Hi Everyone. I live in the UK and have been modelling US Railroads since around 1956 - on and off. Over the last few years it has been off but I am back on now.
I am a great fan of Frank Ellison and have his book from the 1950s. Also, I am the proud possesor of Mixed Train Daily by Lucius Beebe. Hence, I am trying to model a short-ish line in the late steam era. I have two Bachmann 2-6-0 Sound/DCC locos and am using Peco Code 83 track which looks fantastic.
My question is this. I have the intial funds to purchase 20 freight cars. Shipping to the UK is expensive and buying in the UK even worse so I am on a tight budget (I am retired and living on a pension). What mix of cars should I buy (I have one caboose and one gondola already). Also, I quess I should stick to 40’ cars but there were some 50’ footers around it seems. I was mainly going to stick to the road names that I grew up with - NYC, Pennsy, UP, CBQ etc. rather than all the newer ones (? Like Penn Central - I remember them crashing!).
If you’re modeling a specific railroad, whether real or fictional, your freight cars should be at least half lettered for the “home road,” another quarter for roads directly interchanging with your home road, and the remaining quarter or less for all other roads. For example, if you’re modeling the Pennsylvania and want to buy 20 freight cars, about 10-12 should be PRR cars; 4-5 New York Central, Central of New Jersey, B&O, and C&O; and the remainder from distant roads like the Santa Fe, Southern, or Northern Pacific.
As for the types of freight cars, that depends on the kind of industries you plan to model on your layout, which in turn depends on the part of the country you’re modeling. West Virginia will need more coal hoppers and fewer oil tankers than Texas, for instance. The Midwest will need more boxcars (in your era, grain moved in boxcars; covered hoppers weren’t invented yet), and the South and West will need more reefers.
Each train will need its own caboose. They can share, but you’ll need one for each road freight or mixed train that will be on the road at the same time. If you want to run two trains at once, you’ll need at least two cabooses.
Passenger cars are up to you. Depending on your tastes and choice of locales, passenger operations can be modeled with as little equipment as a single car, RDC (rail diesel car), or combine added to a mixed local. Or you can put together a crack passenger liner with four or five modern streamlined lightweights. It’s up to your tastes. But unless you have some particular justification (such as a through sleeper on that crack name train), all passenger equipment should be lettered for your home road.
Late Steam in the US is usually described as the late 50’s There were some short lines that ran steam later, but they were rare. 50’ freight cars like flat cars, mill gondolas, and box cars were common, though most freight cars were of the 40’ variaty. There was still a lot of ‘composite’(wood/metal) cars still running. Accurail has some very nice kits for late steam era freight cars. Penn Central was formed in the late 60’s by the merger of the NYC, PRR and NH. Sort of beyond your era. Also, Walthers has some nice cars i9n their ‘Mainline’ series.
I second Jim’s recommendation for the Accurail line, but also consider the later Atlas Trainman line as well - some in affordable RTR form as well as the ‘37 AAR kits for 40’ steel boxcars. There are many options for less-expensive transition-era rolling stock out there now, and if you have the time both Accurail and Atlas Trainman kits (Bowser too, especially PRR prototypes) can be fun in their own right.
Your mix of cars will depend some on the industries on your layout that you plan to serve. Would they receive incoming shipments in tank cars, box cars or open gondolas and on flats? A large factory could receive a hopper load of coal for its power plant or a tank of oil, if it had an oil fired boiler. What products do your industries ship, thus what type of car to spot for loading. If your railroad has an interchange track that connects with other roads at each end, it can have most any type car passing through. A team track allows for most any type of load to come in, usually for off line customers.
As for which roads you have, typically most cars come from the home road and those close by. However, if a shipment needed to be sent and an empty was there, it got used. This means a car from a West Coast RR could be found in New England or the reverse. If there is a car that you like, you can ususlly justify it on your railroad.
There are some 3pk offerings that can save you a little bit when purchasing new items. You could go to an ebay seller and choose several cars from one source for combined shipping.
Your questions prompt more questions than answers.
If your short line is independent of any major railroad, it generally owned few of its own cars in this era. The cars of the major connecting railroad(s) will tend to dominate.
