As most of us determine a railroad to model, and are prone to picking up rolling stock we like, I made a roster of my rolling stock to see the relation of roadnames, to prototypically transported cars of my chosen railroad to model. In my case Southern Pacific:
Of 98 cars I own, the top three are as follows:
SP (30)
SSW (9)
SOO (7)
Less than 50% of my rolling stock make up the top three. The frequency of these road names in a prototypical SP train in the 80’s, ranks about 90%. The remaining cars (of other likely roads, private, and leased), rank about 98% prototypical.
What is the railroad you model, your top three roadnames in your collection, and what do you feel is the prototypically correct percentage in your train? (if applicable)
I model a number of roads, and mix the cars as best I can so that I don’t have ten cars of the host road and only three cars of various other roads…
I’m a Southern Pacific fan myself, and remember it all very well from when I was a kid from the early 1970s to the mid 80s. In a typical consist around here at that time, you might see 30% SP stock but the rest was either Cotten Belt (SSW) or various other roads.
As for your other questions;
I don’t model any one particular road, but if I did, it would be the Western Pacific. Otherwise I model Santa Fe, Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Norfolk & Western and Rio Grande. My layout is versitile and can be changed around for the desired era in history including the 1930s, 50s, 70s and modern day.
I model the NYC in the 40s. So I have a number of rolling stock lines that run behind my locomotives, with only a few that are actually NYC or their affiliates. I like seeing the variety of road names and colors, since all sorts of products would have been shipped from west to east (and visavera).
we are trying to remain prototypical so we havent bought any rolling stock that wouldnt be feasible on the line… yet … i do like some of those aussie paint schemes (QR national) i saw in that new post from james saunders… i dont think it would be prototypical but it would be neat to get a hold of one of those cars
I model as of right now N&W,NKP and Wabash anywhere from the 50’s-70’s. You can find also the following roads thrown in to the consisits.
Monon, Ann Arbor, DT&I, D&TSL, B&LE, P&LE, ACY, Virginian, Erie, EL, C&EI, LT.
Also I am thinking of modleing my own Freelanced Railroad. It would follow the Cloverleaf Trackage thats in NE Indiana and have connections with some of the other roads that you see on the board.
As of right now I have close to 650 Freight cars that consist of the following types
I model the Ontario Northland and I probably have around 40 boxcars, gondola’s, flat cars etc that are in the ONR colours. The next largest in my fleet would be TTX boxcars and container cars. The rest of my 300 + cars are a little of everything else.
I too model the SP but earlier, from 1940-1970. I have not been going long and only have 200 freight cars but I have tried to stick to what I have seen from photos.
I have a number of consists - some complete consists like Beet Gons, Black Overnights, Silver Overnights and Trailers on Flat Cars are all just SP. But I have a number of other consists that are more mixed.
So my stats are:
PFE 13%
Private Reefers [like meat and fruit producers] 13%
very mixed range as it is difficult over in the UK to know precisely where some companies are located - for example Kohrs and Prima Beers, Union Refrigerator, Seaboard Oils, Grand Union Food - but I like the liveries and most folks in the UK are not that knowledgable either! [If you can help please let me know]
PRR 5%
I read that nearly 10% of all box cars were owned by Penn, so they must have been very widespread
Other RR [very mixed flags including Mid West and East coast lines] 3%
SSW 3%
NP 3%
REA 3%
leaving SP at 57% of which 22% are Overnights in the 3 liveries. 10% are Gons - but I want to increase these as my consist is too short at present.
I do not have many Cotton Belt - just 3%, as there is not a lot of evidence that they were abundant on the Coast line.
Road Names:
Reading - 17
Penn Lake System (my freelanced road) - 13
Delaware & Hudson - 12
The rest of the fleet is mostly Northeastern and Canadian roads.
The captive service cars - the coal and cement hoppers are almost entirely D&H, PLS, and RDG. While the freer roaming box cars and gondolas are much more varied.
I model the New Haven in the late sixties, of my fleet I only have about 10% lettered for the home road. 10% are NYC, 7% are Pennsy, 4% EL, SP, and B&O. The rest are from interchanges and are from all over the U.S.
Trying to replicate reality on a model RR car roster is tricky. To be believable, you don’t want to load up too much on one or two roadnames, but you don’t want to include too many oddballs either. Those with large rosters 200+ cars on a layout at any one time) have it easier than guys with small rosters, since larger rosters can use the national averages to their advantage.
Many proto-bases modelers look at the raw numbers of cars out on the road, and use it as a guide. Here’s an example: if you’ve got room for 100 boxcars on your roster, and are trying to recreate what a period roster would look like, you should look at the national car fleet by region, and then by overall size of the fleets. Some roads completely dominated the country: in 1950, the Pennsy owned 93,019 freight cars, when the average roster was less than 12,000 cars. The Pennsy had 65,645 boxcars alone! So it’s obvious that any modeler working on the 1930s through 1968 should have a few PRR cars. Likewise with the roads with the top ten car fleets, which included the NYC, SP, UP, ATSF, C&O, B&O, N&W, IC and L&N (I’m not including the two giant Canadian roads here. While they ran
I understand the propensity to buy only those fright cars that represent only your favorite railroads. I am not always successful but I try to pattern my collection after the trains that I see in Oklahoma City and in Tulsa. I own a large number of cars for the Burlington Northern, Santa Fe, Union Pacific and the pecurser roads. I have only recently accepted BNSF with thier new wedge logo and own a few of thos cars. From what I have observed, the BN(SF) garin trains seem to be around 50-75% BN(SF) with the rest mostly a mix of private leasing cars. The UP grain trains I used to see in Oologah seemed to be around 50% UP with the rest leased.
