LNE #14103-13600 Hopper Correction

Thanks to Ed Hawkins I have an update on the LNE hoppers. The photo in Bob Karig's book that looked like a unique prototype was taken at a museum. So it appears that the road number used in the restoration was incorrect, and that this class of cars was similar to the earlier cars in their detail.

I may still pick up an Accurail kit to see what they look like, though, and it could be used for a B&O car.

Randy

LNE AAR Standard 50-ton hoppers

I've learned that Stanley Svea Grain & Coal sold "Old Company's Lehigh" coal.

If the logo looks familiar, it should. Old Company's Lehigh coal was produced by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company. In 1904 Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co acquired a majority of stock of the Lehigh New England Railroad.

The Company had several collieries mining anthracite. Two of the ones I've been able to verify that had breakers (Lansford and Tamaqua, PA) were both served by the LNE. They had other breakers served by the D&H, DL&W, ERIE, and RDG.

Of the roads I've verified that serve Old Company's Lehigh, the DL&W will be the toughest to model. D&H, ERIE and RDG won't be too difficult. But Chris and I have decided to start a project to fill some holes in our hopper fleets with LNE hoppers. And since we're getting started on this we figured we'd check with the other Thursday night guys to see if they'd like to build a few as well. As it turns out, models are also available in N-scale (for Dick) and S-scale (for Pieter), so we can all add a few cars to our rosters.

How easy/difficult will it be? Well, the first place to start is the ORER for 1947. Out of a roster of about 3,000 freight cars, almost half are hoppers. Of those, 86% are AAR Standard 50 ton hoppers, or 1,250 cars.

That's great news, or so you'd think, because the Kadee hopper is an AAR Standard 50 ton twin hopper. But, consulting the information and rosters in Railway Prototype Cyclopedia Vol 25, we find that the LNE cars are two different types. All except the last 300 of those are of an early design with sloped side sills at the end, with a straight side sill between the bolsters, and pressed steel channel end posts. The remaining 300 cars have straight side sills, with a fishbelly side sill between the bolsters, and z-bar end braces. 

The Kadee car is closest to those 300 cars, with the correct side details, but the end posts are spaced wider apart and are composed of steel angle to the top of the ends, instead of pressed steel channels attached at the bottom of the hopper end. 

The Intermountain car, marketed as 'Alternate' AAR Standard cars (identified in RP Cyc as AMC Standard Design cars) don't match either. So the two best available models won't work.

Accurail, Athearn, Atlas and Walthers all make 'offset side' 2 bay hoppers that are also based on AAR Standard cars. Unfortunately these have molded on detail parts. The Accurail one has the finest detailing, but is apparently a match of a B&O car with different details. The Athearn and Atlas cars are better detailed than Walthers, and fortunately the Atlas car is nearly an exact match. 

So the Atlas car looks like a good starting point. Even with some extra work it won't measure up to the current state-of-the-art Kadee or Intermountain, but we should be able to turn it into a very good model that's not just a stand-in.

They are available undecorated (Atlas #18870 in the Trainman line). There is a second Atlas offset side hopper in the regular line (Atlas #1850) but it has a different bracing pattern along the top of the sides, which seems odd to me (particularly because I can't find a prototype that it matches).

Anyway, here's what we're modeling:

LNE AAR Standard 50 ton twin hopper

13001-13250 blt 11-36

13251-13350 blt 5-39 (pictured)

14001-14300 blt 4-41

14301-14600 blt 2-42 (see below) (pictured - I love the crooked '3')

 

The paint scheme will be similar to the second picture, without the billboard 'LNE' using Highball Graphics decals. Each set covers 3 cars, and a set is available for N-scale as well.

Most of the cars used coil elliptical trucks available from Tahoe Model Works

All had Ajax handbrakes, AB Brakes, plate steel brake steps, and Wine door locking mechanisms. 

More information can be found in the excellent Railway Prototype Cyclopedia Vol 25 (pictures on pg 54-5), Vol 2 (picture on pg 87 - a better version of 14382 above), and Bob Karig's "Coal Cars: The First Three Hundred Years" on pg 307, including an interior shot.

A third variation?

Well what do you know? Looking closer at the overhead shot of #14518 in Bob's book, which also shows the end, it is of a different design. It has the sloped side sills as with the earlier cars. But it has the z-bar end posts like the later cars. It's stenciled with a build date of March, 1941, which is earlier than listed on the roster by about a year. It appears that the Accurail car is a close match to this prototype, which will allow us to model a subtle variation with little additional effort since most of the modifications will be the same as the Atlas model. This kit has some extra details lacking from the Atlas (like slope sheet bracing) that will help with the rest of the project as well.

