hey everyone
im thinkin about buying a couple sets of the walthers gold line ore cars
im just hoping to get some opinions on them ???
what era are they from ?? would it be wrong to run them with my gp-38’s ?
are they a modern type of car ?
thanx everyone
I don’t know what particular era they are from, but it is your railroad. I personally wouldn’t see a problem if you wanted to run them behind an AMD-103 custom painted for the Deleware and Hudson, so go ahead and run them behind that geep 38.
And yes, they are still operated today by a couple of railroads.
As illustrated, the Walthers ore jimmy is accurately lettered for its primary prototype, the DM&IR, as built to carry high-quality iron ore. These cars were later modified by adding a little height to the sides in order to carry an equal weight of taconite pellets - 70 tons. I saw a yardful of the prototypes in (I think) 1992.
Taconite mining is alive and well in Northeastern Minnesota today.
As well as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (Yooper territory). My father-in-law works at the Tilden Mine in da UP, and I have spent a little bit of time railfanning the LS&I. It is cool to see the mining operations, to include the railroad, from the mine to da ore dock in Marquette.
The Walthers ore car is correct for ‘Minnesota’ ore car. And they are still used. The MDC ore car is correct for a ‘Michigan’ ore car. The nice thing about the Walthers car is that they couple close - The MDC cars need to be modified so that they will couple close like the prototype.
Jim
Tyhatts: I’ve got 240 of the cars and they are very good. This type of car was introduced in the 40s and are still being used and made today. There are two types of cars in use on the iron hauling railroads. These are what can be called Minnasota cars as they are used by the DM&IR and a few others up there. The other cars are refered to as Michagan cars and used by the likes of the LS&I in the UP of Michagan. The main differance is the Minnasota cars are wider by a little. Since these are the only iron ore cars avaliable now I’m useing them for my UP railroad. I’d rather use the MDC taper side cars but you take what you can get. Actually mixing them makes for an interesting looking train.
Just as a side note, the width of the cars had to do with the dimensions of the ore docks. This had to do with the width of the cars in relation to the spacing of the tracks on the docks. The western docks were a little wider so the track spacing was also a little wider, thus a wider and shorter (height) car.
thats awsome news hahah me and my GF have been together for 3 years in april and ive been given a 200 dollar spending limit .
im torn between gettin 3 more sets of coal hoppers… which would bring my count to 30 ( not very many, but still alot for just bein in the hobby for a month)… orrrr if i should get like 4 sets of the ore cars … 48 ore cars wouldnt really make a long train,
BUT it would look like a nice train ,and i havent seen any guys at the club with these cars so it would be unique … i guess i have some thinkin to do
The ‘width’ has nothing to do with the ‘dock’ The ‘length’ of the ore pocket is 24’. The t coupled length of an ore car is 24’. They dump between the rails, so the width is not an issue(it’s only inches in difference on the two tyoes)… All of the Great Lakes cars were 24’ on center, and most were 70t capacity. You can still see DM&IR ore dock operation in Duluth and maybe Two Harbors. The BNSF(ex-GN) ore dock in Superior is used to load ships, but the ore is dumped on land now and a conveyor moves it to the ore pockets on the dock. I am not sure if the LS&I is still moving ore, but the CN(ex-C&NW) dock at Escanaba also is a ground unloader and a conveyor to a ‘loader’ built on the outline of the old ore dock.
Jim
I guess these guys are wrong then. Somebody should tell them to correct their site…
http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/rolling-stock/ore-cars/95-2-Ore-car-models.php
The LS&I is still moving pellets from the Tilden (my father-in-law works at this mine) and Empire mines to the ore dock in Marquette.
