O Scale Models:
Chooch #674 Pullman Flat Car – Ultra Scale line of resin cars.
Wiseman Model Services appears to be producing a similar kit.

The History:
The American Association of Railroads (AAR) Committee on Car Construction established a standard for 53’ 6” flat cars based upon a 1941 Pullman-Standard Company design. The earliest users of this design were the Chicago Great Western, Monon, Soo and UP. The design established a new standard for deck height of 42” which was lower than previous car designs. This feature would permit taller loads without exceeding established clearance limits. It also had a much wider deck extending beyond the fishbelly sides. Twenty railroads built 2532 cars to this basic design.

The car spanned a long period of operation ranging from 1941 to the 1980’s. Some roads converted these cars into piggyback carriers or fitted them with bulkheads for building materials. Many of the cars ended up in maintenance of way service after a long revenue life.

Following chart from Chooch website:

Reading N1-sc 1813 in an as-built look.

Bert Pennypacker speaks about the Reading Mallets 2-8-8-2 in his Mainline Modeler article on the K1’s. They were built by Baldwin beginning with six locomotives received in 1917. Two additional orders brought the fleet up to 31 locomotives by 1919 and were classes N1-sa/b/c. They were numbered 1800-1830, with 55.5 inch drivers and 98,400 lbs of tractive force.

The mallets were distributed in different parts of the system, 11 were running between Hagerstown-Rutherford-Allentown, two were assigned to Reading as Temple Hill pushers, and the rest were were distributed through the coal regions, West Cressona, St.Clair, Tamaqua, Gordon and Shamokin. The locomotives assigned to pusher duties were given small capacity tenders, 8,000 gallons and12.8 tons of coal. While the road mallets were given larger tenders with 11,000 gallon and 18 ton capacity. Wages were cheap and pusher runs were short, no need for big tenders.

It was said of the Mallets that they could pull anything slowly. The Reading most not have been totally happy with the speed of the N1’s in road service. Beginning in 1927, locomotives #1800-1810 (11) were rebuilt into the K1 2-10-2 locomotives. They were only ten years old at the start of the project. Their boilers were reused and most of their parts in the rebuilding project.

Reading N1 drawing from Locomotive Cyclopedia

Then in 1930 the railroad began converting the mallets from compound to single expansion cylinders. They were re-classed as N1-sd. The big delivery pipes on the side of the smoke box are an indication of the converted locomotives. All the N1’s were converted by 1945. They also had their trailing trucks removed between 1940-1944.

Reading N1-sd moving a train in coal country.

In the late 1940’s ten N1-sd’s received new smoke boxes and cross-compound air pumps relocated onto the smoke box front. The locomotive that had the forward mounted air pumps were numbered; 1811, 1812, 1817, 1820, 1822, 1823, 1826, 1828, 1829 and 1830.

Reading N1-sd sporting air pumps on the smoke box

Reading 1814 N1-sd on the move.

Nice to have both sides of Reading1814 here at Tamaqua, PA.

References:
Mainline Modeler, May/June 1981 – “Reading 2-10-2 It should have been a Texas” by Bert Pennypacker
Reading Steam Pictorial

Photograph’s from George Losse Collection scanned from prints and/or original negatives.

Reading OE-9 #102 Tamaqua, PA 9/23/1961

The Reading received their first 1000 HP. switcher form EMD in the form of an NW2 #90, on September 5, 1940. This missed out being the first 1000 HP. switcher on the Reading by three weeks to #80 a Baldwind VO-1000.

NW2’s numbered #91-92 arrived in early October of 1941. After World War 2 was over the Reading added five more NW2’s to the roster numbers #100-104.The second series of NW2’s differed slightly from the first three by having louvers in the engine compartment doors.

The First three were originally assigned to the Shamokin Division. Eventually, they migrated to other parts of the railroad.

All the locomotives were delievered in the Pullman Green scheme. None were repainted into the green and Yellow scheme. One locomotive #104 was repainted into the last solid green scheme. Not all switcher received the rain gutters, #91 was photographed in 1963 without gutters.

Reading OE-9 #92 Reading, PA 10-16-75

References:
Diesel Era – 1996 March/April – Reading’s Repowered Switchers.
Diesel Era – 1998 March/April – Reading’s First-Generation Diesels by by Paul K. Withers
Reading Diesels Volume 1 The First Generation – by Dale Woodland
Photograph’s from George Losse Collection scaned from negatives.

Reading DF-3 #301Reading DF-3 #305b

References:
Reading Diesels Volume 1 The First Generation – by Dale Woodland

Photograph’s from George Losse Collection either scaned from negatives or prints.

ORER – April 1956

Purchasing this ORER was one of the first steps in focusing my modeling efforts. For those that do not know about these, they list all the revenue freight cars for every railroad at the time of their publishing, Every one.

I used to refer to this as the “Bible for Modeling.”

When I was modeling the Elmira Branch in the late Spring of 1956, a car had to be listed in here or it did not belong on the railroad.

The information here is different then just knowing a railroad had the car, it tells you haw many they had on the roster at that time. That is very important information for trying to get the right proportions of cars modeled.

ORER – October 1953

When I made the switch to model the Reading I researched what locomotives I wanted to model and found the point in time that had the most of them on the roster at the same time. This turned out to be the middle of 1953. So I needed a “New Bible.”

This ORER for October 1953 shows different cars on the roster than the April 1956 ORER does. Just three yaears difference and there is a big difference in the cars which were retired by 1956 and the classes that were being built to replace them.

ORER – January 1952

This is now the “Bible” for my railroad. If it’s listed in here than I can have it on the railroad.

It’s also is the heart of the “By the Number” idea for modeling freight car fleets. It more important to know how many cars of a particular design a railroad owned as of Jan 1952, then just know that they owned them.