The question is, how early was this change made? The photo of #13283 (blt 5-39) in RP Cyc Vol 25, pg 54 clearly shows the earlier end, as does #14299 (blt 4-41) on the next page. So it would appear the change was made for the #14301-14600 series, although that doesn't necessarily mean it was for the entire group.

In any event, I think this will be a fun project, and I'm hoping that by doing it as a group we'll (I'll) actually get them completed and in a relatively quickly.

Well, I'll post the question on the Steam Era Freight Car Group. In the meantime, it's time to pick up some models, decals, and parts. 

This and that

OK, it's been a while since I've posted anything significant. So I'll have some new things soon, but here's a quick rundown as to what I'm up to.

NE Proto Meet
First, the NE Proto Meet was great fun. The response for the True Line Trains minibox continues to be extremely positive, and I can say I'm very happy with the work the new factory has done for us.

I attended a few clinics, but most of the time was spent chatting with friends and checking out the models. It's always a great place to pick up new ideas and techniques.

Layout Tour
The layout tour went well on Sunday too, but that's becoming somewhat routine. Dave Friedman brought over an R-1-b and L-1 for testing. The Key R-1-b had trouble (consistently) with only two turnouts that I'll work on. The Custom Brass L-1 was shorting on one of the 28" radius curves, but appeared to be something that might be rectified with tweaking the locomotive since he hasn't run it on anything less than 30".

I have both locomotives myself, and they have operated OK so far, but it's been a while (they are both DC still). So I will have to do some more testing and tweaking.

Operating Session
On the Thursday just before the meet, I hosted an ops session for several attendees. Bill, Chris and Joseph were helping out (and Bill supplied the motive power so the NH was leasing all power from the O&W that night). Two were new to me, Dave Fullerton and Will Lawrence from Nova Scotia. Dave Ramos and Tom Callan rounded out the crew. This was a great addition because I've been studying Dave's operation quite a bit for ideas.

Although initially he thought that he might be biting off more than he could chew, Chris had a blast as the Freight Agent. While we have a fair amount of tweaking to do, the process seemed to work pretty well.

Bill and Dave operated the Stanley Works, and completed their initial work very quickly. This is job we'll need to 'complicate' a bit. Will and Joseph handled the many through trains, and Dave and Tom were operating the New Britain switcher. We learned quite a few things about that job as well, but once they really got a handle on the layout it worked pretty well. Bill and Dave jumped in with an extra switcher for a bit to help out.

We identified some updates that are needed in the process and the paperwork, as well as the design of the layout (thankfully nothing major).

Layout Progress
So, as for the 'nothing major'. As things have been progressing well and we've been figuring out how to do things faster at Harvey's, it was time to get moving on my layout. So first up I decided to complete the ground cover and ballasting for all of New Britain Yard. I was able to spray paint the track, put down all of the ground cover and ballast, and glue it all done in an afternoon. Worked like a charm. Until...

For some reason, and for the first time ever (to me anyway), the glue didn't dry clear. It's patchy and looks horrible across the entire yard. I considered pulling up the track and cleaning it all that way, and would replace what was necessary. Which led to me thinking that I could do everything that I wanted appearance-wise if I handlaid all of the track in the yard. It's a dozen turnouts and track.

In the end, while considering my options, I started scraping up all of the scenicking (yes, between all of the ties too), and redoing it. I love how it's coming out, just a bit slow. But I'm making progress. Unfortunately it's time I feel I could have spent making more progress on the layout rather than redoing the yard.

I'll have more info with pictures in a future post.

Summer Projects
So Chris and I have been looking into what we want to work on. Because I've come upon more information about two of the four coal dealers that I'm modeling in town, I've been particularly interested in a proper fleet of hoppers. While we now have some fantastic RTR models from Kadee and Intermountain in particular, this is an area that will need to be supplemented by a number of resin kits and, yes, even some kitbashes. Well, more of a cleanup/modification of models with molded on parts rather than actual kitbashes. Either way it will require me to carve things off which is not one of my strong modeling points. I have a little practice on a DL-109 I've been working on as well.

So we've invited the rest of the Thursday Night Crew (the modelers anyway) to join us in working on some hopper projects. We've identified enough to keep us busy at least through the summer, but there will still be a few holes.

So that's about it for the current news. More information to come in future posts on these projects and more!

A tour of Harvey's layout:

Scenery

I really need to get to some posts. But here's a revisit to the same location as the last post, the logging line on Harvey's layout. Joseph (and his Mom!) have both been helping at Harvey's. We've been making a lot of puffball trees, and working on the scenery. Joseph did the trees and some of the scenery here, including installing the rock casting above the portal. I completed more of the scenery, including my first attempt at hand carving Sculptamold rocks. I'm really happy with the way they've come out, and pretty happy with how they blended into the rock mold.