Hoppers

So I've been taking Chris' advice and working on the layout in little bits whenever I can squeeze in a few moments. Sometimes that's 15 minutes, or even an hour or two, in the basement. Other times it's working on models upstairs while Laura watches TV. In many cases I'm working on something else, but when working with computers there's often a lot of waiting. So part of what I've been doing (since I'm already at the computer) is to go through my notes, research, etc. and piece together some plans for the layout.

As you know, last year I left off as Chris and I were starting a hopper project. Part of the process for me (for any type of freight car really) is to take a look at what's available and compare that to ORER and roster information. So here's what I've put together so far for hoppers, or at least the primary hopper fleet I'm looking to build.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the majority are available in accurate and quality models. A group (mainly the PRR ones), will require upgrading older models and won't be quite up to today's standards but they will be more than just 'good enough.' If I feel like it, most of them are available as resin kits from Westerfield.

I am already building a number of resin hoppers from F&C. These are the new one-piece bodies and they are fun to build, if a bit more time-consuming than a styrene kit. If the Westerfield ones are released in one-piece body versions then it's likely that I'd opt for those over the Bowser kits.

I will (and already do) have other hopper models, mostly of the same prototypes from different roads. We've seen plenty of photos with hoppers from all sorts of roads on the NH and they will appear in smaller quantities during operating sessions.

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In general, hoppers didn't travel as far from home roads as box cars, flat cars, and gondolas. The primary lading was coal, and the farther it traveled the more it cost. In addition, some 60% of Connecticut's coal came via ship and not rail.

Anthracite Coal

Anthracite was commonly used for home heating because it was cleaner and more efficient. Thus the many online coal dealers would carry anthracite, often in several different sizes. Anthracite was mined in northeastern Pennsylvania on only a handful of roads: CNJ, D&H, DL&W, ERIE, L&HR, LNE, LV, O&W, PRR and RDG.

The best I can tell, the majority (if not all) of the anthracite traffic arrived via rail. The CNJ, ERIE, LNE, LV, O&W, and PRR had direct interchanges with the NH. Those roads that didn't (D&H, DL&W and RDG) had connections directly through one of those carriers.

It was not uncommon for a coal dealer to advertise a specific brand of coal. For example, in New Britain, Stanley Svea & Co apparently advertised and sold Old Company's Lehigh Coal. This was a company that was owned by Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, who also owned the LNE to service their interests. In addition to the Lansford and Tamaqua colleries serviced by the LNE, they also had locations served by D&H, DL&W, ERIE, and RDG. So it is most likely that hoppers to Stanley Svea will be from one of these roads.

Bituminous Coal

A huge number of roads serviced soft coal mines throughout the eastern US. Some 60% of CT coal arrived via water routes, rather than rail. I suspect the majority (if not all) of this was bituminous coal from the Baltimore area, and I'm also guessing that a large amount of this coal was destined for NHRR use, along with large industries on the CT coastline. The remainder would have most likely been delivered to industries and other engine facilities along the line in NH hoppers or gondolas.

The remainder of bituminous coal would have come via rail by the same routes as anthracite. In addition to the anthracite roads, photographic evidence shows large numbers of B&O and NYC hoppers on the NH. 

Other large coal roads (C&O, N&W, etc. probably contribute some rail traffic, but in most cases I think coal from mines on these roads came via water routes instead. There are a number of smaller roads (P&WV, WM, etc.), or coal lessees (Berwind and Westmoreland come to mind) that would be appropriate for an occasional load as well. I already own some cars from these roads, and will undoubtedly add more. Remember that I differentiate between my roster of cars owned, and the mix of cars on the layout during a given operating session. I'd like the mix to be different each session rather than every car being on the layout at all times.

