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.

RY Models NEW 70-ton Keystone Truck

Posted on December 11, 2012 by George Losse

RY Models New 70 ton Keystone truck – Side View.

RY Models New 70 ton Keystone truck – End View.

Imported By: RY Models
MSRP 12/2012 $42.00/pr.

Description:
With the release of the USRA 70 Ton Triples from RY Models, Rich also introduced a new Proto48/O Scale truck. The Keystone 70-ton pedestal-type side frames truck, which was built by American Steel Foundries (A.S.F.). They appear in photographs of the of The USRA cars throughout most of their lives.

The new truck was produced in Proto48 and O Scale and is available on the new USRA 70 ton cars and as a seperate item. The trucks are available from RY Models for $42.00 per pair. http://www.richyodermodels.com/rym-o-scale-trucks.htm

I received these trucks under my hopper cars and also purchased a couple of pairs to go under a pair of cars I have been kit-bashing from the IM USRA Twins which will rerepresent the spot-repaired cars the NYC rostered later in their service lives.

NYC 915709 – photo from RY Models Website

The photo shows an NYC triple after being rebuilt with a center saw-tooth hopper and you can clearly see the Keystone Truck under the car. The website also shows them under C&O, P&LE, PMcK&Y and Virginian hoppers.

NMRA Proto48 Specification:
I measured the trucks and find that they are within NMRA spec. Here are the measurements and I’ve added their measurements to the NMRA S-4.1 Proto48 Wheel Standards

Check Gauge

Back to Back

Wheel Width

Flange Width

Flange Depth

Specification Range

1.124
1.134

1.100
1.112

0.115
0.120

0.024
0.028

0.022
0.026

RY Models 70 ton Keystone truck

double insulated axles

1.132

1.104

0.115

0.026

0.023

Plus and Minus… Opinions:
On the plus-side: The trucks measured up fine against the NMRA Specification and the track fine under the cars. The trucks do look very nice, they capture the look of the prototype based on the photo I’ve seen.

On the minus-side: They do look slightly compressed (width wise) at the spring area, the photos show a wider three spring front face, as typical with 70 ton trucks of the time. The model has the center spring slightly recessed, almost like the difference between a 70-ton and a 50-ton truck.

Another issue with most RY Models trucks is that they do not have any casting information on the side frames. You know, the cool looking letters on the side frames that in O scale you can actually read. But being able to read them is part of the problem also, what should it say? I know Rich has wanted to model this information in the past and has reached out to a number of freight car experts seeking out this information with varied success. I know first-hand that rather than guess or put the wrong information there he has chosen to not include it.

Overall: The minuses have not held me back from purchasing these trucks. I look forward to their use under my hopper cars for many years to come.

I’m very glad to see a new freight car truck on the Proto48/O scale market.

2012 Cleveland O Scale Show – November

Posted on November 8, 2012 by George Losse

The Cleveland O Scale Show came right on the heals of Huricane Sandy, which was felt from New Jersey all the way to Chicago. Lots of people were talking about the storm. Surprising to hear how many were without power in the other states it hit. A number of people I expected to see at the show were not there because they were cleaning up after the storm.

For those that did go to the show, there were a lot of people selling off collections of built cars, plus a number of folks selling their own extra models. There did not seem to be many dealers with new or current stock on their tables, maybe three or four dealers. That’s not to say that there wasn’t plenty of models at good prices.

There was one new manufacturer at the show, OscaleTurnouts, Inc.™ had a display of their new O scale turnout offerings. They are built up using PC boards to keep the rails in gauge and Right-O-Way castings to make them look great. One feature I really liked, they worked out how far to extend the rail at the end of the diverging routes so that two turnout laid together will be spaced correctly for a 4 inch centerline single cross over. It said to me they have done more then just built a jig to build the turnouts in, they have designed a though out product.

2012 Strasburg O Scale Show – October

Posted on October 28, 2012 by George Losse

I attended the Fall Strasburg Show today. I have to say that was a good show today for me. I got the chance to catch up with a lot of folks today and I came home with a lot of stuff. I hope everybody else there also had a good show.

