Tank Cars: LP Gas

Another common tank car found on model railroads is the LP gas car, because of the Atlas and Kadee models. These two models are of different prototypes. The Atlas car has some accuracy issues, and some of them are lettered for cars that are correct for the Kadee model instead. But it is still a very well detailed model.

The cars in this service are insulated and pressurized. As a result, they have a "bonnet" that housed the loading/unloading connections instead of an expansion dome. The Liquified Petroleum Gas industry was growing in the early '50s. But for many towns like New Britain, it was still not a common commodity.  Coal and Fuel Oil were the predominant home heating fuels. In addition, as Town Gas started to be phased out, the fact that an underground piping system was already in place for many customers made a switch to natural gas easy.

As a result, there are no LP gas dealers in New Britain in my era. But Fafnir Bearing received LP Gas (or possibly the closely related butane) and had several tanks and a dedicated track for tank cars. 

The Fuelane Corporation was promoting their LP gas for cooking. Operating out of Liberty, NY  it seems an appropriate choice for New England. All three of these are Kadee models. 

This is the Atlas model. I think the gray is a little light, but nothing that some weathering can't fix.

The Kadee Warren car is in a simpler scheme.

This is another Atlas model, weathered by Gerry Schaefer. This car is lettered for another commodity hauled in these types of cars - Anhydrous Ammonia. Stanley Works may have used this in furnaces for hardening and tempering steel tools. It was also used as an industrial refrigerant, among other things. Kadee also has cars lettered for Mathieson Chemicals that would be appropriate for this service.

Tank Cars: Industrial Oils

Other petroleum products fall under the category of Refined Petroleum, NOS. 

Lubricating and Cutting Oils

A common product required by the many machine shops and manufacturers of New Britain is lubricating or cutting oil. These could be shipped via box car in 55-gallon drums. It could also be delivered via truck from a regional distributor such as L.F. Powers Co. in Waterbury.  But with the amount required by some of these industries, I think it's reasonable to consider tank cars too.

These types of oil would not require heater coils or insulation and would be carried in general service tank cars. 

The major gasoline and oil companies also produced lubricating oils in their refining processes. This Tangent car is lettered for Sinclair. I particularly wanted to use the Proto 2000 Socony-Vacuum car for its attractive Mobilgas scheme.

Any of the other general service cars, with or without lagging (insulation) or heater coils can be assigned for this service too.

Coal Tar

There is also a petroleum product that I can potentially ship out from New Britain. Town Gas companies, like the New Britain Gas Light Co., generated a lot of coal tar.  This is a byproduct of both the coal gas and carburetted water gas process. In turn, coal tar could be used to make creosote, road or roofing tar, solvents, and some early plastics such as Bakelite.

This Koppers tank car is a Red Caboose model. This model is accurate for only a handful of prototypes for SL-SF, USAX, JTBX, SHPX (for Bakelite), and, conveniently, Koppers. For some reason, though, all of the available models are lettered for the wrong series, and the reporting marks are wrong. It should be KPCX 2500-2522 for the 23 cars built in 1951. I also have a couple of kits to build and I'll correct the reporting marks and road numbers.

Also note that Intermountain has released their Type 27 tank car in the Koppers livery. I don't have any information on the other builds of tank cars, other than this series was insulated, unlike the Intermountain model.

Of the ex-Red Caboose 10,000 gallon welded tank cars that Intermountain produces, the only scheme that is accurate is the USAX (US Army) one. 

Another one they could run is the SHPX 16754-16773 series with heater coils that was leased to the Bakelite division of Union Carbide. They would have received coal tar from town gas operations too. Their factory was in Bound Brook, NJ with another plant opened in Marietta, OH in 1951.

Coal tar was shipped to Koppers Tar & Chemical Division facilities in Everett, MA and Providence, RI. The Everett facility was owned and operated by Barrett in '20s. I didn't find a date for when it switched to a Koppers operation, but it was before my modeling era. 

Baird & McGuire in Holbrook, MA also purchased coal tar from town gas companies in the region. They would use cars from GATX, SHPX, or UTLX. The Bakelite plant in NJ is another potential destination. 