So here's my primary list of hoppers - somewhere right around 100 cars:

B&O (16-19)

(3) N12g (F&C)

(2) USRA Hoppers (MTH)

(3-6) AAR Standard Twin Hoppers (Accurail)

(1) Composite War Emergency Hoppers (P2k)

(2) AAR Triple Hopper (Bowser/Ex-Stewart)

(2) AAR Quad Hoppers (BLI)

(1) 9-panel Hopper (F&C)

(1) ex-N&W Triple Hopper (BLI)

CNJ (4)

(1) 1905 Common Design (GLa with minor differences)(Bowser/Ex-Stewart)

(1) USRA Hopper (MTH)

(1) 9-panel Hopper (F&C)

(1) Welded Fishbelly Hopper (Bowser/Ex-Stewart)

CRP (2)

(1) 9-panel Hopper (F&C)

(1) AAR Standard 50-ton Hopper (Kadee with wine locks undec)

D&H (6-7)

(1-2) Seley Composite Hopper (Old & Weary Car Shops or oop F&C kit) 2-, 3-, and 4-bay versions

(1) USRA Hopper (MTH)

(1) USRA Panel Side Hopper (Tichy)

(2) Fishbelly Hoppers (Bowser/Ex-Stewart)

(1) AAR Standard 50-ton Hoppers (built 1951/2)(Kadee)

DL&W (2-3)

(1-2) SSC Hoppers (Westerfield)

(1) USRA Hopper (MTH)

ERIE (4-7)

(0-1) Horizontal Rib Hopper (F&C)

(3) AAR Standard Offset Hopper (Intermountain)

(1-2) AAR Standard 70-ton Quad Hopper (BLI)

L&HR (0)

L&HR had a roster of 102 cars in 1947, 64 of which are hoppers. But there is a notation that they are in special service, and thus highly unlikely that they'd appear in New Britain. Now if I was modeling Maybrook...

LNE (3)

(3) AAR Standard Offset Twin Hopper (upgraded Atlas)

LV (5)

(1) 1905 Common Design (GLa with minor differences)(Bowser/Ex-Stewart)

(1) Fishbelly Hopper (Bowser/Ex-Stewart)

(2) PSC Hoppers (Westerfield)

(1) Offset Side Exterior Post Hopper (Atlas Kitbash)

(1) War Emergency Twin Hopper (P2k)

NH (6)

(4) USRA Hopper (MTH)

(2) Pullman-Standard Hopper (Forthcoming F&C?)

NYC  (16)

(6) USRA Hopper (MTH)

(3) USRA Panel Side Hopper (Tichy)

(4) AAR Standard 55-ton Offset Hopper (Kadee)

(2) USRA Design Triple Hopper (Westerfield)

(1) AAR Standard 70-ton Triple Hopper (Accurail, Bowser/Ex-Stewart)

O&W (1)

(1) GLa (Bowser/Old & Weary Car Shops custom run, Westerfield)

P&LE (2)

(1) USRA Hopper (MTH)

(1) USRA Panel Side Hopper (Tichy)

(1) AAR Standard 70-ton Triple Hopper (Accurail, Bowser)

PRR (21)

(4) GL/GLc/Glca (12,000 cars) (F&C, Westerfield)

(6) Gla/GLg (25,000 cars) (Bowser, Westerfield)

(6) H21 (40,000 cars) (Bowser, Westerfield)

(2) H22 (4,500 cars) (Bowser)

(2) H25 (5,300 cars) (F&C, Bowser)

(1) H31 (1,212 cars) (Accurail 2700 series)

RDG (6-7)

(2) HTf - Channel Side Hopper (F&C 1019, 1020)

(1) HTj - USRA Hopper (MTH)

(2-3) HTo/p/r - Fishbelly Hopper (Bowser/Ex-Stewart)

(1) HTs - Composite War Emergency Hopper (F&C 6750)

It's interesting to note that it doesn't appear that an actual model of the 1905 Common Design has been released. I understand why, since the primary difference between the GLa and the Common Design is the cross-ridge angle (45 degrees instead of 30 degrees). And while the 1905 Common Design was purchased in large quantities and many different roads, the GLa remained in larger quantities on the PRR in the post-war era. I plan on just moving the rivet line on the exterior of the car if using the Bowser model, if at all. But, the new F&C N-12g is one variation of the 1905 Common Design. So if I can find decals, I may use that for the CNJ and LV cars as well.

Workin'

Yep, that's right.  I've actually been down in the basement working.  The first time since August I think.  I've been relaying the yard,  cleaning and organizing the basement,  tried the airbrush on a few things,  and am experimenting with some scenicking.

Here's a sample for now. The water column is new, painted it (and the concrete base) today with the airbrush. More weathering is needed of course. Playing around with the Scenic Express weeds.

