approach but I've never been a "one of everything" modeler (or as I phrased it Noah's Arc divided by 2). I prefer more commonly seen items and absolutely love "the same but different" ie two similiar cars with minor detail variations.

Jerry Glow

--- In STMFC@..., Frederick Freitas <prrinvt@...> wrote:

Jim, Jerry, list,

                    My study of my modeling area, the PRR panhandle Divn in
th Ohio River environment has shown that the most numerous interchange
cars from nearby roads were hoppers for coal loading. Granted, this is a
muliple steel mill location, so you almost expect it.
         The rest of the traffic is from across the states. There's eastern cars,
such as NH, B&M, B&A going west /south west; and every roadname
west of St Louis heading east. My bigest challenge currently is finding
info abouot the FGE icing facilities in Wheeling and Benwwod, WV. I
may have to invest in more FGEX reefers to balance the fleet.
         I whole heartedly agree with Tony, if you like it, then add it to
your fleet. Just about one of everything went through a given point
at sometime. I just had photo of a helium car show up on my modeled
section of the PRR; so I'm off to fiind one of them for upgrading.

Fred Freitas
sparachuk <sparachuk@...>
 

-
You can't have it all ways Jim. If you want disorder, join a club!

Tim
Tim: Best answer so far!

Stephan Parachuk
Toronto
Tim O'Connor
 

Maybe its a growing orderliness I see in my HO scale fleet that is uncomfortable. Like a home flower garden. Each car has a purpose. And I like every single car.

There is an underlying orderliness to real railroading too, it's just that I rarely glimpse all the themes in a real railroad yard. I am never privy to the waybills and wheel reports in real time. If I do see wheel reports, it is some deep research from a surviving wheel report in a 1950's era where I hadn;t been born yet. I was not there.

So my experience with real railroad yards (grubby, seemingly random, some very ugly cars, full of surprises) is different than my own model rairoad yard (much cleaner, purposeful, fabulous cars everywhere, no surprises).

Maybe I should swamp my railroad theme with PRR cars. Simple, grubby, common, random, no apparent purpose, bad boys..... :)

You can't have it all ways Jim. If you want disorder, join a club!

Tim
Frederick Freitas <prrinvt@...>
 

Jim, Jerry, list,

                    My study of my modeling area, the PRR panhandle Divn in
th Ohio River environment has shown that the most numerous interchange
cars from nearby roads were hoppers for coal loading. Granted, this is a
muliple steel mill location, so you almost expect it.
         The rest of the traffic is from across the states. There's eastern cars,
such as NH, B&M, B&A going west /south west; and every roadname
west of St Louis heading east. My bigest challenge currently is finding
info abouot the FGE icing facilities in Wheeling and Benwwod, WV. I
may have to invest in more FGEX reefers to balance the fleet.
         I whole heartedly agree with Tony, if you like it, then add it to
your fleet. Just about one of everything went through a given point
at sometime. I just had photo of a helium car show up on my modeled
section of the PRR; so I'm off to fiind one of them for upgrading.

Fred Freitas



________________________________
From: jerryglow2 <jerryglow@...>
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Wednesday, June 3, 2009 8:33:35 AM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: likeability bias in model freight car selection





IMHO you need to study your interchange partners and patterns. It is less likely that a nearby road's cars would be on yours than a distant one. Not impossible but to me, less likely. Of course we all are PRR modelers regardless of what we call our railroad <G> but in my case that is VERY true as PRR interchanged with my modeled MP mainly in St Louis and many cars were subject of Dick Kulbs (and others') photos in Texas.

Jerry Glow

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups. com, James Mischke <jmischke@.. .> wrote:




We've discussed how to achieve a fleet look, a pseudo random
feel for freight trains on our model railroads in many different
ways on this steam era list.

I've noticed something about my growing freight car fleet.
Although I have researched appropriate B&O freight cars in
detail, found foreign freight cars and prototype ladings for my
B&O Pittsburgh theme, strove to keep lettering schemes simple
(freight cars became loud in the 1960's but not much before),
and found appropriate mixes of freight car types .....

.... I have discovered a bias in my stash. I like everything.
It is not acquired if I do not like it. For all practical
purposes, I am gardening. So my yard and trains have this
Better Homes and Gardens feel to them, a cultivated look, not
the grubby randomness of real yards. No surprises. No weeds.
No bad boys. Everything has a documented purpose, yet things
seem too orderly.