Heater coils were required to be able to unload the thick coal tar. Lagging may or may not be used. Around 80% of the Koppers owned cars were insulated, and all had heater coils.

General service cars with heater coils would also be used in this service.

Tank Cars: Fuel Oil

As noted, gasoline and other road fuel oils accounted for 825 tank cars shipped to CT in 1950.

But Refined Petroleum, NOS accounted for over 4,000 tank cars. Most of these would be for various grades of Fuel Oils. In the Consolidated Freight Classifications from 1943, it falls under the category of 36420 Crude Oil. This includes:

• Crude oil in its natural state...not blended with other products
• Residual Fuel Oil
• Distillate Fuel Oil, not suitable for illuminating purposes
• Gas-oil

What is Fuel Oil, and what is it used for?  There are different grades of Fuel Oil, which is determined by how refined they are. They are numbered from most refined to least refined. The oils with less refinement are also less expensive, but are thicker and have more impurities.

No. 1 Fuel Oil is similar to kerosene and is also known as Range Oil.

No. 2 is used for home and commercial heating and furnaces.

No. 3 was an older type that was not generally used any more. 

No. 4, also known as Bunker A Oil, is used as an industrial heating oil. 

No. 5, or Bunker B Oil, is heavier and requires pre-heating to 170-220 degrees F use in industrial boilers. Tank cars shipping this oil required heater coils and often used insulation.

No. 6, or Bunker C Oil, is heavier still, and requires pre-heating to 220-260 degrees F for use. Used in ships and large industrial boilers. Tank cars shipping this oil required heater coils and often used insulation.

There are other products that fall under this category. Kerosene is similar to Range Oil.  Gas Oil is a distillate between No. 1 and No. 2 Fuel Oil. This was used in the carbureted water gas process and, in my case, will be delivered to New Britain Gas Light Co. 

Many retail dealers advertised Range and Fuel Oil. These would be No. 1 and 2 Fuel oils. These were shipped in general service tank cars with or without insulation. 

Without concrete information as to what grades of Fuel Oil the major industries used, I could waybill for any of the "Bunker" grades. Bunker C is probably likely in the larger industries, since it was the least expensive option.

One of the reasons I think more fuel oil was shipped by rail than gasoline is because of the viscosity of grades 4-6, making it impractical to utilize pipelines. Being less refined, they are more likely to be shipped directly from their source, rather than regional refineries, too. This appears to be the case, as more than 1/4 of the fuel oil shipped to CT by tank car came from Texas. In total, thirteen states shipped Refined Petroleum, NOS to CT via rail in 1950, and almost 3/4 of that was from Texas (1225), Pennsylvania (800), New Jersey (625), and Illinois (425). 

Tank cars filled with Fuel Oil were placarded as "Dangerous." When empty, an Empty Dangerous placard would be applied.

Like gasoline, any "general service" tank car is suitable for these commodities, with some requiring heater coils. The coils were used during unloading, not during transport, to help the product flow better. While connections could sometimes been seen on the ends of the car for these coils, it appears that they were more commonly located under the car. I indicate whether a car is so equipped based on the lettering on the model, or the 1955 Tank Car Capacities Tariff available to purchase here.

Tangent GATC 1917-design radial course tank car. According to the tank car tariff, this car was equipped with heater coils and would be appropriate for the heavier grades of Fuel Oil.

Tangent GATC 1984-design welded tank car. Equipped with heater coils.

Proto 2000 Type 21 tank car. This car is also equipped with heater coils.

Rapido UTLX X-3 tank car. This car is not equipped with heater coils, so would not be used for the heavier grades.

Proto 2000 Type 21 Insulated tank car. Although insulated, it is not equipped with heater coils. Since I model early November, I will probably waybill this for No. 2 Fuel Oil. While it did not require heater coils, it does get more viscous when cold so an insulated tank could be beneficial.

Tangent GATC Three-compartment tank car. Cars like this would often be used to ship multiple grades of products. For example, Gasoline, Range Oil, and No. 2 Fuel Oil. Multiple compartment cars would also be used in L.C.L service to deliver smaller quantities to multiple customers.