Actually the pockets are on 12’ centers to match the hatch spacing on the first boats built for hauling iron ore. The ore cars couple on 24 inch centers and unload into every other pocket. Bulk carriers have been built with hatches on both 12’ and 24’ centers. both types of boats are moved along the dock during loading. Now why the railroads had different widths is beyond me. All I can say is that the two reagons developed their own specs at about the same time. The docks tracks had to be spaced acording to the width of the cars that the railroad was using. One of the docks in the Upper Peninsula of Michagan had the wider spacing to accomadate the use of the wider cars. I don’t remember off hand wich one it was. Yes the LS&I’s ore dock is in operation and has been modified this year to have air operated pocket doors on the south side of the dock. This will make it safer to open the doors since the dock workers will not have to climb down to do this by hand.
You were talking about the length of a train 40 cars etc. Here in Waukesha I have seen a gp40 hauling only 4 cars behind him and nothing else. It was interesting to see. This was awhile ago tho like a year.
The MDC Upper Michigan cars are a little higher and a little narrower than the Walthers Minnesota cars, which is correct for the prototype cars. CNW bought some used DMIR Minnesota cars about 15-20 years ago. As far as I know, these would be the only MN cars that were used in Yooperland. I looked at the NEB&W link, I doubt the railroads built their ore docks first, and then decided to build ore cars to fit the docks !! I’m sure they bought ore cars first. FWIW I bought the first version of the NEBW book with all the historical facts etc. and found many rather obvious mistakes in there, so I would take anything from there (especially relating to things outside of their region) with a grain of salt. [;)]
BN used GP-38’s (or GP-38-2’s?? I’d have to check Pat Dorin’s book) extensively on their ore trains going from the Mesabi Range to the ore docks at Allouez, WI in the seventies and eighties. Unlike many ore lines, BN generally used their newest power on the ore trains. I’ve been thinking of getting a couple of the Atlas Trainman engines for my BN ore trains.
BTW the Walthers cars that I think you’re looking at are the BN ones and re-lettered DMIR ones, which would be from the 70’s-80’s (BN) to today (DMIR). The Missabe didn’t use reporting marks on their cars, just their herald with the car no. underneath it. Since all-rail tac trains are sending these cars all over the country, the gov’t made them restencil them with “DMIR”. Now that the paint is wearing off, you can see the herald bleeding thru under the “DMIR” lettering. This is what the Walthers DMIR cars represent.
IMHO only bad thing about the Walthers cars is they don’t roll very well, I’m replacing the trucks on mine with Life-Like trucks which are incredibly free-rolling.
WHats the deal with the Walthers cars not rolling right? Kevin
I thought it was just the trucks hitting the bottom of the car or something, so I raised the car with a couple of red Kadee washers per truck, but still they were like sleds!! Usually I’ve found the Walthers trucks with plastic wheelsets roll pretty well but these don’t. I have a 2% grade on one part of the layout, I tried letting some cars roll down the grade. Starting at the top of the grade some Walthers cars couldn’t make it to the bottom of the grade by themselves. With Life-Like trucks, they hit the bottom of the grade at a high rate of speed and go another 10-12 feet beyond on level track.
Good Evening All:
Stix: My Walthers ore cars roll very easy . They have metal wheels and my Spectrum 2-8-0 pulled 64 of them on the level. When did you get yours? I wonder if Walthers changed to metal wheels at a later date, or changed to plastic wheels after I got mine. Interesting to hear that the Life like trucks work so well. I’ll have to try some on some of my Varney ore cars. They still have the original Varney trucks.
All of my Walthers cars are from the first couple years of production and all came with plastic wheels. Could be they’ve switched in recent years to metal??
I was pretty amazed by the Life-Like trucks, they are incredibly free-rolling and a direct replacement for the Walthers trucks. However the trucks do still sit a little low so I still use one Kadee washer to boost the car up a little.
Stix: All my cars were bought after around October '05. I guess they did change to metal wheels. They mus have gotten alot of complaints.
I changed my set of 24 ore cars from walthers to metal wheels and equippted with loads to weigh em down. The result is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cRPL274NCE&search=CounterHeavy