I am in need of help from my friends in the forums again. I have some Walthers Log Cars and I would like to put the proper ACI labels on it. Unfortunately, the standard places for the labels won’t work as the sill is too short for the full label to be applied. (And yes, I do have a chart showing where the label are to be put.) Would a metal plate have been welded to the sill to solve this problem? If not, how would this problem have been rectified? Any suggestions would be welcomed.
FERRYKID,
Just my thought,but,couldn’t the,1;1,railroad,have just,downsized,the label.rather than,add something to the sill?
Cheers,
Frank
No, the label needs to be a standard size or the reader won’t be able to read it “reliably”.
Yes they would just put a metal plate there and put the label on it.
DAVE,
Good point,That is something,I didn’t know,makes sense…
Cheers,
Frank
Yes a metal plate, and be mindful of the ACI system’s height requirement. There was a rather high mortality rate for those plates and I can remember seeing some badly bent ones that were probably not readable – partly a reason the ACI system eventually was abandoned for most purposes, although it lived on in unit train service.
I am not sure what log cars you speak of but the type of log cars seen on a logging railroad would not have been in interchange service, and thus there would have been no need for an ACI label. The only Walthers log car I am familiar with is the Trainline log dump flatcar item. The logging railroad type cars that Rivarossi had, and perhaps stil has, are examples of what would not have been in interchange service.
Dave Nelson
The ones I have are the metal cars that I think were marketed as part of the logging system program. An example of the cars that I have is right here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HO-Walthers-ALASKA-RAILROAD-40-Log-Car-ARR-12823-/300892569974?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item460e984176
I believe that you can see the remains of one to the right of the yellow dot on the sideframe of this Alaska RR flat: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1350529
If these cars are never interchanged, the ACI labels may not be necessary.
Otherwise, you could mount it on the permaent side stake, or on the flatcar body with a metal plate like most other flatcars.
I think for the way I use them, they technically be considered as being interchanged. They are switched on a yard that is a privately owned area for storage for transport on a car ferry.
I had thought about that idea. I just wasn’t sure it that would be prototypical or not. I may just end up doing that as the stakes are wide enough and most definitely tall enough to do that.
It took years, but I eventually realized that if it “aint prototypical”, it has probably been done somewhere on the prototype and may not even be unusual.