A Quick Project

 I recently purchased (a lot of) the Rapido 1937 AAR Box Cars. I'm very happy with the models, although as others have noted there are a few discrepancies in terms of the handbrakes. Rapido tooled nine different handbrakes, with housings. Unfortunately it appears that for some of them the wrong one was used during assembly. Not a huge deal to swap them out.

I also purchased a number of the undecorated ones for use in other projects, and each one comes with all nine of them. Most variations are also available from Kadee or Tangent as separate parts, but there are a couple of unique ones in the Rapido models. Hopefully they will make them available as separate parts.

Of course, I needed a bunch of the New Haven cars.  Thankfully, the initial run is of the 1941 delivery scheme with black doors.

The NHRHTA Convention was this weekend, where I picked up three more of the cars. This is a special run for the Association, and they are the first repaint, with the door now the body color. Although I haven't been able to find any documentation as to when this scheme was introduced, the PS-1 box cars built in 1947-8 were delivered with black doors.

Paint schemes in general went through changes c1949 on the New Haven, so maybe sometime in that period? Even though the 1955 aerial photos I have of New Britain are in black & white, you can see a couple of strings of NH box cars, and a few of the cars still appear to have black doors, but more of them don't.  Photo evidence shows that even some of the PS-1s were repainted by 1954. 

I can use both of course. These cars were built in 1941, My initial mix, of six cars in the delivery scheme and three in the repaint is OK for 1946-7 sessions. But I'm focusing on 1953 as my initial sessions, I need more with the repainted door. 

Fortunately, there's a very simple solution for me, and if you pay attention to the photos above you probably know what it is...

With luck, because of the way my layout is designed, you only see one side of any given car, regardless of where it is on the layout. Since the doors are separate parts on the model, I could swap some doors and have six cars that have one black and one repainted door.

The floor of the model is not glued in place. The uncoupling levers are glued to the coupler box cover, so I unscrewed that so it could remain in place when removing the floor. The bell crank is a separate part from the handbrake rod, so I would recommend working the B-end out first. It is glued, but pops right out. The uncoupling lever is flexible enough that you can work the floor out without removing it.

The door is glued in place, but there are pins that align it and can be pressed from inside the car body. As long as one of those breaks the glue seal I could get a small screwdriver underneath the door and pry it off. Swap a door, reassemble, and now I have six with a repainted door on one side, and black door on the other.

Tank Cars: Gasoline

Now I'm working through tank cars. Like hoppers, these are generally single commodity cars.  But there are more potential commodities, and I need to find sources for each one. Gasoline/oil is the most common commodity still shipped by rail.  But by my era a lot of that traffic is handled via pipelines or water routes to large distribution centers and then delivered by truck.

The 1% waybill studies show that the majority of gasoline coming into Connecticut by rail in the 1950 1% study originated in Rhode Island. The only other state that was captured was Louisiana. There were several possibilities:

Tiverton Oil Terminal in Providence. This served Atlantic, Shell, and Texaco brands.

The East Providence Terminal served Socony-Vacuum (Mobilgas), Gulf, Tide Water, and US Oil Co.  There was also Colonial Beacon Oil Co., which I think was a local distributor.

A third was the Inland Fuel Terminal in Providence. I haven't determined brands it served in this era.

From here, tank cars would be loaded bound for CT and other New England states. It appears that most was bound for local distribution points, such as LP Powers Co in Waterbury, who was a Sinclair and Socony-Vacuum wholesaler, and maybe other brands. From there they would distribute gasoline to local gas stations. I don't know how wide of a radius the trucking served, though.

Would New Britain receive gasoline by rail at all? Hardware City Fuel Co had two sidings and appears to have received Gulf gasoline by tank car. But this industry is off-layout, unfortunately. 

Berson Brothers had a siding for receiving coal and also advertised Esso gasoline. They have a number of tanks on-site, although it's not clear that they had facilities for unloading via tank car. But I'll go ahead and use it for that purpose. Esso is an ex-Standard Oil company, and would typically be delivered in standard black UTLX tank cars.

This is a Rapido X-3 tank car that I'll assign as a car in gasoline service. For an ex-Standard Oil company, UTLX cars are the most common.

