Is anyone aware of a research tool or website that will help identify rolling stock as to build date? I’m trying to keep my N scale railroad rooted in the early 50’s. (Like many others out there!) I’m aware of Atlas (For instance) identifying some of their products. Thanks for any help.
http://www.railpictures.net/ has about the best pic resourses out there.[:)]
One of my research tools is an April 1954 Official Railway Equipment Register, close to the time period I model. It does NOT give build dates… just the number and description of every piece of freight rolling stock used in interchange revenue servuce at the date of publication. I have had mine some 25 years and use it everytime I go to research a piece of rolling stock.
Sounds like too much work. I just slap a set of Kadee couplers on them, replace the wheels with metal ones. Make sure everything’s in gauge or height adjusted and put 'em on the layout. I DO keep an inventory of them using RRTrains. It is cheap insurance in case the unthinkable happens.
You have to keep track of both the build dates and the paintschemes - a railroad might send a 20 year old car to the shops and give it a major rebuild and repaint into the road’s latest paint scheme. For example a Great Northern steel boxcar built in 1939 would be fine for your early 1950’s layout - unless the model shows it as having been repainted in glacier green in the early sixties.
There are some good books out there about the history of freight cars, and books about particular railroads (the “color guides”). If you read them, over time you can develop a pretty good ‘feel’ for what is right for your period. In the early fifties you’d have a fair number of newer 10’ high 40’ and 50’ steel boxcars, but you’d also still have older and lower 40’ boxcars, some all steel, some with steel roofs and ends but wood sides (both double sheathed and single sheathed). You’d still have a fair number of all wood (but steel underframed) reefers.
For paintscheme history, I found decal catalogues can sometimes be usefull. Walthers had their “PLD” (Prototype Lettering Diagram) 1-4 books for many years. You could still find them at a flea market or online perhaps. IIRC they were originally published in 1942, 1956, 1962 and 1966. Clover House has a good catalogue (available online), they are pretty careful about giving you a timeframe of when that lettering set would have been used.
Generally in the early fifties railroads were still painting cars in a ‘generic’ paintscheme, although large lettering advertising the railroad’s top trains or other services were fairly common. But for colors boxcars and most other cars were “boxcar red”…which varied from railroad to railroad, but was a generally a brownish or rusty red…with some cars like flats and gondolas painted black. Cabooses were generally bright red, though some were still boxcar red. The idea of having
I hope I don’t get slapped on the wrist by our hosts, but this month’s edition of N Scale Railroading has a good feature article showcasing a variety of transition era boxcars in N scale. The author describes the stock model he started with, and the various modifications he made to get the resulting cars. Surprisingly, a lot of them started out life as Model Power cars, you know, the ones that are in the 2 for $5 bin at the LHS… Some very nice work, too, I might add.
There is also a couple of websites dedicated to N scale collectors, which might be a good resource for seeing what is, and has been available over the years. You can probably find them through a Google search.
Lee
Thanks to one and all for the help & information. This can turn into a second hobby all by itself!!