There were lots on new things to see and learn about today. RCS America was at the show demonstrating their new Raillinx System. I was impressed with their system and the way it was installed on their sample models. Dead Rail is getting closer to being a reality.

I also got to look at the new Weaver Milwaulkee Boxcar. Bob Hiel had a pilot model from Weaver on his table today. Below are images of the car:

One thing I always enjoy about going to a Strasburg Show, is just being in the Amish country. Even their parking lot are fun to look at.

Standard Boxcars? Over represented?

Posted on October 7, 2012 by George Losse

Model manufacturers love the “Standard” Boxcars. We have commercial models of the USRA Single Sheathed, the 1937 AAR, and the Pullman Standard PS-1. The reason is easy, build one model and paint it in all the roads that owned them. This gives them a great chance to recover their investment in die work for the models. The trouble for us modelers is that it’s easy to have some car types over represented in our freight car fleets. It was worse back when there were fewer models but it still can get out of control fast.

There have been a number of articles and books published about the different “Standard” car types. I decided to do a little exercise the other day. I pulled out the different lists and began to plot the roads that had each of the “Standard” car types. Then I dug out my 52 ORER and found out how many total boxcars the roads that received the “Standard” cars had. That was a total of 769,711.

The total for the number of “Standard” cars on the roster was 278,979 or 38% of the total cars on those roads. I cut off the PS-1 build numbers at August of 1952 which is when I’m modeling. These totals did not include any 50 foot cars or automobile cars of 40′ or 50′ length. That will be another post.

What does that really mean? If you believe that the free roaming cars like boxcars, flat cars and gondolas will be proportional to the number of actual cars on the prototype rosters (except for home road cars), then a little more than a third of the boxcars on your railroad should be of the “Standard” cars. The other two-thirds of your boxcar fleet should be the automobile cars, the 50′ cars and the railroad designed cars, like the B&O wagon tops, or the Milwaukee Welded Ribbed cars.

If you were going to build 100 boxcars, the thought would be 38 of the cars would be of one of the “Standard” cars. The other 62 cars would be made up of the automobile cars, railroad designed cars and the 50 foot cars.

Now as far as what roads they should be, I believe that the roads that had the most cars of a type are the most likely to be seen based on the proportions, but that talk is for another time.

USRA SS	9756	2
USRA DS	5215	1
23 ARA	66,125	9
32 ARA	11,854	2
37 AAR	60,077	8
37 AAR mod	41,094	5
War Emergency Boxcars	5342	1
44 AAR	34,065	4
PS-1	46,271	6
Totals from the 1/52 ORER	279,079	38

A Nice Little Vacation

Posted on October 6, 2012 by George Losse

My wife and I just stepped away for a really nice little vacation in the Finger Lakes area of New York. We stayed in Watkins Glen, NY. Turns out our hotel room overlooked the old Northern Central/PRR line through town. This was part of the Elmira Branch above Elmira. I had studied the line from Elmira to Williamsport, PA with the idea of modeling it. I never did start the layout. I just could not put enough Reading into the layout.

The first day a Finger Lakes Railway local came right past our hotel. We didn’t see any other movement on the line the rest of our time there.

On the ride up we stopped at the Red Rose Diner in Towanda, PA. The service and the food was nice.

I did see a couple of station survivors while exploring the area. The upper image is from Montour Falls, NY also on the Elmira Branch. It’s now a doctor’s office.

The second station is from Hammonsport, NY and it is now a police station.

Just as you get into town in Watkins Glen the is the Millionaires’ row of campers/trailers. They looked nice but the locals were not too friendly.

Now that I’m relaxed from the nice vacation, it’s time to get back to the benchwork.

Modeling the Reading in Proto48

Modeling the Reading in the Summer of '52

Author Archives: George Losse

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!

RY Models NEW 70-ton Keystone Truck

2012 Cleveland O Scale Show – November

2012 Strasburg O Scale Show – October

Standard Boxcars? Over represented?

A Nice Little Vacation