I’m new to model railroading but I am learning at an exponential rate. I just found out that there were “prison” cars.
I also just ordered a railroad worker sleeper car, a bobber caboose, and a blacksmith car.
Can you folks think up all the odd cars there are out there? (also what they do?)
Payroll car - as the name says, used to pay the railroad workers. Ambroid put out a model in O scale (maybe HO as well). I have it as part of my “unassembled kit collection”.
Scale car - used to calibrate the railroad scales. Has no brakes since using brakes would wear metal off the wheels and brakes changing the weight. I think there has been at least one of these made over the years in HO.
Pickle car - used to carry pickle in vats. These have been made in HO - also part of my collection above.
Phosphate Hopper Car - modified Hopper car extending sides and having a top - sort of a precursor to the coverd hopper of today. A kit is available in S scale - I have this one also.
Enjoy
Paul
At some point cars have carried just about everything or been used for everything conceivable. The main thing you will find that is important is to model the typical not the exceptions. While you can choose to model the oddballs and exceptions at some point you will wonder why what you are doing doesn’t look as good as what you see in the magazines or in real life. That is the point you will realize that the importance of the typical. That being said there are branches of the hobby where the outlandish exceed the common. Logging railroads, short lines, portions of narrow gauge all have “character” and if that portion of the hobby appeals to you you will get the most satisfaction in modeling one of these segments. This is not meant as a criticism in any way just another viewpoint.
Clearance cars – used on some railroads with tunnels. It was often an old caboose or passenger cars with what looked like cats whiskers coming out of it, to test clearances of a tunnel or other confined space. Mantua made a model of this at one time if I recall right.
Poling cars – often an old tender with wooden poles at angles at each corner, to push cars on adjacent tracks (now a prohibited practice).
Related to Paul’s pickle car was the vinegar car – and both of these tended to be made of wood long after steel was the usual component, because the acids did not eat at the wood like they did metal.
Not really a type of car but a use: the gut car, a derelict old gondola used to haul byproducts of the meat and leather industries to the glue factory. Easily identified by the cloud of flies!
Dave Nelson
If you are new to model railroading and railroading in general there is a publication used by the railroads called the Official Railroad Equipment Register or ORER for short. It comes out quarterly and looks like a phone book. T costs $40.00 per copy but when the new one comes out the old ones are useless to the railroads and can generally be had for the asking if you find someone friendly enough. They list every car owned by every CURRENT railroad. There is more information on a car then you would ever want to know. there is also a ton of information about cars, per diem charges and classifications. Each railroad lists every interchange it has with other railroads by city and state, how many engines they own and personnel to contact. I had a source for several years on the IC until he retired and I was selling them for $10.00 each. You may be able to find one on E Bay occasionally. It gets more difficult if you model an older time period as you have to find someone who has one for that time period and copy or scan the pages you are interested in. In either case it is well worth the effort to try and locate.
Dyno-cars, used to test loco horsepower
"white trains’’ hauling nuclear materials, came through town at night… seriously
UP (for sure, maybe others?) had drop center flats with 2 sets of trucks on each to haul wrecked locos.
There are/were special cars used to haul one product only used over the years. Pre-stressed concrete beams and hydroelectric turbine wheels come to mind. These were one ofs and were made to order. Seem I remember there was one made just to haul Saturn 5 first stages to the cape.
Hey Dave, we were poor and just used a 4X4 and a tractor loader or even a pickup truck to “pole” a car. We didn’t have any special cars. With the loader we sometimes didn’t even use the pole, but don’t tell.
FRED
The Car Buider’s Cyclopedia has a section describing the various AAR car classifications. (This glossary is also reproduced in the ORER.) It contains a vast array of different cars, both passenger and frieght. Many of the more obscure classifications, however, are useless to the modeler/operator, as they do not effect the outward appearance or modelable operations of the cars.
Walthers made (or make) a HO Scale Test Car. I’ve got one in BN livery, it’s a tiny 4-wheeled car with a small handrail on top which adds a bit more interest to the layout (and switching moves).
And on the subject of Nuclear flask cars, there’s been a few articles in Model Rail magazine about the British version of these recently - they’re popular modelling projects as the trains are usually very short - perfect for small layouts! The only snag is that there is no kit available to build them at the moment - there was one, but the manufacturer ceased production.
I’m not sure of the specific names for each of these cars, but some of the most unusual I’ve heard of are the ones for the MX Missile Rail Garrison Trains. These train was thought of in the late 80’s and was supposed to be built by the early 90’s, but the project never happened due to the end of the Cold War. Each train would consist of two locomotives and 6 cars. Two of the cars had roofs that opened so that huge nuclear missile could be launched. The other cars had facilities for operators of the missiles to live as well as computers, radar, etc. One of them also could control the train if something happened to the crew. The trains would be camoflaged to look as close to normal trains as possible with prototypical railroad markings, rust, peeling paint, etc. At least one of the missile launching cars was built and survives today. See pictures at www.csxfan.railfan.net/dodx/WECX1002.html .
