Can anyone identify these stock cars?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi everyone:

I just got four of these stock cars through eBay and I’m curious to know their origins. They are obviously older kits. Whoever assembled them did a pretty good job. There is minor damage and a couple of bits are missing, but nothing that can’t be fixed fairly easily:

The couplers may give a clue. They are unlike anything I have seen before. The knuckle is fixed but they lock together quite securely. In fact, they also seem to work with Kadee #5s but they have to be slid in from the top to get them hooked up. They are spring loaded and there is a lot of movement from side to side. Three couplers are missing so I will replace all of them with Kadees, but I’m curious to know if these are collector’s items:

Thanks as always,

Dave

2

Quite a few craftsman kit manufacturers from the 50s used dummy knuckle couplers. These might be built from Mainline Models kits. I don’t believe Silver Streak ever offered a stock car. If you appreciate this type of car, good buys can be had on eBay. Most of the old guys that built them in the 50s and 60s are selling their collections and the younger modelers don’t seem to be interested in them. I see original kits listed for crazy prices, but they seldom sell.

3

Varney made a pretty nice looking dummy knuckle coupler that was spring loaded (making for genuine slack action when stopping or starting). And they “kind of” mate with Kadees. Is that car wood, plastic or metal?

Dave Nelson

4

Would have to guess a no on Mainline, they tended to use a flat roof. Would of course need closeups to realy tell. On stock cars the sides ussually give away who made it.

5

Dave,

That might be a Globe…which started making rolling stock in 1948. I had a few of their freight cars with that coupler. Also they made dummy F7’s and other Engines with that coupler. There are a couple more Mfger’s who also had kits with that same coupler, which when coupled to one another, You never had to worry about running a train and have unwanted uncoupling. I had and still do have quite a few of those coupler’s stored. They make excellent scrap piles, around a roundhouse.

http://hoseeker.net/Globe/globecatalogpage05.jpg

Also Walthers sold six-packs of 50ft hoppers, all different road numbers and all the center cars, (circa 90’s) had those couplers. I have quite a few of those…but I put Kadee’s on all the cars…really didn’t have to…but!? LOL.

Take Care! [:D]

Frank

6

I think we need to know a little more.

What is the material? The longitudinal roof boards are certainly unusual and might provide a clue.

Is the roof walk cast into the roof, or a separate part? Hard to tell from the photos.

Tom

7

When you said stock cars, I thought you meant NASCAR! [swg]

8

Hi everyone:

Thanks for your answers, and questions. Sorry for the ommissions.[D)]

The cars are wood with a cast underframe. Also, the poling pockets and the bracing for them is a single piece of cast metal. The brake platform is cast. The brake wheel and the ladders are stamped metal. The roof walk is a separate piece of wood with the planking scribed into it. The roof itself in also a single piece of scribed wood and it is sloped. I’m not sure if the grab irons and foot rests were hand formed or factory made. They have complex bends and are very consistent.

I just noticed that one of the cars has a slightly different frame in that the coupler pockets are cast onto the frame as opposed to being separate like they are on the other three cars. The cast on coupler boxes have a much more limited range of motion for the coupler than the separate ones do. However, other than the difference in coupler boxes, all four frames are identical right down to the casting marks and rivet details.

Regards, Dave

9

I have answered one of my questions. As I started to clean up the cars I discovered the words ‘Star Line’ cast into the bottoms of the frames. HOSeeker shows a 1949 price list for the company. The “cattle cars” were $1.75 each.

Does anyone know how long they were in operation?

Thanks

Dave

10

Star Line (a Texas firm) advertised an ambitious line of models and track in TT, HO, OO, S and O; I cannot think offhand of another firm then or more recently that tried to serve all those scales. I cannot help but think they over-extended themselves in trying to do so.

Their milled roadbed in their ads somewhat resembled the Tru-Scale product.

A TT scale boxcar kit was enthusiastically reviewed in the March 1950 MR. But it was almost about that same time that their monthly ads (which were generally small ones) disappeared from MR.

I could find no evidence that their HO stock car kit was ever reviewed in MR.

A Google search of newspaper archives found only that Star Line was owned and operated by a Mr. Oscar C. Hewett, formerly of Ft Worth TX. The article from 1947 says that Hewett’s Star Line was one of the 10 oldest model railroad structure and accessory firms.

Dave Nelson

11

Ambroid had a line of craftsman car kits back in the dark ages BK (before Kadees.) I only saw one personally - a chicken car I got the kit in a bulk buy and dealt it off as trade goods without ever opening the box.

Does any one else remember the ‘One in 5000’ kits? Is it possible that this model was built from one?

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

12

Hi Dave,

Thanks for that information. That means the cars are older than I am!

I thought about leaving the two cars that came with trucks ‘as is’ for historical purposes but I decided I didn’t need any shelf queens so I am in the process of bringing them all up to speed.

I was able to remove one section of the side walls and one door on each car without doing any damage. The glue joints pop apart with just a little pressure from a #11 blade. That allowed me to add a sheet of 1/16" lead to bring the cars up to weight. I will replace the sprung trucks with Tichy trucks and Intermountain wheels. I will also install Kadee #148s in new boxes. They are currently lettered for the ATSF but the decals are in poor condition so I’m going to sand the data decals off and re-paint them for Canadian Pacific. I will change the placards as per doctorwayne’s recent example of Canadian practices.

I can see that these cars are going to cost me some money in that I won’t be able to do with just four of them.[swg] EBay, here I come![(-D][(-D][(-D]

Dave