Hi,
Just getting into MRR’ing and I have question about freight car kits and RTR.
I haven’t had the opportunity to visit a well stocked hobby shop to really look at the boxes, but are the years the car were actually manufactured listed on the box?
I am hoping to model a pre 50s type HO setup and want to be sure I don’t have cars newer than the era I am modeling.
As I’m just getting into this, many of the cars look very similar to me.
Thanks
Brian
The only company I know of that does this is Intermountain. All the others must be researched.
I am not a rivet counter but I try to limit my rolling stock to the mid fifties. Some refer to this as the transitional period.
I find it helpful to look for cat walks. For the most part catwalks usually mean pre 1960. Also short cars such as 40 ft or less.
While this advice is questionable it has helped me maintain a believable layout. Remember, I am not a rivet counter so if it looks right it suits my layout.
For prepainted cars you can look at the build or rebuild date on the car. It won’t give you the range, but if your layout is set in 1947 you would not use cars with dates of 1948 or later. Several manufacturers list dates on their website. Sometimes at train shows you can find a Car Builder’s Dictionary (or a Newton Gregg reprint) for your time period.
Enjoy
Paul
Do a little research to narrow down the selections. Colors in that era were not exttreme, you also saw a concentration of 40 foot cars, and stay aware of the road names in existence for the period.
You are not the only person to ask such a question; I keep looking for cars with BLT dates before 1900. [:0]
For a mid-50s layout, you could use anything that says ‘AAR’ or ‘USRA’ or ‘War Emergency’ in the car description. These are First World War or Second World War vintage cars.
I think PS-1 boxcars and PS-2 covered hoppers will work (somebody please double-check me on this). They would be almost brand-new and so should not be too weathered (no dirt, rust, &c).
Most of your cars should be steel-sided, but some wood-sided cars will look OK too. Wooden reefers look appropriate because metal is an awful insulator and in 1950 mechanical refrigeration was not common. The wooden-side cars should look older (dirt, rust, splashes, spills, dents, &c) than the steel ones.
Prototype idea: Monon RR bought a batch of brand-new PS-1 boxcars and numbered them 001, 002, &c. Have a show-off Car Number One lettered for your line and send it to prestige customers, town fairs, &c.
I read on another forum post that some of the Athearn kits noted the build date on the end of the box.
If you talk to the hobby shop owner and explain what you are looking for, considerate owners may allow Athearn boxes to be opened to check for these kinds of details.
Many railroad cars in the 1940’s were built to specifications that were originally adopted in the 1920’s and 1930’s or even earlier. A car with a build date of 11/49 was built in 1949, but may be the same as one with a build date of 10/38. Keep in mind that many cars from the 1920’s were prohibited from interchange service by 1949 or banned outright (like billboard reefers after 1934). The same is true for archbar trucks, which were banned from interchange service after 1941.
Many of the cars on your 1940’s layout are going to look similar. 40’ boxcars were the norm, although there were a few 50’ cars by then. Open hoppers were generally shorter, and 2-, 3- and 4-bay hoppers were all in use prior to 1950. Paint schemes ranged from the dull and drab to the monotonous, primarily boxcar red or tuscon red. Roofs were often painted a different color than the car, usually black or silver. Ends were often painted the same color as the roof. Roofwalks were mostly made of wood.
Part of the fun of model railroading is doing the research for a particular era or year. Research is not difficult. Although I knew about the details listed above, I didn’t remember the dates, etc., so I looked them up with a few Google searches while I was typing this post. More thorough research will give you more information about what was in use in a particular time period.
H
Many thanks for all the great replies. It really is tremendous that everyone is so willing to share their knowledge and expertise.
Now, back to building this railroad!!!
Brian
[quote]
Originally posted by BRJN
You are not the only person to ask such a question; I keep looking for cars with BLT dates before 1900. [:0]
Please share your sources for pre-1900 cars!
Most USRA cars had ben either retired or extensively rebuilt by 1940, so most USRA cars won’t work.
PS-1 40’ boxcars will work, since the first ones were built around 1947. 50’ PS-1 boxcars won’t, and neither will PS-2 covered hoppers.
By 1950, the national car fleet was about 70% steel and 30% wood. Most of those wood cars were 36’ reefers and 36’ and 40’ boxcars.