Your location tells what the ownership of visiting cars will be. Your railroad’s purpose (business model) tells what commodities are being hauled, and that dictates car types.
In short, we can provide more specific answers if we know more about your railroad’s location and purpose.
The Pennsylvania Railroad was the biggest railroad in North America by a number of measures, so you probably need at least one PRR X29 boxcar, no matter what the answers to the above questions may be.
Have you been modeling SINCE 1955, or is that the year you’re modeling?
If you’re modeling the '50s, no Penn Central it was formed by the Pennsy and NYC in Feb 1968, and the New Haven was thrown into the mix on 1 Jan 1969 by a bankruptcy court. If you are modeling the Northeastern US, all those roads should have a prominent place in your fleet. As others have said, the type will vary depending on what you’re hauling. Northeastern roads tended to do a lot of consignment shipping, so you will see a lot of boxcars.
Since you’re on a limited budget, I would make out a list of what you want and wait for it to go on sale.
For late steam era freight cars painted Pennsy I would first explore the Bowser freight cars, although you have to know something about the eras of Pennsy paint schemes to avoid a mistake. The blt dates don’t always tell the story, but they have steam era hoppers, gons, flatcars and boxcars of actual Pennsy prototypes. Even in the late steam era the Pennsy X-29 boxcar was still pretty common and is available from a few sources including Walthers.
Bowser, Walthers, and even Model Power have steam era Pennsy cabooses.
For the rest of your roster, for general late steam era freight cars, Accurail has, as someone else has noted above, a very nice selection.
A shortline will haul cars for online industries/businesses. If there is a team track they’ll haul cars for that. A coal dealer would be possible for hopper cars. heating oil dealer for tank cars. If this shortline is not part of a major system (which the 2-6-0’s suggest it is not), the only home road cars are likely to be few in number and very old - having none would be okay also. Otherwise, boxcars were most common and could easily be 50% or more depending on your industries and businesses. OTOH a coal mine could use a lot of hoppers.
Of course this is a hobby so if you really want a Stilwell oyster car go for it.
OK so I need to expand a bit. My RR would be a freelance based in the NE USA. I mentioned the Penn Central because I was around in the banking world when it went bad and was meaning to show that I knew it was out of my era. I expect to have 100% other road cars for now as my budget isn’t going to spring for custom decals for some time. My thoughts were going along the lines of the general mix as seen on the real railroads. My first idea was as follows:
8 Box Cars
1 Gondola (I have one already)
2 Coal Hoppers
2 Reefers
2 Flat
2 Stock Car
1 Oil Tank Car
I Non-Oil Tank Car
1 Caboose (I have one already).
This totals out at 22 cars (as I have two). I would expect to paint both the caboose in my road colours.
I am hesitant to tie down the industries yet. I am trying not to do too much planning as I find that I get too detailed and complicated. That is when I start to drift away and another railroad gets dismantled. I guess with a mix of cars, I can make up some boxes to represent industries and play around to see how it works. Over time, I will have more budget so things will expand slowly. Just to give you an idea, I am currently budgeting nearly $2,000 just for 2 locos, 20 freight cars, 10 switches, some flexible track and the baseboard. Fortunately, I have all the NCE DCC stuff plus accessory decoders, etc. I am NOT budgeting for point motors as they would bust the budget. This is for a 12’ x 2’ railroad.
I am sure that there are some faults in this so go ahead and set me right
Papermills would be a solid bet for industries, box cars or flat cars in, loaded with pupwood, box cars out stenciled for paper service only etc. For New England roads you have Rutland, Boston and Maine, Boston and Albany (NYC subsidary), Central Vermont (Canadian National Subsidiary I believe), GT(CN, note different than GTW, same owner), New York New Haven and Hartford (New Haven or NH for short), Maine Central, Bangor and Arroostook, Delware and Hudson (more of New York state than anyplace else).
