I've got another one for the forums. I have an NPM 50' mech reefer (Athearn BB) that I need to figure out where to put the ACI label. I have checked all my picture sites and have only come up with one picture but the picture is too early for ACI labels. I have tried other resources and those haven't panned out. Any help anyone can give would be welcomed.
I'm looking at a couple of shots of NP yellow/orange reefers, and the ACI labels are placed under the words "vista dome". I expect you would NOT place the label over rivets or door stops. And not where an open door could obscure it.
I'd put it under either "dome" or "north".
Ed
I neglected to specify that the car is a silver reefer. To the best of my knowledge, the yellow/orange reefers are not mechanical reefers. If it helps any, the car number is 546.
I think you can look for a picture of any similar car with the ACI label and put the label on your model in a similar location. Somewhere along the way there was information in MR (I think) that identified where those labels were supposed to go. But the location was not speciific down to an inch...there was a range from "here to there" along the length of the car and a similar vertical range.
My opinion is that this is one of those things that you can agonize over, or just do it and wait for some expert to come in with information that proves you wrong. Then you just ask that expert not to came back.
If you search the Forums using ACI Label as a search term you'll come up with quite a bit of useful commentary including links to online photos. I myself posted this a few years ago but I will repost it here. I assume a reefer would follow "house car" (boxcar) rules:
Although ACI label placement can appear random it was governed by rules, and thus unless you have a photo of your exact prototype car it makes more sense to follow the rules (which were set by the AAR working with Sylvania Electric Products, which made the KarTrak system). The rules allow some leeway so a workman faced with a string of cars to label would not necessarily place each one exactly the same, so long as he or she followed the rules.
I do not have the AAR Mechanical Division rules themselves, but the 1970 Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia, which I do have, refers to them as Revised Instructions March 19, 1969 No. 51561 and corrections dated June 5, 1969, No. 52255. Some of you with good reference libraries might have access to the actual standards and can enlighten us further.
The label strips are 6 inches wide by one inch high with 3/8 inch spacing between strips. The complete label is about 20 inches high by 6 inches wide.
The top of the label can be no more than 9.5 feet above the top of the rail; the bottom must be at least 1 foot 4 inches above the top of the rail.
A boxcar drawing shows the range available for the labels on either end. One concern is that if a car is traveling with its slide door wide open the label still needs to be scannable.
Thus on the single door box car drawing in the Cyc, the left hand side area available is topped by that 9.5 feet height, with 6 inches to the bottom of the car side, and the "box" of the available area is 4'8" to the right of the center of the nearest axle. That area is "permissable."
The permissable area however on the more familiar right side is in a box which again is no higher than 9.5 feet from the rail top and no lower than 6 inches from the bottom of the boxcar body, and exactly centered between the two axles of the right hand truck. On the drawing the truck has a wheelbase of 4'8" The recommended placement is in the upper middle of the permissable box. Again I assume in the drawing there is no way an open door can obstruct the label. This would give guidance for double door cars, or the rare left handed doors.
For covered hoppers, gons, open hoppers, and flat cars a considerable side area was regarded as "permissable." But the drawing is rather precise as to where it is recommended.
Tank cars are interesting as the instructions say to avoid the area of likely spillage; the top of the label including border could NOT be above the center line of the tank or 9'6" from the top of the rail, whichever is less. I might need to revist some of my tank car models to make sure I followed that rule!
The text mentions that ideally labels would be centered on locomotives, cabooses, and conventional flat cars (piggyback flats are so low they often needed a plate recommended to be 34 feet from the B end.
For covered hoppers and tank cars the recommended label position is over the B end inboard axle.
Dave Nelson
I have the ACI decals and I have an old MR (December 1969) that shows the general placement as mentioned. I use that as a general reference for the custom painted cars that I have. (I even keep the ACI labels in that magazine where the article is.)
The problem I am running into is that even with the same type of car, the placement can differ between roads. A good example is with my woodchip cars. The ACI labels for the NP and the Milwaukee (CMStP&P to be technical) are on the right hand side while the GN labeled cars on the left hand side. I also have a WFEX (GN) car of this same type. On that car the label is placed on the left hand side of the car. All of these have been verified by pictures or through information that are based on pictures.
