2013 Chicago O Scale Show – News

Posted on March 20, 2013 by George Losse

Protocraft’s new boxcar offering.

As mentioned in the first post about the Chicago Show, Protocraft announced their next brass imported freight car. It is a 40 foot double door boxcar. I believe he mentioned this first offering is ACL prototype. They plan to do a number of different prototypes over the next few months. He did mention that the roller bearing trucks he imported were not going to be run again. So if you want these trucks in O scale or Proto48 buy them now before they are gone.

I also mentioned that American Switch & Signal had new Proto48 casting for a #12 turnout in code 125 rail. It was nice looking, I wish I had the room for them on my layout.

RY Models had their recent offerings of the ATSF BX3 and BX6 on display. They are sold out, but Rich was taking reservations on a short re-run of the cars. In his sales sheet on the table he mentioned the Bethlehem 52′ 70 ton Mill gondola and the PRR X37 family of boxcars. If you look closely at the photo in the first Chicago posts Rich had a pile of freight car photos, the ones I saw were of Mather prototypes.

Bob Lavezzi had a pilot model of a new steam locomotive from Weaver Models on his table. The model displayed was a three rail version of the model.

Weaver Boston & Maine P-4 4-6-2

Rails Unlimited had their new Lehigh Valley Boxcar available at the show. They are available as either a flat kit ($85.00) or a built up body ($115.00). There is also a decal set available ($9.95) for the cars. Ted was also displaying two new resin cars, a Milwaukee Road Single sheathed boxcar and a Wabash single sheathed boxcar.

Rails Unlimited LV “Wrong-way” Boxcar.

The LV Duryea Cushion Underframe.

Rails Unlimited next models

Keystone Models was also at the show and they had their last model produced on display. It’s the PRR H21a with “clam-shell” doors.

Keystone Models last offering the H21a’s with the “clam-shell” hoppers.

Jim Harper of Red Cliff Miniatures had samples of his line of track components including his new switch stands.

Operating Switch Stand available from Red Cliff Miniatures

Non-Operating Switch Stand available from Red Cliff Miniatures

Strange to have an example of a NEW Lionel car at the show getting a lot of attention. Their new Automobile cars are a sight to see in person. I’m glad these cars are not in my modeling period, they looked great.

2013 Chicago O Scale Show

Posted on March 19, 2013 by George Losse

Photos just don’t capture how big the selling floor really is.

This was my second time attending the Chicago O Scale Show. The first time I attended the show, two years ago, it was great. This time was even better!

Wow! Mike Hill and his helpers did a great job with this show!

Even the 1700 mile round trip drive is worth it to go this show!

I attended the different meetings, sat in on a clinic, visited a couple of layouts and I even got to see the models in the contest room this time. It was a very busy couple of days.

The Crowd at the Proto48 Meeting

There were two meetings held during the show, The Proto48 on Friday night and the O Scale Kings on Saturday morning. There was over 80 people at the Proto48 meeting, I wonder how many were actually Proto48’ers? The Proto48 meeting was hosted by Jim Canter and Paul Hanson. Different manufacturers spoke to the audience:

Jim Canter of Canter Rail Services demonstrated his tie strips, he also mentioned that they are looking into bringing back his track templates.
Jim Harper of Red Cliff Miniatures spoke to the crowd about his line of track components including his new operating switch stands.
John Paultz of American Switch & Signal spoke and announced a new turnout kit for a #12 turnout.
Norm Buckhart of Protocraft announced several new offerings, first was a new model of a 40′ double door boxcar. Their Clouser Type “E” coupler is being revised and going to be imported assembled. Norm showed off a new 2 3/4 inch speaker and also spoke about his modified Tsunami decoders. He did announce a couple of new trucks in the works and that the 70 and 100ton Roller Bearing trucks will not be re-run.
Ken Burney of WK Burney Scale Models announced a line of cast structures based on typical southern buildings.
Rich Yoder of RY Models also spoke. He thanked the Proto48 crowd for their support of his products over the years. He also promoted the Strasburg O Scale Shows.