When I developed my collection, I tried to look at the area where I would operate and consider our interchanges. My fictional prototype does not interchange with the CSX so their cars are far more scarce than the UP or the BN(SF) with whom we directly interchange. I have a weakness for the Wisconsin Cental, the Montana Rail Link, and the DM&E resulting ina greater prsenece than I should have realistically. I try to keep my non-interchange foreign rolling stock at less than 10% of my collection. Union Pacific equipment represents around 25% of my collection. BN(SF) represents around 15%.
(BN(SF) means Burlinton Northern, Santa Fe, and the combined BNSF. Both railroads served my home town in Tulsa and I was accustomed to seeing them together even before they merged. It was a sad day for me when the warbonnet and the cascade green and black fell to the great pumpkin. Now the BNSF has taken up the colors of the in state rival of my university making it really hard to accept the merger. I may have to model the present day with ATSF SD70ACEs in the blue and yellow warbonnet and BN SD70ACEs in white face.)
I model the Rio Grande and Southern Pacific during the 1940-53 period, so my rolling stock would naturally reflect those roads and their connecting lines. Since there was a tremenduous flow of traffic both east and west at that time (the majority destination depending upon the War effort), there are a number of eastern roads (NYC, Pennsy, C&O) represented on my roster, mostly box and auto cars, but also the midwestern roads that the Rio Grande connected with (Missouri Pacific, Burlington, Rock Island). To say nothing of other roads that interconnected in California (My Rio Grande line is a ficticious California Extension), such as Santa Fe, Union Pacific, Western Pacific and some northwestern lines. The majority of my freight cars are for the ‘home’ lines (especially PFE reefers), but for the most part, my freight rosters reflect the truly ‘transcontinental’ traffic patterns of the era.
I model a freelanced logging/backwoodsy line in Large Scale based on prototype practices. I have two logging cabooses that I built based on an article by Ron Tarjany in the June 1979 issue of Model Railroader. I also have several wooden flat, gondolas, and bulk end cars built from plans from Pete Moffet’s “Narrow Nuggets” series that used to appear in the NMRA Bulletins in the 80s. I plan to build more wooden rolling stock and purchase some of the excellent RTR cars from Bachmann and other companies.
I have 250+ cars, the majority of which are hoppers, tanks and boxcars. As for the road names, I pay particular attention to modern era, but how many of each railroad? I don’t have that much time on my hands.
I have heard a rumor that 60% of your rolling stock should reflect the road you’re modeling. Not that I took that information into account when aquiring rolling stock, but even today, you still see a majority of the “home rail” cars in a train. I can recall most of the boxcar freight of SP, to be SP cars, and SSW next to that. Of course, out of the entire train, these home road cars might have only made up 40% of the entire train. Of the hundreds of photos I have seen, and the videos I have watched, rarely did I see a train that was 60% of home road cars. Recently, I was visiting my folks in Nevada, and watched a UP train go by… most of the cars were UP or MP as well as ex-SP, and I think there might have been one or two BNSF in there. Likewise, here in montana, of BNSF freight trains, it’s rare to see a UP or MP marked car.
I know not everyone is subject to strictly modeling their railroad as it was in real life, and many modelers don’t consider prototypical make-ups, or collections of their trains, and simply enjoy the hobby and model what they want. I, myself am fond of the SP and can’t compare much to other railroads, or train make-ups throughout different parts of the country, so I am more prone to model close to real life as I remember it.
It’s very interesting to hear everyone’s perspective on their rolling stock decisions.
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Interesting you would ask. This is for our Freelance railroad (PV&W) set basically in Denver (Platte City) and going west over the mountains in direct competition with the D&RGW. We recently analyzed our mix of rolling stock and noted things we had too many of or two few of. We also did the same thing for type of freight car not just road name. This was after we had just culled the whole fleet of era inappropriate cars, so we need about 50 more cars to fill the layout.
Rather then worry about percentages I buy the cars that I like and can use…I then base my industries on my favorite car types since each industry is independent from each other…Now,my freelance short line follows prototype short lines…Any road can appear from several WC boxcars to several railbox and railgon…Steel coil cars are usually from mills located on the EJ&E…While EJ&E coil cars are abundant you will find NS,CR,CSX and IHB coil cars since coil cars are used in pool service…Other “pool” type cars such as UTLX,ACFX,GATX etc is common as is private owner covered hoppers.Loads of grain,fruits and vegetables comes off the BNSF and UP.Lumber will arrive in WC,CN,CHTT,BNSF,NS,CSX and other such roads in center beams.Get the picture?
Then I have way to many short line per diem boxcars…No worries…I collect those cars.
