PRR Freight consists of the 40's - early 50's

[Anonymous]

Any good sites or books on the PRR showing freight consists? Just need to know what kind of cars and road names other than Pennsy were in my area? (Central PA)

[orsonroy]

Your chances of seeing any car from any railroad in the USA and Canada are pretty good, for both the Pennsy and any other road on the continent. True, the chances are determined by lots of oddball variables (fleet size, region, typical traffic source, etc), but cars allowable for interchange went EVERYWHERE.

The proto freight car modelers are trying with some luck to get a handle on what a "typical" freight train of the transitional era would look like. The problem is mostly that there's not a whole lot of hard data left. Is a photo of a train on Cahon PAss with a N&W twin hopper an anomaly or a regular occurance? Is an SP stock car coupled to a helium tank car in central Illinois a once in a lifetime happening? Who knows, without ten year's wort of wheel reports from that same line.

There ARE some general guides though. In general, for a large road like the Pennsy (which had the world's largest freight car fleet), you should have more cars from the home road than for any other single road. After that, a ROUGH guesstimate is that your fleet should reflect "reality". What that means is anybody's guess, but in your case...

The Pennsy had tens of thousands of hopper cars. They had more cars of ONE CLASS of hopper than most roads in the USA had cars, total. It would be rare to see a non-Pennsy hopper car in a local mine turn (they'd show up in through freights, but not at Pennsy switched mines, except rarely).

The NYC had the next largest freight car fleet, followed by the B&O, CN, CP, Erie, and C&O. Make sure you have a lot of their cars, especially boxcars. Go easy on the Canadian roads, since their tarrif regulations were different, and American roads tended to ship them north as fast as possible.

Your boxcar fleet, while leaning heavily on the PRR, should reflect the whole United States. if you have 125 boxcars, make 25 or more PRR, and mix up the rest by region: NE, Midwest, South and West. From each region, include a few cars from the biggest roads, and include one or two oddballs for variety. For example, your 25 cars for the midwest should look like:
IC - 4 cars
CB&Q - 4 cars
Rock Island - 3 cars
C&NW - 2 cars
NKP - 2 cars
GM&O - 2 cars
Soo - 2 cars
C&EI - 1 car
C&IM - 1 car
Wabash - 1 car
Monon - 1 car
PM - 1 car
DSS&A - 1 car

Remember, it's more important to capture the FEEL for period modeling than it is to try to get everything 100% accurate, which is impossible anyway. Lean heavily on your home road, don't neglect the top 10 national and regional roads, and make your boxcars a good mix of (boringly painted) cars from all over the nation, and you'll be fine.

[ndbprr]

On PRR-Talk they say if you model the 50's you model the PRR because over 50% of all the cars were owned by the PRR. Check Bruce Smiths web site as he has done a tremendoous amount of research into car ownership, types and percentages to reflect the era.

[Anonymous]

Can't think of the title right now, I'll look when I get home. The late Don Ball put together a wonderful Pennsylvania coffee table style book in full color just before his death several years ago. I believe it's still in print. I'll check mine to get the title and publisher for you. My memory can be fun so email me at: [e-mail] to jog my memory if I don't post it here by tomorrow.

[rogerhensley]

This might be of some help. In knowing what cars to see on the PRR, it is very helpful to know what industries have incoming loads and are shipping finished product.

In researching loads and destinations for my railroad, I found an excellent reference for companies, locations, products and railroad connections for loads. This is a 250 page book called 'Tom's 1938 Register' (no relation to the Thomas Register) compiled and edited by Thomas A. Gloger. This actually is a good reference right into the 50s before things started to decline.

To learn more, visit his website at http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.tgloger/t38r.htm. I have no connection with Thomas A. Gloger except that of a satisfied customer.

[ndbprr]

Ball's book is the PRR in the 40's and 50's and is full color. As a rule of thumb hopper cosists and ore car cosists should be pretty much one road. Dependent on direction cars will be heavily loaded for railroads in that direction. For example a freight headng to Potomac yard and interchange with the RF&P would have SCl, ACL, southern, N&W, Vgn, etc. whereas a train heading toward Chicago would be more ATSF, CB&Q, GN, Milwaukee ROad, etc.

[CFournier]

I suggest you post this on the TRAINS mag forum. If you are lucky, a Mr Mark Hemphill of Trains magazine might see and answer your request! A while ago I posted an inquiry about a typical Western Pacific train consist of the fifties and got replies that were very informative from this gentleman.
Chris

[Anonymous]

Correct on Mr Hemphill's information in consists. I think his knowledge really is very good on the subject. But I dont know how much of the eastern roads he understands.

I just got done going thru a B&O book at the LHS with pictures. There are literally all kinds of stuff in the train from everywhere.