The crowd at the O Scale Kings Meeting

The next morning the O Scale Kings held their meeting. Bob Lavezzi chaired this meeting. Maybe it was the early hour of the meeting or maybe people had nothing to do the night before during the Proto48 Meeting, but there was a big difference in the audience. They had maybe 20 people in the room. They spoke for a while about that fact, and they spoke about the name of the group. The biggest news (for me) was that this year’s O Scale National in Wooster will likely be the last. Nobody has stepped up to put on the show for 2014.

John Paultz (American Switch & Signal) at his table.

Rich Yoder behind his table.

Headed to Chicago

Posted on March 13, 2013 by George Losse

Ruby and Pearl trying to go with us.

The wife and I were packing and getting ready to go to the Chicago O Scale Show and it looks like someone wants to go with us. That’s Ruby in the suitcase and Pearl in back keeping an eye on everything.

Looking forward to the trip and the show. I will have more to say when I get back.

Weaver Milwaukee Road Ribbed Side Box Cars

Posted on March 10, 2013 by George Losse

Weaver Milwaukee Road Box Car

Imported By: Weaver Models
MSRP March 2013: $75.45

Freight car fans often speak of signature car for a railroad. They are the car you first think of when that railroad is mentioned. For the PRR it might be an X29 boxcars, for the B&O it would be their Wagon-top boxcars, and for the Milwaukee Road would have to be their ribbed-side boxcars. Weaver Models has just released a new model of the Milwaukee Road ribbed-side boxcars in 2-rail and 3-rail.

Prototype History
For a complete prototype history of all the ribbed-side cars the Milwaukee Road rostered, I highly recomend reading Pat Wider’s article in RP CYC 13. The article talks about the development of the cars over a period in time from 1937-1959.

The cars that match the Weaver model were built between 1939-1940 by the Milwaukee Road. A total of 3188 40′ cars were built featuring welded construction and full length horizontal ribs. The cars were built in four groups.

In Ted Culotta’s “Essential Freight cars: 23” he talks about the Milwaukee road cars. He points out some detail differences in the four series of cars. The 500 cars built in 18000-18499 had steel running boards, Camel Doors (except # 18247 which had a Creco door) and Equipco hand brakes. The next series of 688 cars built in 1939 18500-19187 had wood running boards, both Camel and Creco doors and Equipco and Universal hand brakes. The third series of 1250 cars 19188-20437 were built in 1940, used camel doors, wood running boards, eequipco and Universal hand brakes. The last group of 750 cars 20438-21187 were also built in 1940, camel doors, equipco and Universal hand brakes but they had steel running boards.

Prototype Population
3188 cars built 1939-1940
3112 cars in the January 1952 Official Railway Equipment Register

The Models
I first saw the pilot model of this car at last Fall’s Strasburg Show. I have to admit I was not overly impressed at that time. I ordered one anyway. Both to support one of our manufactures developing a new model and thinking even if it’s a dog there might be something that can be used to build something else.

I got a call from my dealer when they arrived and I went over to pick mine up. My first thought after taking it out of the packaging was hey this looks better than I was thinking. So I dug my reference materials to check it out.

The model represents the earliest versions of the prototype cars built in 1939-1940. I checked the body against the reproductions of the prototype drawing from Pat Wilder’s article. I found it to be very close to those prototype drawings.

Weaver Milwaukee Road Box Car

One of the first things about the cars that jumps out at you is the different roof. We often view our models from a higher view point than in real life, roofs are important. The Wilder article called this a “Murphy Type 1 40′ double panel welded roof.” This one is nicely done a closely matches the drawings.

Weaver Milwaukee Road Box Car – Underbody details

The underbody is where we start to see some of the three rail compromises start to show up. The major parts to the brake equipment are modeled and in the correct locations but they are molded onto the underframe. This will be an easy upgrade.

