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.

When I made to choice to model the Reading, I knew I had two choices, either have my modeling time after the last of steam or I was going to have to build some steam locomotives. There has not been many brass models imported in O scale of Reading steam locomotives. One reading fan suggested “buying a bunch of T-1’s and model 1956 because nothing else has been imported.”

When I was focused on the Elmira Branch of the PRR, I was also focused on 1956 as the date to model. When I first made the choice to model the Reading, I shifted my focused time period to 1953. All of the first generation diesel locomotives I liked were on the roster. And there were only a few Steam locomotive classes left running.

Well as luck would have it, I was able to trade some of my surplus PRR equipment for an SGL Reading G3. They only lasted on the line until the Summer of 1952 and then they were bumped from the King Coal by a pair of GP7’s. I’ve read that they lasted until September of that year even though the GP7’s which replaced them arrived in July. After that point the G3’s were transferred to South Jersey to run out their service life on the PRSL.

So that has set my time to the Summer of 1952.

Steam Classes

Left on the roster in 1952 were I9-sc’s, I10’s, K1-sd/e’s, N1-sd’s, G2-sa’s, G3’s and T-1’s.

The T-1‘s do not seem to show up in the photos West of Tamaqua until 1956-1957. They ran through the mainline to Pottsville and into Saint Clair. There is a really nice O Scale model of a T-1 done by Overland back in the 1990’s. There was also a nice Bob Jones’ Kit for a T-1 that was produced before the Overland run. The finding of a nice Overland T-1 has prompted the move of modeling location to Schuylkill Haven on the line to Pottsville.

SGL imported the Reading G3 back around 2000. While not super detailed, it does have enough detail to be a good place to start. One arrived on my roster in a trade for some of that surplus PRR equipment.

The N1-sd‘s, were built between 1917-1919 and are dimensionally close to a USRA 2-8-8-2. That is my starting point, I have a pair of Sunset N&W Y-3’s that are the going to become Reading locomotives.

The K1-sd/e‘s will have to be built. I found the the wheelbase is very close to that of the Sunset I1sa’s. With modifications to the Sunset frame, new boilers and new tenders, they will take shape.

The I10 uses almost the same wheel base as the PRR H10 so I plan to use the Central Locomotive Works H10 mechanism for this conversion.

The I9-sc was an I9 that was rebuilt with the running gear from the I10’s that became T1’s. So this too will use the Central Locomotive Works H10 mechanism for the conversion.

Diesel Classes

Seen in the photos from 1952 in the Shamokin Division were:  Road Power EMD FT’s, F3’s, F7’s, ALCO FA1’s and Baldwin AS-16’s, Switchers were EMD NW2’s Baldwin VO-1000’s and DS4-4-1000’s.

EMD FT’s:
O Scale is blessed with a couple of choices for EMD FT brass models, Overland or Hallmark. The Hallmarks are detailed for Santa Fe units so they would require some correcting. But they usually show up at good prices at the shows. Overland are a newer model imported in the 90’s and the details are much cleaner but they cost a little more. I was lucky to find a pair at a very good price.

MTH also makes a 3-rail version of an EMD FT, but it is not a scale model. I owned a pair, so I was able to see and measure them first hand.

EMD F3 & EMD F7:
There have been a number of O scale EMD F3 & F7 models available both as kits and brass imports. I am using a combination of Overland F3’s and P&D F3’s and F7’s.

ALCO FA-1’s:
There are again a number of options here in O scale.  Central Locomotive Works has made brass kits for them since before I was born. Key is about to import them, but their price point is not in my hobby budget. Overland has imported them in the past and that is what I have on my shelf.   Also Custom Brass and Sunset both have imported them in the past. I was going to use the Custom Brass models until I found an A-B-A set of the Overland models at a great price.

Baldwin AS-16’s:
The Overland AS-16 is THE option for modeling the Baldwin AS-16’s. The model was imported in the mid 90’s. They do show up at shows and on ebay every so often. So far the models I have found me in trades and one purchase. Overland produced both the early car body design and what modelers refer to as the ’53 body or high hood version.

Again, MTH has produced a 3-rail version that they call a Baldwin AS 616, but the hoods are too wide and too tall, they would require far too much work to correct them.

EMD NW2
All Nation has produced a white metal version almost as long as the prototype has existed. The All Nation model looks like 1940 technology. These have also been produced in brass by a couple of importers over the years.

I started building an NW-2 by combining an All Nation body on top of an Atlas SW9 frame. Life is way too short! I’m now looking for one of the brass imports to cross my path at a good price…..

Baldwin Vo-1000, DS4-4-1000:
I am using a pair of Car Works VO-1000’s and plan to back-date Rich Yoder’s S12 into the DS4-4-1000.

Weaver also make a nice model of the VO-1000 with curved insets in the walkways.

ALCO RS-3‘s and EMD GP7‘s:
While plentiful on the Reading, they did not venture into coal country much at this early date in freight service. That would change as time moves on and second generation diesels hit the roster.

Passenger service is a different story. The RS-3’s and the Gp-7’s did run in passenger service to Pottsville during this period.