I have a Tichy USRA 50 ton single sheathed box car conversion kit to a cement car with no decals. I am trying to find out which railroads used this type of car. I currently am modeling Seaboard Airline early-mid 60s (pre-merger) in HO scale. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Ben
Tichy’s original version was for a Delaware & Hudson car, but I don’t know if there were decals included with the kit at that time.
Tichy has recently come up with a line of DECALS for all sorts of cars. In the link, you’ll find two versions (each with two choices for the herald) for the D&H cement car, and another set for a B&O cement car. There may also be other roads that converted similar boxcars for cement service, but you’re on your own finding appropriate lettering.
Wayne
The reply from Wayne is perfect.
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Since I found out about this car, it is the version I seek out. You still get all the parts needed to build a USRA single sheathed boxcar, but you also get some cool parts for other projects.
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The Tichy USRA hopper “grain car” is another kit where you can build the standard version and have parts left over.
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-Kevin
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Unfortunately I’ve mislaid the link to the original article, but my notes say that the D&H converted the 30 single sheathed boxcars in 1934.
Cheers, the Bear.
The index on this website shows two possible articles.
John Nehrich in the June 1994 issue of Mainline Modeler
Wayne Sittner in the April 1980 issue of Prototype Modeler.
Dave Nelson
Did the converted box cars have hopper bottoms? Is there a prototype photo?
“Is there a prototype photo?”
I still haven’t come across my original reference material for the D & H conversions [sigh] but…
https://oscalekings.org/WP/ed-bommer-bo-class-m-24a-cement-hopper-boxcar/
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
If they did, they’re not visible in the photo in the Tichy catalogue, but the caption with the photo does say that the cars had Wine discharge gates and interior slope sheets.
Here’s a LINKto Tichy’s parts catalogue. Simply scroll down to where the freight cars are listed.
While I have quite a few Tichy cars, I didn’t buy any of the cement cars. However, I did scratchbuild four 36’ Fowler single-sheathed boxcars, each with four roof hatches and four longitudinal discharge gates.
The story behind them is that they were dual purpose cars for carrying GERN flux, either as bagged lading through the side doors, and piled inside the car, with covers over the discharge gates.
Depending on the cars’ destination, they could alternately be loaded through the roof hatches, with bulk flux, and of course, with the discharge gates uncovered…
When I later bought a number of Bowser covered hoppers (an uncommon sight in the late '30s, I think), I decide that GERN Industries had been the originator of covered hoppers, and they were soon making big bucks by selling production
Thanks. At first I wondered why they didn’t fill in the area of the 6 ft door, but then I remembered that hoppers were about 34 ft long, and a 40 ft long hopper might have been overweight.
Gidday Mike, I’d always supposed that it was done, so that the weight would be more directly over the trucks. (???)
It maybe slightly irrelevant to this discussion but during my research into the READING conversion of 2 bay open hoppers into covered hoppers for bulk cement, that after the first conversion (s) they had to steepen the slope sheets to get the cement to flow upon unloading.
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
. The railroads that served the “cement belt” around Allentown PA would be likely candidates, Lehigh & New England, Central of New Jersey, Reading, Lehigh Valley and Northampton and Bath. The reason CNJ bought some branches and covered hoppers from the remains after L&NE folded was to capture the cement traffic on those lines.
Apart from the converted boxcars and purpose-built covered hoppers for cement service, the Lackawanna, Lehigh Valley, New York Central, and Delaware & Hudson railroads all leased air-activated canisters, owned by the LCL Corporation which were transported in gondolas during the 40’s and 50’s, up to the early 60’s.
Here’s a kit bashed version, lettered for my fictional RR.
1950s Cement Gon by Bear, on Flickr
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
The Western Maryland Ry. had one car very similar to the Tichy model. I’m looking for the info but can’t find it right now.