USMRR 1860's Era plans for kitbashing

[Anonymous]

"it sounds like some still want to be living with the plantation system"

What an odd thing to say!

Anyone out there with an interest in 1850s-1860s railroading who can lend me a hand?

Spod  

 

[altterrain]

James -I would love to help. The problem is that I do not speak American. I have lots of plans etc for this period -but you will have to provide me with the English for them...

Q1 What does USMRR mean?

Q2 What does ACW mean?

regards

ralph

Don't feel bad, Ralph. I'm sitting south of the Mason-Dixon Line and I had no idea. 150 years later and it sounds like some still want to be living with the plantation system.

-Brian 

[Anonymous]

I too have an interest in this period, though plan to work to a smaller scale.

Over the last several months I have been gathering material from the web and a small library, comprising Abdill, Alexander's CW RR and Models and the White volumes on rolling stock.

I have a pretty good idea where I'm going (if not quite how to get there), but would really appreciate any help in two areas:

First, colour schemes. Locomotives seem often to have been painted to the manufacturer's taste rather than to a Road livery.  This seems to extend to USMRR locos. J R Wilkes has a useful page dedicated to Mason schemes, though focussed on the 1870s, and SMR trains have colour photos of their O Gauge Masons.  As I am interested in modelling an 1860s Mason, this has proved useful.

Alexander's book is tantalising because, though he must have arrived at conclusions about colour schemes in order to model locos and stock, I don't know what those conclusions were because all the pictures are black and white and the text is silent on the matter.

For instance, what colour is his Orange & Alexandria RR coach?  There are two Pennsylvania RR coaches pictured on the O & A in Abdill, but had the well known PRR coach livery been adopted back then?

The second problem area is the relative paucity of plans.  As someone based in the Caribbean (soon to be UK), I am unlikely to track down a copy of the March 1969 MR and so any chance of copies would be greatly appreciated.

Spod   

[Anonymous]

I took a minute to look up the old MR plans. They were printed in the March 1969 issue, page 33 and include a USMR flat, box and cattle car as well as a Georgia RR box car, an Adams express car and the B&O metal box. I've got this particular issue in my library, so if you want a copy of these plans, give me a shout.
JB

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the wonderful world of old time railroading. A large scale CW layout sounds really interesting.
MR ran plans for several civil war period freight cars in the late 60's. Haven't got my index to hand, but know it was between 66 and 70. One of the plans was for the more or less standard USMR flatcar. There were also plans for a stock car, box car, and Adams express car. This would be worth your while to track down.
Also would suggest that you ask your local library to get you John H White's books on Freight and passenger cars.
They have a lot of good pictures, plans, etc. The freight car book covers USMR equipment, esp. the flat cars in some detail. Also have some interesting info on early use of cabooses by USMR.
The late great E.P. Alexander was extremely interested in this area of modeling, and almost all of his books have some pictures of C.W. era equipment as well as models of CW loco's etc. that he built. He wrote a book about modeling Civil War railroads as well which is hard to find these days, but would be worth while if you come across it. Alexander was a pioneer model railroader who worked mostly in 1/4" scale. He had some really neat C.W. stuff available. I last bought stuff from him in the late 70's. So his books, plans, etc are still out there floating around.
Since Civil War period equipment was largely wood, with a few rare exceptions like the B&O iron box and hopper cars, I would suggest that you build up your cars out of strip wod. The larger scale would give a chance for some real nice detail in board by board construction. To keep the cost down you might cut your own wood, which would certainly be more practical in the large scale than in say HO. Metal parts were fairly limited in these cars, mostly nuts, bolts, grab irons (which were pretty minimal themselves) brake rigging (no air brakes tho of course) and truss rods when present. Even trucks had a large amount of wooden components.
An interesting aspect of C.W. railroading that I've never seen modeled is track gauge. While many roads were standard gauge, many, including a lot of Southern roads were 5 foot gauge. Then there were the wide 6 foot roads, like the Erie. An interchange point between roads of different gauges were trucks were swaped under cars or freight off loaded would certainly make an interesting model.
Hope this helps
JB

[dwbeckett]

 

Ralph I LOL as i read your post then I had a KOD the maid asked if I was OK . I too am looking for guide to text message speaking  so the when I hear POS or MBF I know what was said .BTY I once did a speach on railroads durring the ACW.

DWB

[JamesPH1966]

ACW - The American Civil War 1861-1865 (aka "The War between the States" or "The War of Northern Aggression" 'cause there weren't nothin' "civil" about it!)

USMRR - United States Military Railroad - Which was mostly several railroads in northern Virginia which were taken over by the US military to move troops in the eastern theater of the war (and, naturally, were a constant target of Confederate guerillas) 

 

James - check out the links I posted to your thread in the Classic Trains forum for a book you're probably going to be interested in...

[cabbage]

James -I would love to help. The problem is that I do not speak American. I have lots of plans etc for this period -but you will have to provide me with the English for them...

Q1 What does USMRR mean?

Q2 What does ACW mean?

regards

ralph

[Anonymous]

Hi Y'all

 I'm trying to find plans to kitbash 1860's era USMRR loco's and rolling stock in G or #1 scale. Anyone have links or addresses for a site that has them or have them there self's and are willing to share.

 Being disabled and on a budget I can kitbash better than buy so any assistance is welcomed.

 I have a 4-4-0 New Bright Loco and tender and some cars that I got off ebay so i have the start of the gear.

 I'm mainly working for dioramas rather than running gear so busted stuff is fine makes good ACW gear to go with my figures.

Yours in service

James Acerra