Composite Gondola

There's a thread on the Steam Era Freight Car Group about a composite gondola that looks a lot like the one in this picture. I've been trying to determine the road on this car because I'd like to model it myself. It looks like the Intermountain USRA composite gondola would be a good starting point. We'll see what the experts on the site determine.

New Britain Yard 1949. 

I forget the photographer, it was from a NHRHTA calendar - one of the few I don't have!

Interesting sites

Here's a couple of things I've been meaning to send to the Thursday night guys but decided I might as well share them here for everybody.

More USRA Hopper Info
First is an interesting document from the B&O railroad about rebuilding their hoppers:

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~nbf23/Keysercardept.pdf

It's a nice companion to a similar book that Pieter has about CNJ/CRP hopper rebuilds.

It's of particular interest now because I'm trying to determine which roads still had USRA hoppers with K-brakes c1947 since the MTH hopper can be used as is for those. So apparently the B&O upgraded theirs to AB brakes, with a horizontal handbrake. I don't see any USRA hoppers (B&O Class N-17) in the pictures but you can see a reweigh date of 1945 on one of them that gives a rough idea of when the rebuilding project was underway.

So, the question is, how many of the USRA hoppers were rebuilt by 1947, and were any still using K-brakes at that time. According to the rosters in B&O modeler Vol 2, No 3  there were 1,853 N-17's in 1948, and 1,764 of them still in service in 1954, the year after K-brakes were outlawed in interchange service. While roads could retain K-brakes for online service only, these numbers were reported in the ORER so they would have been upgraded.

That still doesn't tell me when they were upgraded, but it's a safe bet that the majority of the cars were in the upgrade program. So I'll most likely want to upgrade them to AB Brakes.

The RDG also upgraded theirs, although the confirmed upgrades so far were photographed post '54.

NYC Railroading
I mentioned this site to the guys a while ago and never got around to sending it to them. It's an excellent site on the terminal railroads of NYC. I came across the site because of Dave Ramos's New York Harbor Railroad.

Joseph was also checking it out because one of the things he's thought about modeling is street running and there was a bit in NYC in Brooklyn (which we went to check out on the way to Dave's).

36' Double Sheathed Box Cars

Another post? Wow!

While I was researching hopper rosters I was looking at the various ways John Nehrich has broken down the 1949 fleet of freight cars on the RPI site. Among this data was an interesting tidbit - in 1949 there were approximately 60,000 36' cars on the railroads. Of those, nearly 2/3 are CN and CP Fowler Patent single sheathed box cars. Leaving just 20,000 or so 36' double sheathed cars. About 5,000 of those are ACL and SAL ventilated box cars.

So not many 36' double sheathed cars at all.

Chris pointed out that there would have been more in 1947. So I was curious, and rather than keeping this between the two of us (and also so this info is someplace where I can find it later...), here's what I've compiled (with much thanks for John's research).

RPI Data
The percentage of composite to all steel box cars went from 56% in 1940 to 44% in 1945 and 31% in 1949.

This amounts to about 106,000 cars of a total box car roster of about 700,000+. And that's assuming all of those cars were 36 footers. 

There were still 26,000+ all wood box cars in 1945, with about 7,500 'other' box cars in 1949, so that reduction was most likely all double sheathed cars since I'm not aware of any single sheathed car being made without a steel underframe. And I'm not aware of many 40' all wood cars.

In 1949 there were 60,000 of 223,0000 composite cars were 36' box cars, or about a 1/4. But of those, 40,000 were Fowler patent single sheathed cars. Leaving about 20,000 double sheathed plus the 7,500 'other' cars. That amounts to about 3% of the total box car fleet being under 40' and double sheathed.

So if all of the difference was double sheathed, and the number of Fowler patent cars remained constant, then 36' double sheathed cars would account for about 120,000 of 160,000 composite cars, plus most of the 'other' cars, which amounts to only 19% of the fleet as 36' cars.

Most likely the drop off accelerated instead of being linear. So it's somewhere between 19% and 3%, so 10% of the entire box car fleet as 36' double sheathed cars sounds reasonable. But I'm guessing it's lower.

In 1949, the roads with more than 1,000 cars (not including the CN and CP since they were all single sheathed) - Southern, L&N, NC&StL, D&H, ERIE, and Nationales de Mexico. Adding local roads that had at least 500 there's BAR and DL&W.