Some of the maps show that the city of New Britain had gas tanks on the site served by rail. These would be for city trucks and equipment. There is a siding, but I don't know what it received by rail so gasoline is a possibility. 

This is a Proto 2000 ACF Type 21 insulated tank car. Gasoline did not have to be moved in insulated cars, but it could be. I could use this to service the town siding, or in through trains.  The placards provided in the model are correct for my era, with a red "Dangerous" on a white background with the rest of the text black. Prior to 1941 it would have stated "Inflammable" instead of "Dangerous."

What type of gasoline was used in this era?  Most cars and trucks used "regular" gasoline. Premium gas was used for many (most?) small or medium trucks. 

White Gas, and some other fuel types were still used in some older vehicles, but I don't know how common it was.

What about diesel fuel? The 1950 1% waybill study indicates 475 tank cars of gasoline were shipped to CT annually. It also listed 450 tank cars of Fuel Road Oils, NOS. This likely includes Diesel Fuel, and might include White Gas. 

Diesel fuel was used in semi trucks from Cummins, Detroit Diesel (GMC) and Mack starting in the 1930s.  Buses followed in the 1940s. The engines were too large for small or medium trucks. Trucking companies, city bus terminals, and sometimes large industries would have diesel pumps for their trucks or buses. Otherwise, highway truck stops were where diesel trucks would fill up. Diesel fuel is not listed in the city directories or phone books of the era. So I'm not sure whether any of the rail served industries received it. I suspect a lot, if not all, came via truck from the regional distribution centers.

Any of these types of gasoline could be hauled in tank cars, and multi-compartment tank cars were often used to deliver multiple grades or types.

Hoppers

All of my ops sessions to this point have been the same basic session. I have a group of waybills I created years ago for testing, and a number have been lost along the way. Thing is, this hasn't really been noticeable during a session, at least not as far as I can tell. Even from the same starting point, the operators handle the movements differently each time.

Part of me has wanted to compile a "full" list of potential sources and destinations for each car I own, and also a variety of waybills for each one so that they'll never be running the same route more than once. The reality is, this largely isn't necessary.

This process started due to an entirely different project. When I was looking to order some parts from Bowser, I noticed they were selling coal loads for hoppers made by a variety of manufacturers. So I decided to order a few to see how they looked. In the meantime, I decided to start adding real coal on top of the plastic loads that came with a bunch of hoppers. I also modified those loads to they would sit deeper into the hopper and the new coal wouldn't sit too high. I found I could modify Kadee loads to fit the Intermountain hoppers. It also led to an assessment of what cars I still wanted to acquire. As a result, I now have the complete hopper roster I'd like, but quite a few are still in kit form.

New Britain Yard looks a lot like I'm modeling coal country here. This is about half the roster. I need to finish the resin kits, lettering the MTH USRA hoppers, and modifying the Bowser "fishbelly" hoppers. Until then, the mix is a bit off.

The Bowser loads are real coal, and look like an anthracite load to me. That's great, because the majority of the retail coal should be anthracite. But for the industries I wanted the bituminous loads to look different. I have some real coal (I think) that came from Scenic Express years ago. That looks shiny like anthracite. I also had some Smith & Sons cinders left (which I love), and that looked more dusty, like bituminous. I found some old Highball coal but it's a bit more grey than I'd like. I also think it's too clean.  Bituminous is very dusty compared to anthracite. 

In this photo, the Bowser load is the lower left. One of my anthracite loads is the upper left.

The lower right is the Smith & Sons (I'd love one more bottle, I'm out).

The upper right is Highball Coal. 

So for the waybills, I need to identify sources and match them to industries in New Britain. I hunted down a lot of industry publications, like the Pennsylvania Anthracite or Bituminous Annual Reports published annually during that era by the state, along with railroad shipping guides and other similar documents. I started by looking at the retail brands sold in New Britain and locating the largest collieries for those brands. I also looked for the largest non-branded ones for additional suppliers.

Because the waybills will only be handled by the agent at a desk, I'm making them full sized. As much as a huge spreadsheet and loads of waybills might be interesting, I really only one per car to start. So that's what I'm doing, creating one bill for each car that I have in service. Not all will be used every session.