As much as possible I want to have everything correct. Hence that's why I have gotten rid of cars that were inaccurate for the railroads that I base my modeling on.
FRRYKid....The problem I am running into is that even with the same type of car, the placement can differ between roads. A good example is with my woodchip cars. The ACI labels for the NP and the Milwaukee (CMStP&P to be technical) are on the right hand side while the GN labeled cars on the left hand side. I also have a WFEX (GN) car of this same type. On that car the label is placed on the left hand side of the car. All of these have been verified by pictures or through information that are based on pictures......
Well. since you can't find a photo showing what you need, why not simply place the label where it could be, then post a photo of your model here in the Forum. If there's a prototype photo of that car showing a different placement, someone is bound to show up with it, pointing out the error of your ways, and thereby allowing you to make the necessary correction. If no photo surfaces thusly, your model is correct.
Wayne
Seems to me there's a pic or diagram of such a car in Walther's PLD (Prototype Lettering Diagrams) 4 book, but I can't recall if it shows that or not. I'll try to remember when I get home tonight to check on it.
FRRYKidThe problem I am running into is that even with the same type of car, the placement can differ between roads. ... As much as possible I want to have everything correct.
Based on your posting history here, it seems like ACI placement causes you some anguish. You ask about it a lot. If you can't find a photo from the "usual suspect" freight car sites, it just may be that no photos exist. Furthermore, if the ACI wasn't placed on the car when originally built, it may have been added to some more or less random location later, and not necessarily by the owner of the car. If I'm recalling correctly, various non-railroad contractors located cars without ACIs and added them as they saw fit (using the general guidelines). As a result, even cars built or painted at the same time could end up with mismatched ACI locations, and they could be in different locations on two sides of the same car. While a review of photos can show typical practices for a given road, not every car belonging to that road will be typical.
Unless you are building a car to match a specific prototype photo from the start, the locations of such things as ACI labels and consolidated stencils are entirely guesswork. You may be able to find similar cars, and make educated guesses, but they're still guesses. If you can perfectly match one side of a given car to a photo, who knows what the other side looked like? You can resort to what most proto-modelers do and finish your model with the best information available, realizing you did the best you could.
*EDIT* A Google search for "NPM refrigerator" turned up few images, but did provide a link to this site http://research.nprha.org/Lists/Joe%20Caron%20NP%20Photo%20Collection/Standard%20View.aspx which has a few photos. Of the silver reefers with ACI labels, no two are in the same place, and again the opposite sides of the cars are not shown.
Rob Spangler
I didn't think to check the NP site and I'm an NPRHA member. (ugh!) I think I finally have the info for where I am going to put the ACI label on my car.
Yes, I do frequently need help with ACI placement. I am not old enough to remember ACI labels. However, the reason I model that era is that I has always loved trains from what I'm told and the late 70/early 80s is the era when that happened. I also love the look of F7s and the ACI era is about the latest I can accurately run F7's.
As mentioned, I do try to proto-model the ACI labels. In some cases, I do make educated guesses but without the pictures or information, I can't make the guesses. Hence why I ask for information or pics when I can't find them in what I know. Sometimes I even find new sites for me to use.
You talk about the late 1970s/early 1980s era - are you sure that the 50ft Mech Reefers (NOT the more common 57ft ones) you have were even in revenue service at that point? A lot of 50ft Mechs were retired (or repurposed, I suppose as RBLs or the like) by the early 1970s, superceded by the larger 57fters built starting in the mid-1960s thru the 1970s.Looking at that site that wp8thsub linked to (Joe Caron Photos), the images of the Mechs from the 1970s seem to be the 57ft styles, while the images of the 50fters seem to be from the early/mid-1960s.Of course, if you meant the 57ft Mech Reefer and not the 50fter, then ignore the previous statement...
The particular image that I am using to reference does have the ACI label on the car so it does fit for the era range I model. (Image JC10044 for reference) I aim for mid-70s to early 80s. As long as the car is accurate to somewhere in the era range and one of the railroads I model had the car, I will use it. Some of the cars are stretched a little as they are used in maintenance service (40' ARR ex-NP Gons as an example.). Call it modeler's license. I will be modeling the 57ft cars as well, but they will be painted for my freelanced road.