ORER Data from 1947
Comparing a few roads between 1947 and 1949:
SOU - 9,228 - 3,928
L&N - 7,438 - 2,829
D&H - 1,751 - 1,560
ERIE - 1,275 - 1,005
BAR - 1,099 - 903
DL&W - 832 - 538
RDG - 2,135 - 223
LNE - 190 - 183  (but these are 39' 10")
NYC - 752 - 156

In 1947 5,407 of these cars were ACL or SAL ventilated box cars.

So obviously some roads were retiring cars faster than others. But I think that up to 10% of box cars being 36' is reasonable.

Models
So how many 36' double sheathed cars do we need? Well, I think that the NH cars being home road cars don't count. We'll need a couple of them for revenue service, and a few more for MOW service. 

I think that specialty cars like the ventilated box cars also don't count, provided we're modeling a season when they would be in use as ventilated box cars. If they are in use as regular box cars then they would be treated as such.

So I think the must have cars are those for direct connections with a decent percentage of 36' double sheathed cars (CV and RDG are both around 25% in 1947). The SOU SU design is also one that was such a large class of cars, and the Southern had the largest number of 36' double sheathed cars even in 1949.

As for other cars I think it depends on whether we identify commodities coming for other roads. Assuming there's a model available, then it's a question of how those cars relate to their larger box car fleet. But these would be low priority cars.

So for Chris' layout this amounts to, well, one 36' double sheathed box car. He's got two trains with 20-25 cars each, and perhaps 30ish cars on the layout. So less than 100 cars.

In my case, I've got 8 trains of 15-25 cars each, plus another 50 or 60 on the layout. So at any given time I'm probably looking at 2-3 36' double sheathed cars in any given session. Of course, on some days there could be more, others less.

F&C has the most 36' double sheathed car models. I've got the CV, NH and NYC

I also have SOU (Westerfield, but F&C makes the same prototype).

The NYC car is a great example of a rare car. Their 1947 roster of 752 36' cars is only 3% of their USRA design steel box cars (25,000+), just one class of steel box cars on the road, or about 1% of their 60,000+ box car fleet.

Roster vs Operating Session
Having said that, I go back to my assertion that there's a difference between your model roster, and the cars you run during a given operating session. I'll use Chris's layout as an example. Until he has an operating Shore Line, he needs about 100 cars for an operating session, probably less. So by our calculations he needs a single 36' double sheathed box car. And that's assuming (as we will for now) that all 100 cars per session are box cars.

So looking at the choices, he decides he likes the CV one. If he has an industry that is directly serviced by an industry on the CV then this is a good choice. I might even argue that it's no longer a rare car, as that industry would have about a 25% of receiving this type of car based on the CV roster (assuming they never use a foreign road car).

Problem is, if this isn't a car in semi-captive service, then this 'rare' car becomes 'common' if we choose to run one 36' car per session and that's the only car available.

So I think that it's worth modeling at least a handful of cars. This is why your roster should be larger than what you'd run in an operating session (or a couple of sessions).

Instead of running one 36' double sheathed box car per 100 cars per session (which would be a statistical anomaly anyway), these cars would simply fall under the 'rare' category. Rare cars could make up 10-20% of the cars used in the session. If we go with 20% then 2 cars of his 100 would be rare. Sometimes one would be a 36' car, sometimes none, sometimes two. In that mix are other rare cars.

One of the main reasons I like this approach is that I like freight cars. It allows me to have more cars, and more unusual cars, than most people would choose to model. But I also think it means that from session to session the mix of cars is good, and individual rare cars continue to be rare.

My initial approach was to model one car per 'x' number of a given car on the prototype. But for large classes of cars (PRR X29 for example) this would require 20+ cars. These are cars that belong in pretty much every ops session. But I can make that happen with far fewer cars. Folks won't remember car numbers from session to session, but they will remember unusual cars.

So now I'm working on finding an upper limit to the number of cars needed for any large class. This will probably vary depending on your prototype (you might need 25 X29s if you model the PRR). It's important to have enough common cars, whether a specific class, or a specific design used by many roads (1937 AAR Standard Box Car).

I suppose that's a next step - figure out what a representative mix of cars is for each session. That's for another post.