I am slowly getting back into HO after many years. I wanted to use the 1960 - 1970’s as a time period and have chosen the Erie Lackawanna line. I chose this as the merged line existed until the mid-70’s when Conrail came into being. I have started to pick up a few box cars and a hopper and a PA engine and a switcher that are all labeled Erie Lackawanna. I am sure that the EL pulled cars, tankers, and hoppers by other names but how can I find that out? I have been one several web sites that focus on EL but all of the photos are of EL marked cars and hoppers. Before I purchase others I want to make sure that I do not waste my money.
find a map of their network, and see what RR they connected with, otherwise(depending on how far you are away) make a field trip of it and go to the area, that will help a lot!!! DD
Try and find the Official Railway Equipment Register for one of the years you are interested in. It will list how many of each car type the EL had.
Enjoy
Paul
Yes, the ORER will tell you how many they owned, their road numbers, and other data. The National Model Railroad Association used to sell ORERs, so I would check their web site. If you’re not an NMRA member, an ORER will cost more than the price for members.
Check a local library – sometimes it’s amazing at some of the things you can find in a library and they may have an ORER for the time frame you’re interested in. Good luck.
The answer to your question is virtually any car from any railroad could have operated on the EL.
Railroads that touched the EL would have generally been more common. Larger roads would be more common. Roads that served industries on your line would be common.
Try to buy cars from your era back about 30-40 years. Virtually any all steel car would be appropriate.
As you work on you might want to look at the connecting roads to see what traffic might have run through onto or across the EL. Later this will add interest to what you can run.
For your era this could include passenger services.
I’m modeling the Ontario Northland and since I don’t live anywhere near it I joined a ONR railfan website. The pictures of the equipment are great and everybody on the site aren’t afraid of answering questions.
Kevin:
You would probably get cars from roads that crossed the EL and roads it connected with at the ends.There might be fewer cars from roads that ran parallel to it.
There would be a number of cars still lettered for the Erie and the Lackawanna. Repainting boxcars is not a priority with companies having money problems.
Think about where your citizens get their goods from; you need cars from railroads in those areas.
You can run 3 types of trains: one full of home road cars, one of mixed roads and maybe one in the evening collecting all the empty foreign cars and taking them to the Pennsylvania interchange!
The prototype uses Switchlists to record what locomotives and cars are on a train in order starting at the head end.
I have a pdf of one from the Western Pacific. It lists the locomotives by number and the reporting marks, number and contents and destination of every car on the train.