A.T. Kott wrote:

The last project I did drawings for involved brass models made in China. I provided scale drawings (not RR general arrangement drawings that are seldom to scale) with a few measurements on them . . .

I can't speak for many railroads' practice, but the SP, UP and PFE general arrangement drawings I have seen are most certainly scale drawings, as one can verify by checking details, and are quite carefully done. The good Mr. Vlk referred to them as "cartoons," and perhaps on some railroads that was true, but certainly not for the examples cited.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

I must echo Tony's comment.

All the general arrangement drawings I have seen were drawn to scale.

Is it possible that someone has confused 'general arrangement' drawings with what is typically called 'equipment diagrams,' those small (usually about 5" x 11") drawings collected together in a book given basic information about all the currently used freight cars for a particular railroad?

Gene Green

I for one has seen the gamut when it comes to drawings. My builder has work
from 1/4" scale drawings which I also have verify with the real prototype
cars.
We have also worked with RR general Arrangement drawings supported with a
whole host of other drawings including appliances. Photographs are also a
tremendous help.
Rich Yoder

At 02:35 AM 4/15/2011 +0000, you wrote:

All the general arrangement drawings I have seen were drawn to scale.

There's a rather famous one that is to scale but contains a famous error duplicated in many, many models. But it's off topic.

I've seen railroad GA drawings that were laughably out of scale. Lionelish. But perhaps those were:

Is it possible that someone has confused 'general arrangement' drawings with what is typically called 'equipment diagrams,' those small (usually about 5" x 11") drawings collected together in a book given basic information about all the currently used freight cars for a particular railroad?

The someone may have been a model manufacturer at one time or another :-)

Andy

Andy-
No confusion as Equipment Diagram Book Pages did not come up in the discussion and are a different aspect beyond the construction drawings we were talking about.
It has been correctly pointed out that General Arrangement drawings can vary widely in their degree of detail and accuracy.
I've seen older General Arrangement drawings which could be published as-is for presentation drawings in the model magazines; they have correct full rendering of all details and no or minimal hidden lines, and no partial sections... and include full lettering. Others are very crude and serve more as a visual map for drawing number references.
Equipment Diagram Book Pages can vary as well, although because they were generally drawn at a small scale they are rather simplified. Their purpose is just to show dimensions and other data that may be needed by operations and shop people for handling the car or locomotive.
"Back in the day" of early Japanese brass supposedly a model was built with a fold line from the reference blueprint faithfully rendered on the side of the model.
Charlie Vlk

Charlie Vlk wrote:
"'Back in the day' of early Japanese brass supposedly a model was built with a
fold line from the reference blueprint faithfully rendered on the side of the
model."

We don't even need to go back that far - how about the first run of the HO scale
Atlas offset twin hopper cars with the doubled center side post resulting from a
bad drawing splice?

At least they still can be used as fodder for the Sunshine Alternate Standard
mini-kit!


Ben Hom

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:28:04 -0700 (PDT), Benjamin Hom wrote

At least they still can be used as fodder for the Sunshine Alternate Standard
mini-kit!

Is this by any chance still available?

Andy

--- In STMFC@..., "cvlk" <cvlk@...> wrote:
{snip}

Equipment Diagram Book Pages can vary as well, although because they
were generally drawn at a small scale they are rather simplified. Their
purpose is just to show dimensions and other data that may be needed by
operations and shop people for handling the car or locomotive.

One of the frustrations I had early on in modeling the Pere Marquette was that that when the C&O was updating its equipment diagrams books in the 1950s, if they didn't have an actual drawing for an ex-PM car, they would copy a similar car's sheet from their own files, update the dimensional data block and mark it "PM".

This led to to some interesting contradictions between the data values and the diagram. Off the top of my head, there were a couple of sheets where the roofs were clearly the wrong ones in the drawing. Off the top of my head, I don't recall whether Million called these out in "PM Revenue Freight Cars."

-Fritz Milhaupt
Wbe Guy and Modeling Editor, PMHS

I wrote:
"At least they still can be used as fodder for the Sunshine Alternate Standard
mini-kit!"

Andy Harman asked"
"Is this by any chance still available?"

Unfortunately, the only two mini-kits listed on Sunshine's March 2011 price list
are the following:M.1 Two ATSF covered hopper roofs and parts for conversion of
plastic hoppers to ATSF grain cars, $30
M.2 Five General Duryea underframe parts for modification of plastic and resin
40' boxcar kits, $30
 
Can't hurt to drop a line and ask, though.
 
 
Ben Hom