Trouble with listing era run is people are continualy saying something was gone by a certain date only to find a pic they were wrong or that x road never had x whatever just to see one found that the road aquired but forgot about, yes I have seen that happen.
There are also the cases where a company letters a car but the actual car was a different car.
For example Athearn make ONE truss rod boxcar. Therefore EVERY single truss rod boxcar they make is on that one car. Doesn’t matter whether it actually looked like that car or any of the details are correct.
For example if they letter a 36 ft truss rod boxcar for the PRR Union Line with a build date of 1901, is that really helpful? The Athearn car is really a 1910-1920 era car, it has the wrong doors for a PRR car and they open the wrong direction.
[quote user=“riogrande5761”]
Micro-Trains (N Scale) has Prototype Data on their boxes. Which helps exactly or little information depending on car
Example:
Pennsylvania Railroad 50’ Double Door Boxcar w/o roofwalk. #84916
Series: 84499-84999
Built: 1948
Trucks: Bettendorf
Region: East
Era: 1967-1980s
On the model on the boxcar on the left side it reads PRR 3-67 as the rebuilt number and the right still has the original year 5-47.
To me there is a sight problem. What happened to this car after the merge of PC. Did it get repainted or kept the same paint? Sit in the yard for repairs for years? Then you’re wondering if Conrail repainted early or later in the 80s as the car data applies.
I’ve done some looking at Microtrains freight cars in recent months as I’ve been collecting some N scale rolling stock, and another slight problem is the company that the freight car represents, such as Gunderson, Berwick, PC&F, Pullman Standard etc. is missing.
I’ve learned to identify freight cars by appearance and by builder name and model. Due to this, I"ve actually avoided buying some Microt
This happens quite a bit, especially in a minority scale in S. I don’t mind it, because I figure the it’s a way to hold costs down.
What I do like to know is what actual railroad car and year the model is based on.
Paul
OK… this has been an issue forever.
The BLT date means little. What really matters is when the photograph was taken that the decoration on the model is duplicating.
Cars get repack data, reweigh markings, ACI labels, warning stencils added, special loading instructions painted on, and then the whole car can be repainted, but the BLT date will stay the same.
The only thing a manufacturer can do is “This car appeared in this paint scheme in Autumn of 1973, and was repainted in Summer of 1978” and then you get an idea of when the six year span that car could be used.
When I was in N Scale Micro Trains put out a monthly newsletter that had all this information. It was not on the package labeling. Kadee does a very good job in HO.
Overall, I think this would mostly just open up manufacturers to aggravation and nitpicking from self appointed experts that think they know everything, and love to boast on the internet about what train geniuses they are.
“That car was actually repainted on May 7th, 1978, which, as any smart person knows is in the Spring, not Summer. I can’t believe XYZ manufacturer was so irresponsible not to do the proper research. You would think with all the people they employ they could get it right. I am so smart and they are so dumb.”
I do not see any reason for them to do this because it would most likely cut down on sales and just make problems for themselves.
-Kevin
Yeah, and just adding extra details like ACI and COTS decals changes the era.
http://vanderheide.ca/blog/2017/09/29/dating-via-the-details/
http://vanderheide.ca/blog/2018/03/16/dating-via-the-details-2/
That is true paul. Thanks for telling me this.
Can you imagine how hard it would be to be prototype date specific on modern rolling stock.
In the 1950s we have a hard time keeping up with revised paint schemes, reweigh data, etc.
In modern times you need to keep up with urban artists and their additions/modifications to the factory applied paint schemes.
I can just see the nit-pickers of the future…
“Uh, you claim to be modeling Summer of 2021, but the mural on the side of that CSX freight car was not added until Spring of 2022 when it was sitting on a siding South of Atlanta, you should really do better research.”
I’ll bet the future will be full of these nit-picking-know-it-alls.
You modern-era modellers better take a lot of pictures of the freight cars that will be in your fleet.
-Kevin
I’m a big fan of Bluford Shops. If you go to their website they give you all the information you need to know about a coal hopper or caboose they are producing in that run as to what years or era it fits in as well as the history of that car. They are mostly n scale except for HO cabooses. They also have a railroad history timeline concerning rule changes for freight cars that is very helpful.
Ralph
I am not rigid about setting a date for my layout. I do like to research locomotives to make sure they’re in the right timeframe. I even bring a spreadsheet to train shows (remember those?) with every road number I have to avoid duplicates. But, if I find an Accurail car I want, I buy it without anyone’s doctoral dissertation on it.
One of the sites I use is Rail Photos… If you research the railroad car in question the information includes the built date.
One surprising photo was of a 40’ PFE reefer still in use as of 9/29/76.
That must have been quite something and a suprise to see that. I will take a look and use it as a reference guide. Thanks!
I did a little reading up on the old 40’ ice PFE reefers, and after ice operations was discontinued in most locations by the early 1970’s, some of the ice reefers continued to be used in ventilator service, at least for a few years.
Probably some of the old ice reefers were in relatively good condition when ice service ended, so they were repurposed for a few years and by the late 1970’s, retired and scrapped, perhaps some lasted a bit longer.
Here are some comments on ice reefer service:
PFE ended icing service in Sept. 1973. Ice refers were still used as ventilators for crops like onions, grapefruit, oranges and dates Cars in this service would move with hatches open for ventilation rather than refrigeration.
The underlying assumption is that the data is readily available; and therefore the manufacturer should provide that data.
That may be true for most modern era models, but it certainly isn’t true for 19th Century and TOC (not 2000!) models and prototypes. In researching the 1800s and TOC, it quickly becomes apparent that much of the information that is available does not fully correlate at best, and is contradictory at worst. Major rebuilding programs further clouded the issues.
Given the poor state of database maintenance in the US (and in most places), I suspect there will be plenty of modern era data that doesn’t matchup as time marches on. The computer databases will be just as suspect as paper records of the past are now.