I currently have 39 hoppers ready for service.

Anthracite

1 - D&H (Kadee)

5 - Erie (Broadway Limited, Intermountain, JJL)

2 - Reading (Kadee)

Bituminous

6 - B&O (Broadway Limited, MTH, Proto 2000)

1 - Berwind (Rapido)

1 - C&I (Intermountain)

3 - C&O (Intermountain, MTH)

1 - CRR (Intermountain)

1 - Montour (Intermountain)

1 - N&W (Broadway Limited)

1 - O&W (Rapido)

Either

5 - NYC (Broadway Limited, Kadee, Tichy/Intermountain)

11 - PRR (MTH, Rapido)

The Tichy/Intermountain NYC hopper is incorrectly painted black, though...

In theory, any of the hoppers could be carrying any type of coal. But I'm assuming that most will be loaded on their home road, or close, so I'm basing the probable loads on that.

On-Layout Industries in New Britain receiving Anthracite

• Berson Brothers
• City Coal & Wood
• D&K Coal
• Household Fuel
• Shurberg & Sons
• Stanley Svea

On-Layout Industries in New Britain receiving Bituminous

• Landers, Frary & Clark
• New Britain Gas Light Co
• P&F Corbin
• Parkmeadow Lofts
• Russell & Erwin
• Stanley Works

That's twelve industries.  Many of these will receive more than one load at a time, plus there will be a number empties on-layout to pull. So I suspect I'll need 20-30 during a session, although not every car will necessarily move. During a session where there are multiple through trains (up to six) I will need a few more.

Can I Buy You A Beer?

Here's a little project I finished up recently. Greenway Models is a company that has produced a lot of custom painted Athearn models. I learned that they made a model for Cremo Brewery when I saw one at the New Britain Industrial Museum. One finally turned up and, even better, it was still in kit form. So I decided to upgrade it to my layout standards.

The sides are separate pieces, with a cutout above the door.  The roof and ends are molded as a single part, and snap into that location. So that needs to be addressed. I also wanted to replace the molded on parts, and conveniently the paint scheme doesn't have any lettering in those locations.

My initial approach was simply to shave them off. But I also needed to determine what I would use to kitbash it. Looking for a potential donor in my stash I decided to go with the Branchline reefer. I did some test fitting, and found it was nearly a perfect match in height and length for the sides. The sides were slightly thinner. 

It occurred to me that I could cut the sides just inside the ladder and grab irons, and splice the end portions of the Branchline sides. This included the mounting pins. This also meant that I'd gain the strap braces that secure the ends on the prototype, and the mounting locations for the ladders. I also filled in the missing portion above the door with strip styrene. In hindsight, I should have scribed deeper boards in the Branchline portions to more closely match the Athearn side. 

The rest of the model is the Branchline kit as designed. I touched up the sides with a blend of Vallejo white and off-white and the rest of the car is painted using Stynylrez black primer. This matched the scheme of the Greenway model, although I didn't paint the sill yellow.

It's a fictional car, but a fun addition to the roster. I couldn't fit the brewery on the layout, but operationally it was served out of Whiting St. Yard by one of the Holyoke freights. So it can be dropped off overnight or in the morning, to be taken back off the layout in the afternoon. 

Cremo Brewery closed in 1955, but Alvarium Brewery in New Britain has resurrected the brand.  I think I'll have one.

Fiddling

Progress is one of those things that I think we all struggle with from time to time.  Tom Jacobs has his "hour a day" mantra and Chris Adams has "do one thing." Similar approaches are great ways to keep things moving.

My approach is similar, but in an ADHD bent rather than an OCD sort of way.  What's the difference? Chris and Tom get more things completed.

Rather than try to force myself to do those things that I should be doing, I've gone back to doing whatever I gravitate to instead. Lately that has been fiddling around with freight car kits. Cleaning flash off resin kits, drilling holes, etc. are great mindless things when my brain has had enough, but I want to keep busy. That has led to assembling some bodies and doing some of the detail work when a particular kit captures my interest. 

