Author Archives: George Losse

2013 Cherry Valley O Scale Show – March

Posted on by
The Show when it was busy

The Show when it was busy

DSC_0919

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

DSC_0920

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.

 

 

January 30th!

Posted on by
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 by

RY Models New 70 ton Keystone truck – Side View.

RY Models New Keystone truck.

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

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 by

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 by

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 by

 

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 by

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.

Rails Unlimited – 1932 ARA Standard Boxcar with Radial Roof

Posted on by
Lee Turner's model of the Rails Unlimited NKP/C&O 1932 ARA boxcar
Lee Turner’s model and photo of the Rails Unlimited NKP/C&O 1932 ARA boxcar

Manufactured By: Rails Unlimited
MSRP August 2012: Flat kit $80.00  Assembled body $110.00
Masters By: Lee Turner

Rails Unlimited released a 1932 ARA Standard Boxcar with radial roof. The masters for this car were done by Lee Turner who also built the car in the photo. I picked up a kit at  this year’s National. Ted is offering the kits two ways, either a built up car body that needs to be detailed or as a flat kit.

Prototype History
The 1932 ARA Standard Boxcar was the first all-steel boxcar adopted by the American Railway Association. Unfortunately for the design it was adopted near the height of the Depression. Because of this, not many railroads had the funds to buy this design. The total number of cars was only 14,500 cars. The history of these cars are thoroughly described in Ted Culotta’s book, The American Railway Association Standard Box Car of 1932 (Speedwitch Media, 2004).

The models are based on two orders of cars for the NKP and C&O which were built with a Hutchins radial roof. The prototype cars were built in 1934, 500 cars for the NKP in series 13000-13499 and 650 cars for the C&O in series 7000-7649.

The instruction list these cars lasting into the mid sixties in large number while a few cars survived into the early 70’s. My January 1952 ORER lists 634 out of the 650 C&O cars in service and 479 out of the 500 NKP cars in service plus 5 cars with Note H. So what was Note H you ask?

“Note H – Individual numbers of cars in service in series 13000 to 13400 having roof hatches and differing in A.A.R. Mech. Designation from other cars in same series; A.A.R. Mech. Designation LC: 13065,  13084,  13213,  13311,  13313”