I wish I had access to my library to look up and relate a story related to this. The general theme was that the Santa Fe made a huge order of cars (box cars?) from some company back east. Instead of having the cars delivered in a block when they were built, they just released them into interchange off the assembly line. The story goes that it took something like 10 years for some of the cars to get to home rails.
For cars to be off home rails for 10 years somebody was paying the demrrage fees or those cars was placed in pool service .
Kinda hard to believe cars was out for ten years in interchange especially since Santa Fe ordered cars to fill a need.
Hmmmm, I’ll keep the H to F ratio in mind at the train show at the end of the month.
I was reading a bit more on SP&S cars, I guess at one point the AAR was on their case for owning too few boxcars.
Thanks for the input so far guys, It’s a big help and very appreciated!
I also took a roster count I have 47 freight/MOW/CS cars, after non rev. cars are removed I’m at 30 freight cars, so my Rolling stock roster needs a big boost.
Another thing to keep in mind when considering ratios of home-road to foreign-road cars is how many can be utilised at one time. My layout occupies a room of about 560 sq.ft., and the industries currently modelled can acommodate just over 100 cars. Of course, most of those industrial tracks won’t ever be full, while some will be empty much of the time, too. Some cars will be in staging and others in trains en route.
I based my home-to-foreign ratio on what I saw in my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. Served by CNR, CPR, TH&B, and NYC and with, for its size, a large industrial base, it was not unusual to see cars from all over North America - not every day and not all in one train, but they made frequent appearances. The ratio of home-to-foreign was stacked to home roads, naturally, but the frequent visitors kept raifanning interesting. It also opened my childhood vistas to what lay “beyond”, and I later found my tastes in model rolling stock following that lead.
With roughly 330 cars in service, about 140 are lettered for my free-lanced home roads, while the other 190 are for foreign roads. CNR, TH&B, and CPR predominate there, but NYC and Pennsy are well-represented, as are many northeastern American roads. Also included are examples from the midwest, west coast, southwest, and southern states, not to mention Mexico. This allows me to run all of those interesting road names interspersed among the more normally seen cars. I enjoy building and modifying freight cars, so this type of operating scheme allows them to be used, yet not appear in numbers that overpower the home road or its interchange partners.
Based on the discussion so far, Gary, it sounds as if you’ll need
I can imagine that I’ll need plenty of GN and NP cars, seeing as how NP and GN were always getting “Frequent flyer miles” on the SP&S. It’ll be in favor of the GN because of the OT traffic, I will also have Q represented. May add UP units but, there will be plenty of foreign cars.
On my N&W merchandise freights, I have quite a few Pennsylvania cars as PRR had a partial share in the N&W, though I am not yet aware of the freight car exchange arrangement between the two roads. A vital part of my boxcar exchange is furniture, from the variety of furniture plants in southern Virginia and North Carolina, many of which were served by the N&W. I might have ACL and Atlantic&Danville participating in the furniture business as well, since they served the same area. I would suppose the arrangement was to send the furniture boxcars north, though I don’t think that Pennsy would send empty cars down for that purpose. I would like to especially hear from a PRR modeler regarding this exchange, but welcome all viewpoints on the matter. Remember, I am modeling the 1950’s, and that reflects on how the freight is handled, which I saw a excellent example of on the N&W film “Operation Fast Freight.” lois
An author in MR from the 80s or so suggested 80% home road and 20% other iirc. I find that ratio more useful with a smaller (whatever that means) amount of rolling stock, but it does help show an identity for the railroad. I like varied rolling stock, so don’t always stick to the above recommendation.
Friends,
I have a note on my first rough sketch of my layout that says the percentage of foreign-road cars has far less to do with regional proximity and far more to do with the (economic and physical) size of the railroad. I suspect I read that somewhere in these pages of discussion, though it may have come from, say, Armstrong’s track planning classic. For me, one of the subtle ways to convey the identity of my little branch line is by sticking to lots of home-road rolling stock. But as others have commented, there are plenty of good reasons to mix in lots of foreigners.
The second part of my post would be that it is my advice for you to obtain video of your railroad at your particular time period and location, if it is available. I am fortunate that plenty of film was shot of the N&W in the 1950’s, the reason being it was one of the last class 1 railroads in the country running steam. As for freelancers, this would not apply, unless they are inspired by a real railroad or a specific time period. Otherwise, the imagination is the limit. lois
Vintage videos are a great way to see some period consists. The limitations of the cameras are the main reason for limited footage. Those who were trackside often had short reels and conserved shots. My ratio is about: 50% home road, 30 to 40% connecting roads and 10 to 20% for distant lines. I have seen the far flung cars, near the caboose on many old films, and trackside in the past. That is for general freight traffic. YMMV.
Also, if you ever saw transfer trains, the ratios can go out the window. Indiana Harbor Belt and Belt Railway were prime examples around Chicago, back in the day. Anything could pass you. Miss the 70’s.
A excellent method…Another method is panoramic views of yards-look beyond the subject of the photo.
You tube has several vintage super 8 and VCR films.
I recall that too and knew the fella was blowing smoke and wasn’t even in the ball park with those figures and that was just from my railfan observations-not to mention my years working as a brakeman.
I have no idea where he got that misleading 80/20 ratio.
The ratios that have been developed are just guesses. The only way to tell would be to have a list of every car in a given time period.
Somewhere I read an article about a modeler, who, is modeling a specific location on a specific day . He was able to obtain the make-up of every train that went through that location. He dupilcated every train with correct engines and cars (types and reporting marks). He modeled as many of the cars as he could based on photos taken close to that time period.
Many small railroads have no revenue cars. So on them the number of home road cars is zero. In the '70’s some small railroads made money with “per diem” box cars. When the market for them disappeared the cars were returned to the owner. At least one railroad did not own enoudh track to store them all.
The ratio will be different for every railroad and also be dependent on location on the railroad.
Somewhere in my computer I have a switch list for a Western Pacific local of about 20 cars. On that particular train there were 4 or 5 Southern Pacific cars. No Western Pacific cars and 1 or at most 2 cars from other railroads.
I recall several PRR urban locals that was about the same except once a week there would be 4-5 Santa Fe covered hoppers loaded with sand that went to a foundry.There was another alcohol distributer that received several Milwaukee Road boxcars a week…
From my modern railfan observations I fully believe the ratio would be 50/30/20-50% home road cars,30% lease cars and 20% foreign road cars…This is due to the mega mergers that resulted in seamless transportation…
You can load a NS boxcar in Kansas City for Savannah,Ga and it will never leave NS rail.
On the other hand there was a class of Western Pacific box cars that never touched WP rails. They went from the manufacturer directly into a pool service and were evendually scraped without ever going “home”.
Wasn’t those the 86’ 4 door autopart boxcars?
It was a shorter car I don’t remember the service., but it definately was not the 86 foot cars which served an autoplant in Fremont (San Francisco Bay area).
I have a photo of one in storage on the Sacramento Northern in Yuba City. It was in rough shape and had no doors.
The WP cars had a single set of double plug doors on centered on each side. Similar Southern Pacific cars had four doors. Two sets of double plug doors on eack side.
No,