This leads to lots of projects in progress, but my theory is that they will all get finished eventually.  Progress is progress, after all. There is a bit of method to my madness, though.  When I start doing a particular task, such as cleaning flash or drilling holes, it's easy to just keep moving forward with that task.  Thus, pulling several kits (often with a theme) and completing the process on several.

In addition to getting to see the cool kits I've picked out over the years as important to my layout, right now it's a better approach for me.  Changes in work has left me more mentally fatigued than short on time. These more mindless tasks are good distractions, but also let me give my brain a rest.  The reality is, for me anyway, that my brain becomes more productive and finds solutions best when I don't think about them. So this approach ends up being helpful for my work and my modeling. The apparent chaos can be a good thing.

The big thing here is that, as a hobby, it's supposed to not only be fun, but engaging. It's a distraction from the rest of life, and a better one (at least for me) than just watching TV or videos online (I've done way too much of that already).  It's also a way of accomplishing things that are uniquely you.  Leaning into my nature has already made me far more productive, and I have already found solutions to some of the things that have been holding me back on those things that I should do.  As a result, I do want to complete a number of these works in progress, and get to a few critical things to get the layout fully operational again, and set up in a way that I can be prepared for regular sessions. And scenery.

So what have I been working on?

Rapido 44-tonners

Various Box Car Mini-kits and Kitbashes

Ballast and Cinders experiments

Painting and Weathering Ties Experiments

Resin Gondola Kits

Resin Reefer Kits

Reorganizing

The Gift of Model Railroading

 As much as I enjoy modeling, it's the modeling community that I enjoy perhaps even more. Of course, this past weekend was the Amherst Railroad Hobby Show (aka the Springfield Train Show). Although last year was the first post-covid show, a combination of omicron and a blizzard meant it was not quite the return as intended.

Not this year. Attendance was over 21,000 and it certainly felt like it. I don't typically need much, so I prefer to be involved. 

The reality was, in part because of Emily finally coming home from the hospital after a 4-month visit just a few days before the show, I wasn't well prepared. I didn't have a shopping list ready, barely had things to sell, and didn't get the things ready to display what Chris Z. and I have been up to. Since I didn't have a table this year, I helped Dale (not much) at his, but did sell a few of the trucks that Chris and I made.

Of course, I saw lots of folks, and that was the most fun for me. We had a great return to the Steaming Tender parlor car for dinner, even if the new arrangement isn't very conducive to moving around to see people. Shows like this really help motivate me to make some progress on my layout.

I did manage to get a couple of things, though. Dale handles the table for the Amherst club, and this year most of the table consisted of cars and buildings from Dick Elwell's layout, who passed away a few months ago. Of course, Dick was a master modeler and well known from features in Model Railroader and elsewhere. I had the pleasure of operating on his layout in the past too.

I managed to snag a couple of Tangent tank cars Dick weathered. Like the Russwin smokestack my buddy Craig Bisgeier made, Dick's modeling will live on, not only on my layout, but many, many others.

And they aren't the only ones. Probably the highlight of the weekend for me was a generous gift:

A mutual friend of Bill Welch gave me this Sunshine Rock Island box car built by Bill, who also sadly passed away last year. It appears Bill hadn't quite completed the car, it's not weathered yet, and I'm torn between leaving it as is, and weathering it as my contribution his beautiful work.

It's not really the freight car itself that moved me. The real gift of this hobby are the thoughtful and generous friends we make. I love going to the shows, not just to see my many modeling buddies, but to meet new ones too. It's a hobby that only grows richer the more folks we know, and it's a community built on helping each other reach their modeling goals.

I'm not sure I'll be quite as influential as the Dick Elwells, Bill Welches, or Allan McClellands, who also passed last year. I often wonder what I can offer to my friends who are such accomplished modelers. Over the years I've found that I do have ideas, research, and many other things that I could provide to even them. But the real lesson that they have passed on is that it's not what we can offer them, but what we can offer others. 

They were inspired by those that came before them, just as we are by them. And just as they have passed on their love of the hobby, their excellent modeling, and how they did what they did in clinics, articles, and sharing directly, we can too. The richness of model railroading can be seen in their work, but that's the past. The hobby grows by sharing what they have done, and we do, with others and building upon the foundations they and those before them have built.

New Cars!