The roofwalk supports on the ends of the car are modeled as two solid triangles of plastic, they should be separate supports. The ladders are not that bad but the grab irons of the left hand side of the car side are pushed in very close to the car side. This may be a matter of pulling them out to stand out further from the car side. On my model the doors did not have any hardware on them. Again this will be an easy upgrade.

I model in Proto48, I will replace the trucks on my model. The truck side frames have no casting numbers on them and the wheelsets have no backside detail. They appear to have a “China” mark inside the bolster even though these cars are promoted as being made in the USA. For those that want to know about the O Scale trucks I’ve added their measurements to my O Scale Wheel Standards Page. They were out of current NMRA Standards on all measurements except the back-to-back measurement. Another reason I’m glad I model in Proto48, where we have and use a standard.

Paint is very subjective and is usually the subject of many heated discussions. Since this is an off-road car for me, I have to rely on others to research the correct paint and lettering. The most recent article, the Pat Wilder article states, “Milwaukee Road’s 40′ and 50′ steel box and automobile cars were initially painted entirely freight car red, the exact hue is unknown to the author. Circa the 1950’s the railroad used a shade of Mineral Red. A close match for MILW Mineral Red is Scalecoat #2 Oxide Red, as indicated by a Boles color drift card.” The model appears close to that.

Paint schemes are another thing. The Wilder article has a list of the numbers known to have worn the “Route of the Olympian” scheme. The word “known” there is important as it means we have photographic proof. I know other cars may have worn the scheme, but here are the ones we know of. The list has 152 numbers out of the 3188 cars built. And you guessed it, the car number I received is not on the list. Neither were the other two numbers my dealer still had in stock. When the information is known and published, why is it so hard for the manufacturers to get the numbers right? Or is it that they don’t care? So now I have to renumber the model or exchange it with my dealer when the more numerous Hiawatha scheme is released.

Since I posted this page, Peter Zacharias emailed Weaver about using the wrong numbers for the Route of the Olympian. Weaver’s response follows:

One of the four numbers is correct (18861). We were informed of the numbers for G25004 after the first run was printed. This will be corrected.

Have a Great Day!

Weaver Models

O Scale has had versions of these cars available from Custom Brass and a series of different versions cast in resin from Rails Unlimited. This release from Weaver Models is a nice addition. It’s a very nice car for the price and I think can be upgraded into a fine model with a little effort.

Weaver Milwaukee Road Box Car

Weaver Milwaukee Road Box Car

Weaver Milwaukee Road Box Car – A End View with Lumber Door

Weaver Milwaukee Road Box Car – B End

Weaver Milwaukee Road Box Car

References

“Milwaukee Road Ribbed-Side Box and Automobile Cars” by Pat Wider, RP CYC 13
“Milwaukee Road Horizontal-Rib Welded Box Cars” by Richard Hendrickson, Railmodel Journal, December 2004, page 53
“Essential Freight Cars: 23 Wagon-top and ribbed side boxcars” by Ted Culotta, RMC July 2005

RY Models – USRA design 70-ton Triple Hopper

Posted on March 3, 2013 by George Losse

RY Models New USRA design 70-ton triple hopper

Imported By: RY Models
MSRP 12/2012: $326.00

Prototype History
Most modelers are familiar with the USRA 55-ton Twin open hopper. In O scale we have been blessed with the Intermountain USRA Twin as well as a number of brass versions over the years. What is not well known is that the USRA developed some designs for freight cars that were never built during the period of their control of the railroads, but some designs were built from afterwards. One example would be the NYC USRA designed Steel boxcar, another would be the 42′ Flat car that Red Caboose modeled.

RY Models has produced one of those USRA non-built designs, the USRA 70-ton triple.

Standard Steel Car Company builders photo

Between 1922 and 1927, the C&O, New York Central, P&LE, PMcK&Y and Virginian Railroads adopted the USRA design and had cars built by Standard Steel Car Company (SSC), Pressed Steel Car Company (PSC), Richmond Car Works (RCW) and the American Car and Foundry Company (AC&F).

