Quite a few years ago (30) I built a side dump ore car in HO. It was all cast metal and would dump from either side. It had a rather high center of gravity and a narrow height (at least as I remember it) of the side rails of the car. When it dumped the entire bottom of the car tilted either left or right.
Anybody have any idea, or can remember, who made this kit? It was about thirty years ago.
That was a great car, to bad some does make them today.
If the Old Dog remembers corrrctly the company was Model Engineering Works.
See RMC, May 1966, page 22, Side Dump Serendity by David K Gast
See RMC, Jan 1959, page 21, How to Build the New Dump Car
See RMC, Jan 1968, page 61 for ad for a similiar car from Alexander Scale Models
See NG&SLG, Sep/Oct 1982, page 40, Tilt Bottom Gondola, by Pete Moffet, scratch building article, but NO plans.
Have fun
Sounds like something Varney might have made.
Well, fellow Boomer, pluck your magic twanger, Froggy, and see what’s on sale at Walthers:
It’s number 433-8307. In the February sale catalog on page 24. Complete with horn-hooks.
I’ve bought 2 of them for the grandsons to “operate”. They have horn hooks talgo mounted (on the trucks), only dump to 1 side, and are pretty much toys - but the kids love them! PS, they don’t like my Walthers Difco side dumps - they “don’t do anything”![;)]
Not sure about the model, but I’ve got an actual side dump car story for you. When I was a kid back in the mid 1970s, we use to hang around the railroad yard where they kept cars on a side track for weeks at a time. Anyway, one day some friends and I were climbing around on one of these odd looking gondolas, when one of the kids discovered a lever and pulled on it. When he did, the car began to raise up on one side. It just so happened I was standing on the high side of the car, got scared and jumped off. It’s a good thing that I did because if I had fallen and slid or tried to exit the car on the dump side I might have gotten crushed by the car wall as the car settled back down. That incident taught me a lesson I never forgot!.
Tracklayer
Mister Beasley:
You’re close but the one I remember the sides didn’t drop down rather the bottom dropped out from underneath it.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=298073
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=334988
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=198576
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=465178
The car looked somewhat like those above, only smaller, with one large dumping cylinder on each side.
Have fun
As memory servers from 35 years ago that’s probably the exact car. Wonder if there are any models kits made?
They were more like these
http://prr.railfan.net/freight/PRRdiagrams.html?diag=UA-.gif&fr=cl
http://prr.railfan.net/freight/PRRdiagrams.html?diag=ua.gif&fr=cl
They were much shorter then the cars posted yesterday
The above diagrams would be closer, only they do not show the dumping cylinders. Also, the car modeled was of riveted steel construction.
Have fun
Try looking at a Walthers Difco dump car. Somebody used to make them in metal, perhaps Ulrich. My memory is probably like yours.
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR
That’s it exactly!! I need a smaller guage though.[bow]