Well, sort of. By 1950, all new reefers were steel, and mechanical refrigeration WAS being intoduced. PFE, the largest by far reefer fleet, was almost 100% steel by 1950. In general, most of your 40’ reefers should be steel, and most of you 36’ reefers should be wood (by 1950, 36’ reefers were mostly used for meat and beer service)
Not true. Old paint technology wasn’t all that great, and freight cars were painted every seven to ten years. So you could realistically have a shiny wood car next to a grungy steel one.
Not Intermountain; Branchline.
Some other manufacturers are starting to copy BL with this info. SOME Athearn cars now have the dates on the box, as well as SOME Intermountain. It’s still VERY hadrd to tell what era the car represents, just by looking at the box (or even the car!)
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by jnkbritz
Atlas 36’ trussrod reefer (1890s)
Most Roundhouse cars (at least the short ones)
Bachmann (Civil War sets)
Funaro & Carmelengo (dozens of cars)
Westerfield (dozens of cars)
LaBelle (dozens of cars)
Pre-1950 modeling:
In general, your motive power should be steam. Yes, there were lots of diesels out there, but they were still restricted to either switching or passenger service. If you MUST have freight diesels, buy FT or F3 cab units, which were the most common (the F7 wasn’t the most common until right at 1950 or so).
As for freight cars, they should be a mix of lots of different car types, all painted drably. There were more freight car designs in the 1940s than today, and it was very uncommon to see two identical-looking cars next to each other in a train (except for coal hoppers). Boxcars should mostly be 40 feet long (with a few 36-footers, which still made up about 10% of the national car fleet), and all be different heights (a signature of steam-era freight trains is the “stepped” appearance of the rooflines). All cars should be some color brown (dark, medium, oxide red). Manufacturers to lean heavily on for a basic roster should include:
Accurail (any wood or composite boxcar, their AAR 40’ steel box, their twin hoppers, wood reefers)
Atlas (36’ meat reefers WITHOUT billboard schemes)
Roundhouse (36’ box and reefer)
Red Caboose (X29, 1932, 1944 AAR steel boxcars, flat, 36’ reefer)
Intermountain (1944 AAR boxcar, USRA composite gondola, reefers)
Bowser (anything Pennsy with the “circle Keystone” herald, covered hoppers)
Branchline (40’ boxcars)
Life-Like Proto 2000 (tank cars, 52’ gondolas, 50’ boxcars, flat cars)
Walthers (anything “old”; check the writeup in their catalog)
Remember, the key to making a believable 1940s layo
Any of the cars here would work;
Thanks I seem to always transpose those two names.
The book “Model Railroaders Guide to Freight Cars” answers a lot of your questions. I really enjoyed it. http://store.yahoo.net/kalmbachcatalog/12450.html
I tought billboard schemes were authorized again somewhere in the 50s,
could it be?
Andre
Brussels, Belgium (The Beer Country[:I])
Actually F&C offers only 2 pre 1900 freight car kit series.
#3801 1890’s boxcar (of questionable accuracy)
#6220 Rutland hopper bottom gondola
The rest of their kits are post 1900 or pre 1900 cars that have been modified to meet post 1911 safety appliance laws.
Westerfield offers a few of the early steel or composite cars.
1300 series XL boxcars
2300 GL hoppers
2400 PSC hopper
3400 PSC ore car
10500 36’ box, very close
10600 gon.
Plus there are several more post 1900 cars with pre-1911 safety appliances.
Dave H.
Other resources for the pre-1900, Ye Old Huff 'n Puff offers some kits in HO - none have any particular protoype that I know of. Also, Trout Creek Engineering is another source - these do have specific prototypes. When you can find them, the old Central Valley and Binkley kits fit the era. IHC has inexpensive old time cars in both RTR and kits - mostly available as MOW right now. Mantua (Tyco), Bachmann, Model Power, and Con-Cor have or had RTR old timer series of cars that are larger than scale for their purported 1860s era, which better fit the latter part of the 19th century.
yours in 1900 and earlier
Fred Wright
Not quite. The whole reason for the billboard ban was that the cars were originally used in general service. Hence, a car painted for Hershey Chocolate could actually contain hot dogs, or even worse, Mars Chocolate. Shippers didn’t like advertising their competition, so the ban was put in place.
Afterwards, flash paint schemes WERE still allowed, so long as the car was in captive service to the shipper that leased the car. So later periods ended up with brilliant schemes like the Swift red cars (1949-1960 or so), but those cars were ONLY used by Swift. They’re not considered “billboard” cars.