Example: I just got an Intermountain NKP covered hopper:
because NKP is a nearby connection, I wanted a detailed ACF
covered hopper for variety, and ... I liked it. The other five
road names were not good fits and I was indifferent to them.
This pattern repeats over and over. Especially now that freight
cars are routinely $35 each, I better like them!

I can get around this by swamping my foreign road favorite bias
with a sea of common B&O prototypes, I think. Yet I think there
is something amiss with my acquisitions approach.

Anybody else feel this way? I would invite some discussion on
this topic.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
jerryglow2
 

I just had a friend over today who belongs to but does not monitor the list very often. I showed him how the ORER has interchange roads for every road listed so it's an easy matter to pick some that make sense. On the other hand, certain cars "got around" and are distinctive in any fleet.

Jerry Glow

--- In STMFC@..., Andy Sperandeo <asperandeo@...> wrote:

"Likeability bias"? Is that so much of a problem? It seems that most of us here have never met a freight car we didn't like. - Andy

Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
Model Railroader magazine
asperandeo@...
262-796-8776, ext. 461
FAX 262-796-1142


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
rwitt_2000
 

Jerry Glow wrote:

IMHO you need to study your interchange partners and patterns. It is
less likely that a nearby road's cars would be on yours than a distant
one. Not impossible but to me, less likely. Of course we all are PRR
modelers regardless of what we call our railroad <G> but in my case that
is VERY true as PRR interchanged with my modeled MP mainly in St Louis
and many cars were subject of Dick Kulbs (and others') photos in Texas.

I agree with Jerry although I would add that its the customers that
determine the freight car traffic patterns.

In each area industries determine the shipping patterns. As a counter to
Jerry's assumption that interchange is more likely with "distant"
railroads I provide the following example. In Madison Wisconsin, the
Milwaukee Road served the University heating plant, but the coal
contract was with mines in southern Illinois. So the coal came via the
Illinois Central usually in their hoppers. The IC interchanged with the
Milwaukee Road. The MILW took the hoppers, spotted them at the unloading
facility in the coal storage yard for the heating plant. They were
unloaded and returned empty to the IC. All this activity occurred within
an area of one square city block.

Bob Witt
jim_mischke <jmischke@...>
 

Maybe its a growing orderliness I see in my HO scale fleet that is uncomfortable. Like a home flower garden. Each car has a purpose. And I like every single car.

There is an underlying orderliness to real railroading too, it's just that I rarely glimpse all the themes in a real railroad yard. I am never privy to the waybills and wheel reports in real time. If I do see wheel reports, it is some deep research from a surviving wheel report in a 1950's era where I hadn;t been born yet. I was not there.

So my experience with real railroad yards (grubby, seemingly random, some very ugly cars, full of surprises) is different than my own model rairoad yard (much cleaner, purposeful, fabulous cars everywhere, no surprises).

Maybe I should swamp my railroad theme with PRR cars. Simple, grubby, common, random, no apparent purpose, bad boys..... :)

--- In STMFC@..., "sparachuk" <sparachuk@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., James Mischke <jmischke@> wrote:
James: I am in accord with what you are doing. It's too bad you feel there's something wrong with it, though. I like the idea of walking around my HO scale yard going "Oh, look! A B&O wagontop!" "Wow! An X-23!" "A CPR mini-box!" I can't see them anymore in real life so I can at least see them at home. Of course if you want to get some cars you hate I suppose that's up to you. But you'd probably love them, too.

Stephan Parachuk
Toronto



We've discussed how to achieve a fleet look, a pseudo random
feel for freight trains on our model railroads in many different
ways on this steam era list.


.... I have discovered a bias in my stash. I like everything.
It is not acquired if I do not like it.
Andy Sperandeo <asperandeo@...>
 

"Likeability bias"? Is that so much of a problem? It seems that most of us here have never met a freight car we didn't like. - Andy

Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
Model Railroader magazine
asperandeo@...
262-796-8776, ext. 461
FAX 262-796-1142
sparachuk <sparachuk@...>
 

--- In STMFC@..., James Mischke <jmischke@...> wrote:
James: I am in accord with what you are doing. It's too bad you feel there's something wrong with it, though. I like the idea of walking around my HO scale yard going "Oh, look! A B&O wagontop!" "Wow! An X-23!" "A CPR mini-box!" I can't see them anymore in real life so I can at least see them at home. Of course if you want to get some cars you hate I suppose that's up to you. But you'd probably love them, too.

Stephan Parachuk
Toronto



We've discussed how to achieve a fleet look, a pseudo random
feel for freight trains on our model railroads in many different
ways on this steam era list.


.... I have discovered a bias in my stash. I like everything.
It is not acquired if I do not like it.
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