As built, the cars had a shallow center hopper, often referred to as a “clamshell” hopper. The cars went through different changes during their service life. Some of those changes included C&O cars being rebuilt with panel sides to try to increase the cubic capacity of the cars, some were rebuilt into covered hopper cars and all had their center “clamshell” hopper replaced with a regular saw-tooth hopper between 1939-1942.

Photos show different trucks under the cars, C&O were delivered with a 70-ton USRA style Andrews. The NYC and P&LE cars have been photographed with Keystone Trucks and also Verona trucks.

The C&O cars were built with a heap shields on the ends of the cars. There is an article on these cars with an as-built drawing of the cars in the July 2004 issue of Mainline modeler. The C&O rebuilt their cars starting in 1932 with panel sides. When completed the newly-rebuilt cars received a “1” was added in front of the original number to create a new number series. The cars were later rebuilt back to straight sides in later rebuilds.

The C&O rebuilt a total of 125 of the cars into covered hopper cars in 1938-1939. There is an article in Mainline Modeler October 2004 with drawings and very nice photographs of the cars as rebuilt and in service. There is also a pair of nice images of the open hoppers in this article.

The NYC, P&LE and PMcK&Y cars had their center hopper rebuilt over a period from 1939-1942. As they did their cubic capacity increased from 2508 to 2518. While that is not a big increase, it does give us a piece of data that can be tracked in the ORER’s so that we have an idea of the progress of the conversions. The cars were later rebuilt with AB Brakes.

A pair of N1's shove on a USRA triple approaching Tamaqua Tunnel.

A pair of N1’s shove on a NYC USRA triple approaching Tamaqua Tunnel.

The Virginian cars went through some changes also. From 1924-1937 they were as-built with a clamshell middle hopper, K brakes and a vertical brake wheel and staff. From 1937-1947 they had their center hopper rebuilt, they kept their K brakes but the verticle brake staff was replaced with a power brake housing. From 1947-1959 they were rebuilt into their final configuration with AB Brakes. The Tennessee Central purchased 24 cars that had been retired from the Virginian.

NYC 915709 - photo from RY Models Website

NYC 915709 with Keystone trucks – photo from RY Models Website

Roster of USRA 70 Ton Triple Hoppers Built

Road	Year	Qty	Builder	Class	Road Numbers	Re-Numbered
C&O	1927	900	RCW	H7-8	70000-70899
C&O	1927	250	RCW	H7-9	70900-71149
C&O	1927	250	AC&F	H7-9	71150-71399
HV	1923	1000	AC&F	H7-14	13000-13999	C&O 73000-73999
HV	1924	1000	SSC	H7-14	14000-14999	C&O 74000-74999
HV	1923	1000	SSC	H7-6	15000-15999	C&O 75000-75999
HV	1923	1000	AC&F	H7-6	16000-16999	C&O 76000-76999
NYC	1923	1500	SSC	466-H	425000-426499	908000-909499
NYC	1923	500	PSC	467-H	426500-426999	909500-909999
NYC	1924	5000	SSC	488-H	427000-431999	911000-915999
NYC	1924	1500	PSC	496-H	432000-433499	917000-918499
NYC	1925	500	SSC	499-H	433500-433999	918500-918999
P&LE	1922	1500	SSC	436-H	66000-67499
P&LE	1923	300	PSC	476-H	67500-67799
P&LE	1924	1000	PSC	495-H	56000-56999
P&LE	1925	500	PSC	525-H	57500-57999
PMcK&Y	1922	1500	PSC	435-H	53000-54499
VGN	1924	500	SSC	H-5	7000-7499

The Models
Since the NYC was a major interchange partner with the Reading Company at Newberry Yard in Williamsport, PA, I was excited when RY Models first announced they were going to produce the USRA 70-ton triple hopper. The January 1952 ORER lists a total of 33,936 open hopper cars on the NYC. Of those, 8846 (26%) were the USRA 70-ton triple. P&LE had 6255 cars listed and 3246 were the USRA triples or should we say, 51.9% of the total hopper cars on the roster. That being said, I needed some for the layout.