Are you planning a point to point layout? I believe earlier you said that you had a Bachmann 2-6-0. It should go around 18-20in radius curves, so that should work if you are doing a sort of loop or oval. Accurail freight cars are a good choice for budget and ease of construction, and dependable operation. As your budget allows, replace the plastic wheels with metal and I put kadee #5 couplers on them, it helps lower the car’s center of gravity and improves overall operation. An Accurail kit will run you about $13-15 USD. The nice thing about Accurail is they list the build date of the car and any re-shop date in the description. They do not have any tank car kits. Walthers makes some nice RTR cars. Tangent scale models has a really nice one that works for the steam/diesel transition era, they also offer it as an unpainted kit, but I have never built one and cannot speak to its difficulty.
Your freight car selection should reflect the industries your railroad serves.
As examples.
My Summerset Ry serves warehouses,a grocery distributor,a plastic plant and a team track (transload track) so,SSR handles boxcars,covered hoppers,tank cars and gons(pipes),coil cars and bulkhead flat cars (lumber) for the transload track.
Whereas my Huron River serves two grain elevators,a propane distributor,a tire distributor and a frozen food distributor so HR handles covered hoppers, propane tank cars,reefers and boxcars.
At the risk of being Dorothy Downer, I agree with Brakie. I’m not sure how you can decide on what freight cars you need /want without knowing what industries you’re going to be modeling. If you don’t have industries that need hoppers, what’s the point in having them? Like you, I’m on a tight budget, and I just can’t imagine spending money on something that’s just going to sit on a shelf.
On thing I do notice on your list is stock cars. While not unheard of, they weren’t very common in the Northeast. I would dispense with these in favor of boxcars and reefers.
Gidday David, I fully understand where you are coming from regarding freight from the US as I’m on the opposite side of the other big bit of water.
I too would like to endorse, in no particular order, the Accurail, Atlas Trainman, Tichy, and Bowser kits, personally I reckon that they give good bang for the buck.
On the few occasions that I have dealt direct I’ve found M.B. Klein, “ModelTrainStuff” to be good value, though I try to get a reasonably sized order so the freight is spread over more items.
I would also agree with the view that deciding what your industries are to be will help refine your list.
I presume that Steven is referring only to covered hoppers on grain service as, for example, the PRR H30 covered hoppers started in service 1935 and the Maine Central had covered hoppers in service in 1937, both for cement
If the area you are modeling is Pennsylvania, I would have more than 2 coal hoppers, and would hold off on the stock cars until you have a better handle in your industries. Many businesses and homes in that area had coal heat in the 50s. Also, a couple of ice bunker reefers would be a good addition either meat or produce.
2-6-0’s were older engines which means your layout is at best pre-1960 and more like 1930’s or 1940’s. That rules out Penn Central unless you don’t care about anachronisms, then just buy what strikes your fancy.
Assuming you want to be somewhat accurate or you wouldn’t have asked the question:
8 Box Cars - all 40 footers, a couple PRR, a couple NYC, a few BAR, MEC, D&H, a couple CP or CN, should be a mix of 9’6", 10’ and 10’6’ IH cars
1 Gondola (I have one already) - a 46’ USRA or 40 GS type would fit the bill.
2 Coal Hoppers - I would make that 4 coal hoppers, 3 twins and one triple or quad, all eastern roads (PRR, RDG, LNE, LV, D&H, NYC)
2 Reefers - 36 or 40 ft ice cooled, maybe one a meat car.
2 Flat - cut back to one
2 Stock Car - cut back to one or none, stock cars were not that common on the east coast.
1 Oil Tank Car - keep it to a 40 ft car
I Non-Oil Tank Car- keep it to a 40 ft car
1 Caboose (I have one already).
There probably should be some B&O representation. Their freight car roster was pretty large. Possibly an M26 (ARA) or wagon-top boxcar, and an offset-side hopper.
Thanks for all the help. This has clarified my thinking no end. One point, though. I have 2-6-0 engines because they are availble over here from Bachmann with DCC Sound at a very resonable price. I don’t see any other steam loco that is available with the same specification at anything similar so it wasn’t a selection for accuracy but a selection by necessity. Plus, they are shorter and will fit in my reduced space a bit easier.
I am looking at the Accurail range. I will come back andtell you what I did.