 I just received the Eastern Seaboard Models Magor/PC&F XIH box cars. For those unfamiliar with the company, this is their first HO scale offering, after years of excellent N-scale products.

Bryan has been posting updates, photos, and videos on a regular basis which highlighted testing and various rejections (including just as they were about to ship) to ensure these models were up to their standards.

I haven't done any significant research on the prototype since the NH version was built mid-1953 and just sneaks into my modeling era. But these are actually two closely related prototypes, 300 cars built for BAR by Magor in 1950, and another 150 cars (plus 100 for the NH) built by PC&F.

Magor-built BAR car.

PC&F-built car.

The PC&F cars (right) used a different roof than the Magor-built cars (left).

The cars are beautifully finished with the ever-popular (even on incorrect prototypes) "State of Maine" scheme. There has always been a lot of debate about the scheme, particularly the ends. Although the ends were painted the same color as the roof and top third of the car sides, it was mixed with asphaltum making them look black. I prefer this choice as it better matches photos of the cars.

I'm sure some will complain about the price, but I'm surprised it's as low as it is. It's their first foray into HO scale, and the amount of testing and changes alone add to the cost. But they also have genuine Kadee couplers, Intermountain trucks and wheelsets, and Hi-Tech rubber air hoses. Although OEM prices are less than what we as consumers pay, it does increase the cost of producing the product.

The main reason I'm posting this now (aside from them arriving today) is that Eastern Seaboard Models is they will be in the Mallary building (section 127) at the Amherst Railroad Hobby Show at West Springfield this weekend. If you didn't order the cars, go check them out in person. I doubt whatever is left will last long. I got mine through NHRHTA and I don't see them listed on the site there at all.

Rapido X31A - Trucks

I've been continuing my work on the Rapido X31A box cars, but I've seen (or been told in person) several comments about the quality of the casting of the trucks. I found that interesting, since nothing jumped out at me. At least two have mentioned they will use the superior Bowser ones intead.

That piqued my interest, and since I have both I thought I'd compare.

Which do you prefer? I put the same wheelsets in both

Here's a prototype photo:

And after I painted them with raw umber oils and stippled in raw umber Pan Pastels.

The other side:

I'll do additional weathering, but I like this as a base.

My thoughts? The Rapido is superior. It's the one on the right.

First let me point out that the Bowser truck is at least a decade old. I don't know when they first produced the car, but it is a very well tooled truck.

It's not easy to see in the photos, but the brake rigging is cast as part of the sideframe, while on the Rapido trucks they are separate parts and in line with the wheel treads.

The bolster is different, with the Rapido one a better match for the prototype, as are the journal box covers.

The Bowser truck is also lacking a spring plank. It's the U-shaped steel sheet that can be seen under the springs in the prototype photo. This spring plank spans the truck between the two side frames. A patent was issued in 1940 for the spring plankless truck design, with the application from 1939, 3-5 years after these cars were built. 

Another comment I've heard is that there is no raised lettering on the Rapido truck. Well, there isn't any on the Bowser truck either. But I also haven't been able to find any prototype photos where it is anywhere near as obvious as it is on other types of trucks. 

The Bowser truck isn't a bad truck at all. But the Rapido one is quite a good match to the prototype photo. At least to me.

Mather Box Cars

As I continue working through my freight car notes, here's another model worth having.

It should be no secret by now that I love interesting freight cars. Single sheathed cars are one of my favorites in general. The Mather single sheathed box car certainly fits that category.

I find this one of the most unlikely models to have been released as injection-molded plastic. Life-Like produced the stock car first, in single- and double-deck versions, and the roof and underframe could be shared with this model. I've always found it difficult to find the box car model, but the stock car is one of the easiest models to find, with way too many having been produced. I still find NOS for $5/kit for the stock cars. The execution is excellent for both, though. Red Caboose produced a model of the Mather reefers.

Only the uncoupling levers and air hoses are missing from the model.

Note the unusual Klasing horizontal power hand brake.

Underbody detail is good, including brackets for the reservoirs, instead of just a mounting post.

Richard Hendrickson covered the Mather box cars in Railmodel Journal in August, 2003.