How about Slag Cars that carry the molten slag out of steel mills out to the slag heaps where the semi molten metal is dumped off the sides. Very errie to see, a volcano on wheels.
But my favorite for odd-ball cars has to be railroad mounted artillery-railguns. They were all pretty much scrapped after WWII, but those that the cake for unusual train cars, unless you want to get into a discussion about Armored Trains in general.
The kind I was talking about carried the big wads, deterrents, or WMD as they are known today. And they really are not white. FRED
Canadian roads operating far from a city had both a chapel & a school car.
The Shedd aquarium had 2 cars over the years to bring their fish from the sea to Chicago. I think they even had space for an onboard crew to watch over their collections.
A fun use for coal cars in the winter is to fill them with snow & send them south. Works when there is a blizzard.
There used ot be ice cars like that in the US. they’d fill a car up with glacier blocks, ship it down into the lower 48 and sell it in the big cities, even some smaller ones too. of course this practice went away with the advent of the economical refridgerators
Fred: the Pennsylvania RR might have been the only one to actually construct a poling car. Most railroads used the poling pockets on locomotives.
Speaking of unusual cars, a year or two ago a Schnabel car came through town – this is a huge car with,. what, 18 axles? Not really a flat car … unique
Dave Nelson
Dave, I was kidding about pole cars, the GM&O and IC used them too for sure. But at the concrete mixing plant we used a 3010 John Deere with a loader to move cars. I was almost killed there by an old cable opening ore hopper. The guy opening it didn’t know what he was doing and a 4 foot long piece of pipe went whizzing by my head. I was in the shop 30 feet away and after it missed my head by 2 inches it went through a tin wall and ended up 50 foot or so in the parking lot imbedded in the radiator and grill of a ford PU. The guy opening it had a compound fracture of his arm. FRED
Years ago many railroads had inspection cars. They were usually a passenger car with a window the full width and height of one end of the car. Behind the window was rows of seats set behind and above each other like the balcony of a theater.
Also there were horse cars used for transporting race horses between the race tracks. The Pennsy even had theater scenery cars for moving play sets between cities.
In Europe there are narrow gauge railroads that have flatcars with standard gauge rails on them. If a load comes in on a standard gauge car they simply load it onto one of these flats and haul it. Saves a lot of trouble transloading cars. I am not aware of any cars like this in the US but there may have been some. When the EBT and CN needed to move standard gauge cars over their narrow gauge lines they simpley put narrow gauge trucks under the cars.
Electric lines had a lot of their own cars–water sprinkler cars for controlling dust in the days when most ran on dirt streets, sweeper cars for after the coming of street surfaces, weed-spraying (and burning!) cars, trolley wire maintenance cars, funeral cars (trolley cars intended as rail-bound hearses–many city trolley lines ran near cemeteries for just this purpose), trolley wire greasers, rail grinders…and, of course, in the trolley world, many of these were powered off the wire.
For some reason, gandy dancers will always look odd to me. Another odd one is the rotary snow plow, used by the SP and other lines in the mountains.
Maintenance of Way cars are undeniably some of the most unusual. The D&RGW had several very unique pieces of equipment, especially on their narrow gauge lines. They had of course their famous rotary snowplows, but also some lesser-known pieces such as pile drivers (a great hammerhead which was used in the construction of trestles). They also had a “ditcher” which could be used to spread gravel, spread snow away from the track, and more! I have also heard of ice-breakers used for breaking down icicles from tunnels and the like. I believe Lionel made a model of this several months ago, but I’m not sure who used them.
In addition, many railroads used kitchen cars, and there were also “rules examiner” cars whcih often had a theater area where training films could be shown to crews. And self-propelled railcars are a whole new gigabite of typing! Among the most famous are the 7 “Galloping Goose” type railcars owned by the Rio Grande Southern. There are also of course Budd RDCs and the great number of early railcars as well, such as the Santa Fe’s “Doodlebugs.”
And finally, let me say to 4884bigboy best of luck, best wishes, and while you’re at it, why not two, or three, or eight???
-Daniel
Then there’s the “Slot Machine”. A 10 car unit, looks like a bunch of gondolas attached so that a backhoe or whatever can move up and down the length of. With it’s own motive power, used in MOW service. Does it count here? Saw one in a Model Railroader mag a few months back, cant remember which. Then saw it live here in Bend Or. Dan.