RY Models showed a pair of painted pilot models at last year’s O Scale National. I thought they looked nice then, I was pleased with the final results of the production run.

The cars came painted and lettered. The paint is nice and the lettering looks good. My models had the correct NYC lot numbers for the car numbers.

When I measured the models and checked them against the published drawings for these cars. They were spot on.

I’m modeling in1952 so, I bought all later cars with AB Brakes. I did have a question because the as-built versions should have two cross members inside the cars towards the ends. My later cars did not, but I could not locate any interior shots of the cars to know if the prototype had them later or not.

I am very pleased with my NYC and P&LE cars. Now they need some weathering.

References
Mainline Modeler, July 2004, October 2004, August 1988 (panel side rebuild drawing)
Information Sheet by Larry Klien on the NYC, P&LE and PMcK&Y cars
Information Sheet by Steve Summers on the Virginian H-5
Online listing of NYC Classes

2013 Cherry Valley O Scale Show – March

Posted on March 3, 2013 by George Losse

The Show when it was busy

Michael Rahiley was the only dealer with the New Weaver Milwaukee Boxcar.

George Peckman in a Phillies hat talking to his customers.

Even though the Cherry Valley Show is a local show for me, it’s only about 19 miles from my home. In recent years haven’t always attended the show. But a friend who has been dealing with some health issues recently needed a hand, so I found myself attending the show and with a few extra things on the table as well.

The show was typical a Cherry Valley Show. A couple of dealers, some guys selling some extra stuff and a growing number of club members selling some extra stuff. Not much at all in the way of new products.

Most (not all) of the people that I spoke with today during the show were either current members or like myself former members of the club.

Michael Rahiley was the only dealer who had the new Weaver Milwaukee Rib-side Boxcars on his table. I was surprised he did not sell them out. They looked nice.

Tom Thorpe was demonstrating a track bending tool during the show. It looked cool and I believe there is a write-up about it in the current O Scale Trains. He also had samples of O Scale ready-built turnouts which looked very nice and were priced well.

I first attended a Cherry Valley show back in 1986 when I got into O scale. Back then they had a couple of brass dealers, a number of dealers with new products because they had accounts with wholesalers. It was held twice a year, once in May and again in September. It was something to look forward to. It’s a shame to see how the show has changed.

Today’s show was not well attended, I heard from a couple of sources that there were only twenty-five paid people in attendance in addition to the people who had tables and the club members.

There Is Sawdust On the Floor… Again!

Posted on February 21, 2013 by George Losse

I am working on the layout again.

And it feels great!

If all goes well, I hope to be spiking down some rail this weekend in Locust Summit.

January 30th!

Posted on January 30, 2013 by George Losse

Amtrak crossing the ice covered Delaware River

Holy crap that was a fast month!

A lot going on here, mostly life and work stuff, not much new with the layout except that benchwork is moving forward again. I did manage to get away to the Museum in Hamburg this month. It was a great visit! Answered many questions and generated just about as many new ones.

For the people that have asked about Reading Freight Cars Volume 2 & 3, let me just say we are talking with Reading Tech to convert the materials to be published in the Bee Line. More on that as it progresses.

I also pulled out a model project that I started with a friend about ten years ago. After a couple of hours working on it again, it reminded me why I’m in the hobby. It was also wake-up call about the layout. I can’t let the layout get in the way of what I enjoy most about the hobby, which is building freight cars.

Modeling the Reading in Proto48

Modeling the Reading in the Summer of '52

Yearly Archives: 2013

2013 Chicago O Scale Show – News

2013 Chicago O Scale Show

Headed to Chicago

Weaver Milwaukee Road Ribbed Side Box Cars

RY Models – USRA design 70-ton Triple Hopper

2013 Cherry Valley O Scale Show – March

There Is Sawdust On the Floor… Again!

January 30th!

Holy crap that was a fast month!