The reason this box car is such an odd choice for an injection-molded model is that it existed in very small quantities, and mostly on very small roads. How few? It covers a prototype that totaled fewer than 1,000 cars, for about a half-dozen roads, mostly very small roads.

The prototype was built in several different heights. Sunshine produced resin kits in four of those heights: 7'8" interior height, 8'5" IH, 9'11" IH, and 10'3" IH. The Proto 2000 (now Walthers) model is of the shortest, the 7'8" IH. Unlike many articles in RMJ, there is no full roster provided, and the article doesn't cover the different heights. I'm sure that a big selling point for the model was the chrome yellow paint scheme of a couple of roads, particularly the Muncie & Western (MWR), with the iconic mason jar stenciled on the door, and "The Ball Line" slogan. However, all of their cars were nearly a foot or more than two feet taller than the model, so it's a stand-in if you're picky (like me).

The iconic "The Ball Line" scheme.

Because these cars were leased, the roads that rostered them varied over the years, which makes it difficult to develop a complete roster. This may be why one wasn't included in the magazine. These are all the cars I could identify in 1950.

Although they existed in small quantities, they did show up across the country. They are a distinct design, one of the few accurate single sheathed box cars in plastic. It doesn't hurt that several have unique paint schemes. I think it's definitely worth owning a few, so they can show up periodically in ops sessions, but it's not always the same one.

1950 Roster

The colorful paint schemes on some of these cars and short stature make these cars stand out.

Wichita Northwestern, another road that leased cars earlier than my era, was also painted in the catchy chrome yellow, but not all had the unusual paint schemes of these four roads. The remaining cars had box car red bodies with white lettering.

7'8" IH - Proto 2000/Walthers, Sunshine 7.1-7.7

• ACY 1250-1299 (50)  ~11% of box cars (all Mather), ~8% of total roster.
• C&EI 400-400 (100) 8% of their box car roster, 2% of total roster.
• CIM 8000-8454 (453) 100% of their box car roster, 20% of total roster.
• IN 2000-2099 (99) 41% of box car roster, 40% of total roster.
• MRS 7500-7599 (24) 50% of box car and total roster. 
• PH&D 1006-1522 (11) (7'10"IH) 100% of roster.

In the article Richard notes the East St. Louis Junction had 32 cars in 1947 (its entire fleet). In the 1943 ORER, cars 5000-5099 (15) were 7'6"IH. They are listed in the 1950 ORER, but have no freight cars.

PS&N was another road that leased them, but the railroad ceased operations in 1947.

So the model is accurate for 737 cars in 1950, and not many more even in earlier eras. But other than MWR and TC, it covers all of the roads that were significant owners of the car. Two other classes are much larger on ACY, but at least you can represent a part of their Mather fleet accurately.

8'5" IH - Sunshine 6.1-6.4

• ACY 1100-1199, 2000-2149 (242) 52% of box car roster, 36% of total roster.
• MWR 1201-1275 (25) 50% of entire roster.
• TC 7751-7850 (96)(8'6"IH) 50% of box cars, 10% of total roster.

Nearly a foot taller. If I were to pick up a Sunshine kit or two to supplement the P2k model, it might be this version.

The other half of the TC box car roster were also unusual as 1937 AAR Standard box cars with Pullman Standard carbuilders' ends and a flat panel roof. I should have picked up the resin model when Smoky Mountain Model Works and later Wright Trak still had them. Hopefully Southbound Modelworks will re-release them.

9'11" IH - Sunshine 103.1-103.3

• ACY 1200-1220 (21) 5% of box car roster, 3% of total roster.
• MWR 1276-1300 (25) 50% of entire roster.

More than 2 feet taller. Fewer than 50 cars, but for both of these roads, the only box cars they owned were Mather.

10'3" IH - Sunshine 102.4-103.10

• ACY 3001-3149 (149) 32% of box car roster, 22% of total roster.
• GM&O 7500-7524 (25) 0.4% of box cars, 0.2% of entire roster. 
• MRS 80000-8024 (25) 100% of roster.

These are the most noticeably different from the P2k model being more than 2-1/2 feet(!) taller.

The unique Mather roof, also used on their stock cars and reefers.