I am trying to find more variety of freight equipment for my railroad and particularly looking for truss-rod wood gondolas in HO. I know about Labelle, Roundhouse, Huff & Puff, Rio Grande Models and I just found out about Westwood. What other companies make or have offered in the past models of pre-WW1 freight equipment? Thanks - Nevin
Nevin,
Have you checked into any of the resin companies like Westerfield or Funaro & Camerlengo? They should have that sort of thing. However, those will require you to paint and detail them. And they don’t come with either trucks or couplers. Tichy makes very nicely detailed styrene kits and might also be another possibility for you.
Is there a particular road you are looking for? Or, will you be running mixed loads?
Tom
Central Valley used to make a whole series of 1900-1920 era freight cars (wood construction). However, they’re going to be hard to find. Most of the current Cental Valley listings on eBay are for trucks, not rolling stock.
Andre
Your title says pre-1920 but the message says pre-WWI. Which is it?
For pre-1920 (1916-1920 specifically), I would recommend doing a search on USRA or War Emergency.
There was/is Red Ball a line recently picked up by the Labelle people.
These may be too old for your liking but (1860"s)
River City Railroad sells the Roundhouse truss rod boxcar kits for that era. I have bought from them. Yes, it is Ebay, but it is Buy It Now.
http://www.rivercityrailroad.com/
Jay’s Trains. I have bought from him.
http://www.jaystrains.com/HO-HOn3/Rolling%20Stock/HO%20Rolling%20Stock/hors.htm
I model 1900.
Rich
By 1920 the majority of cars will be steel underframe, Most of the all wood hopper bottom gons will be gone and steel underframe or all steel hoppers and gons will be the norm.
The Labelle gon kits or the Trout Creeek gon kits would be your best bet for all wood gons. There are others but they are more 1880-1890 era cars and would be very low capacity and long in the tooth for 1920. F&C sells a GRa gon, steel underframe, wood sides that is good. the Walther’s USRA gon or the Tichy/Accurail USRA hopper or the Bowser GS or GL cars are good for the steel cars.
Thanks for the replies. There are several leads here that I had not heard of or considered. I appreciate it. - Nevin
The old old Red Ball line had several interesting and unusual cars appropriate for the pre 1920. You sometimes see them at swap meets. Some Red Ball kits have been reissued under other names over the years (Cannonball Car Shops comes to mind) but not to my knowledge the entire line.
I think some of the cars in the Binkley line were (are? they might still be around) were pre 1920. This site has some pics
http://www.cctrains.com/index.php?cPath=104_134
Note the left hand column on that website by the way – they sell pictures of old freight cars!
http://www.cctrains.com/index.php
A rather unusual kit that I have not seen at swap meets in some years was the Picard house car car body – basically wood ends (scribed to resemble a double sheethed car), sides (ditto), roof and floor that fit together in a clever system, but no openings for doors, no details whatever, pure wood. I don’t have one before me right now but there might have been a channel milled into the floor for the center sill. I have some in HO and one in O that I have no recollection of buying. They are on my “someday” list
Dave Nelson
As noted MDC/Roundhouse has a pretty good line of 36’ wood truss-rod house cars (boxcars, stockcars and reefers) and cabooses, they also make a flatcar and a steel 36’ boxcar with steel underframe. By 1920 most new cars were either steel or had steel underframes, but truss-rods (and arch bar trucks) weren’t banned from interchange service until the 1930’s. Their 80’ Pullman Palace cars would be right for that time too.
Unfortunately now under Athearn they no longer sell the undecorated kits, but they offer a good variety of factory decorated models.