Recently, I purchased some Athearn Milwaukee Road 24' Ore Cars. I noticed that none of the cars have brake wheels. I checked several photographs of Michigan ore cars and see they have brake wheels. Also, I believe these Athearn cars are based on the old Roundhouse ore cars and brake wheels were included with those kits. However, when I asked Athearn about getting brake wheels for the ore cars and was told that they are modeled accurately because these ore cars used a brake lever and not a wheel. Is this true?
There are two photographs of Milwaukee Road ore cars on the railroad picture archives.net web site.
From the angle that the pholos were taken it's very difficult to tell whether they had a brake wheel or lever, but there does seem to be a brake wheel on the top right corner in this photo:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/pictures/16339/MILW%20ore%20car.jpg
The other photo on this site is taken from the A-end so it's impossible to tell whether it had a wheel or lever. Of course, it's also possible that they had both types.
The Athearn cars are indeed the old MDC/Roundhouse cars. The rectangular-side cars are based on Milwaukee Road cars. The old MDC car kits didn't have a hole for the brakewheel, just a smooth area with a sort of "nib" sticking out where the brakewheel would normally be. There were brakewheels included on the sprue with other parts included with the kits, so I (probably like most people) just trimmed the nib off and drilled a hole at that spot and added the brakewheel.
But it could be the cars really weren't supposed to have them. The "rachet" type brake lever seemed to be popular in the 1910's-20's; it could be the cars were built with that type of brake and later were modified to have brakewheels. I'll check when I get a chance tonight, I have a couple of Pat Dorin's books on iron ore railroads, ore cars and operations.
I have now checked several books in my library regarding the Milwaukee Road and so far everyone of the ore car photographs either show a brake wheel or are photographed from the opposite end of the car that would not have the brake wheel. I have yet to spot a brake lever. This is only a sample of six or seven images. I am getting suspicious of the response I received from Athearn. I just ordered two of Pat Dorin's books on the Iron Mining railroads and docks. It will be interesting to track this down.
JPD,
After reading this thread and looking at some of the pic's provided,,I did a little looking myself and did not find one car with a brake lever..Which in my mind raise's a question. All the brake wheel pic's,show a platform to stand on when operating the wheel,,would the hand lever,also have a platform??Or would it be mounted somewhere else??
Cheers,
Frank
OK, Pat Dorin's "Great Lakes Ore Docks and Ore Cars" notes that the rectangular sided MDC cars (now made by Athearn) are based on Milwaukee Road prototype cars. All the pictures of them in the book - and the railroad diagram of the car on page 70 - clearly show a brakewheel.
I suspect when they started making the 'ready to roll' versions of the old MDC car, someone forgot that they had to add the brakewheel. The old MDC kits had a 'nib' where the brakewheel would go, you'd remove the nib with a hobby knife and drill a hole for the brakewheel where the nib was. (IIRC two were on the sprue with the other detail parts like the brake reservoir.)
It may be some ore cars somewhere had rachet brakes, but I've never seen one. Some of the old cars from the 19th century had upright brakestaffs.
Is it possible Athearn is correct and their ore cars are intended to have brake levers (however crudely represented and inaccurate they may be)? It seems odd that an easy-to-build kit would have a 'nib' instead of a hole where the brakewheel would be placed.
The instruction sheet for the metal MDC ore car has both a brake lever and a brake wheel in the parts list, but the assembly drawing shows only the brake lever. The instruction sheet for the plastic MDC ore car, also on hoseeker.net, makes no reference to a brake wheel or brake lever at all.
Either way, the ore cars would look better with brake wheels.
I bought a lot of the MDC plastic ore car kits in the late 1980's into the 1990's, and I don't recall anything in the instructions, or ads, etc. about the cars being made to represent cars with rachet lever brakes. It could be when the cars began to be made of plastic (1960's I'd guess) that they couldn't do the hole in the molding, and maybe it wasn't worth the time/money to drill the hole into each car.
BTW I might be wrong, but I think that the old 'taper side' MDC ore car - the one with outside bracing, based on a CNW car - did have a hole in place for the brakewheel??
p.s. I have several freight cars that have a 'rachet' brake instead of a brakewheel. What's on the old MDC ore cars looks nothing like the rachet brakes on the other cars.
I have not looked at over two dozen photographs and drawings of Milwaukee Road ore cars and they either have a brake wheel or I cannot see the end of the car with the brake wheel or ratchet lever on it. I think the consensus is that the ore cars had brake wheels and I will be adding them. Too bad Athearn did not deem to include brake wheels.
Kadee offers a wide variety of brake wheels to choose from next time I place an order with Walthers.
Thanks for all your input.
It is most likely that they had brake wheels. The old MDC kits had brake wheels with a hole in the hub that fit over the peg cast into the car.
These cars were loaded by gravity dropping cars, 3 to 5 cars at a time, with a rider called a car dropper braking the cars under the pocket to load them. Everyone would have frowned on non standard hand brake appliances for safety reasons.