Hmmm…Looks like I better start ripping off some walkways and filling in some holes then! (where DID I put that tube of Squadron putty at…??[:D])
Some roof walks survived for quite a while. There is a picture in one of my books on the Clinchfield railroad that shows a boxcar with roof walk in a train. The picture was taken in 1982.
Not too long ago I purchased one of the Athearn weathered box cars, a UP 60 footer. I put it in a train and was running it happily. The car was involved in a slight “accident” while running and while repairing the car I realized it had a roof walk and tall ladders. I actually hadn’t noticed this before. I was surprised because I figured 60 footers would be new enough not to have these details.
So, I guess it’s snip snip time. I have seen plenty of cars with the roof walk support left on so it shouldn’t be much of a modification.
Still can’t believe I didn’t notice it before…
Tilden
Beaver14,Actually the job wasn’t that dangerous as long as you keep your wits about you.Of course one mindless and careless move and one could end up with a missing limb or dead.
I’m thinking a company in the past (or maybe still does?) actually made roofwalk plugs for such instances. I’m pretty sure they did, but can’t think of who it was to save my life.
Is this the one?
Patching the holes isn’t the problem. Coming close to all the different shades of paint is going to be a pain in the butt!
Now that you mention it, I recently built a McKane 60’ car that had the supports but no roof walk.
Best solution would be to lightly weather the cars and a tad heaver on the roof…
Hi Larry-I found those “after” I posted [oops] & didn’t have a chance to post that. Those look like what I’m thinking of, but I was thinking there was another company years back that offered them also. (25+years ago) Oh well-that’s what I get for being out of things for so long!
The car you have was an auto parts car that was built before the ban on roofwalks. That UP Pullman-Standard car was built in 63 or 64, IIRC. Also, remember that there were many cars that ran around WITH roofwalks for over 20 years after the ban on them. Just because the government said it was to be so, that did not mean that they ran right out and cut them all off…oh, and by the way, they were still interchanged! We used to get them all the time on the Mopac in the mid 70’s.
Kadee did a black 40’ PS-1 in the black NW scheme with a roofwalk repainted in the early 70’s. A lot of people cried foul until the photos surfaced. N&W shopped and repainted it with the roofwalk still on it. BN had some CB&Q 40’ boxcars around with WOOD roofwalks into the mid-70’s.
There was no hard and fast rule on the actual removing of the roofwalks. A lot of railroads knew that they were going to phase out a lot of cars and just let them go to scrap instead of using valuble resources to follow a government mandate. The relationship between the railroads and the regulatory agencies was extremely adversarial (more so then than now). They still interchanged the cars and they other railroads would do the same unless some railroad got out of line. The reasons cou
I tried googling it but to no effect so far. What I remember from memory is that sometime in the 1966/67 time frame, FRA mandated no roof walks so all the box cars etc manufactured new after that date had no roof walks on them. If you can provide any documentation as to the date, it would be appreciated. I do know that box cars after that time came without roof walks. The 1974 date would probably have to do with existing box cars which came with roof walks and were manufactured new before the 1966/67 date, whatever.
Keith,
Thanks for the info, appreciate it.
Tilden