Lets's TAlk about Freight Cars

[SpaceMouse]

Back to the 1880's. It looks as though my daughter will be taking over the passenger business in my 1880's layout with her 4-4-0. So I will be running frieght with my 2-6-0. Trouble is I don't know what to get. I try to imagine what it was like from my Hollywood-view memory of black and white, and I was more interested in what Paladin or the Lone Ranger did than looking at the trains.

I did pick-up a few Overton 34' boxcars.

The industry in the area will be lumber. There seem to be a lot of different log-company-specific two-trucks-with-stakes cars, but I don't know if they are period correct or not. Furthermore, I don't know what lumber companies operated in the area.

I'm further assuming they had to have flat-cars and cattle cars, but I can't figure out how to tell time period. What other kinds of cars would there have been?

[Anonymous]

Well for one thing, car length. You would want to stick with 30-34 foot cars, definitely no 40 footers. All of course would be wood. Truss rod cars would have ruled the railroads at that time period. A truss rod car can be identified by rods under the frame of the car that support the car and keep the floor flat. This was done prior to the heavy steel beam framed cars of later years.

Most lumber roads used dis-connected skeleton flat cars in the early years. The lumber itself created the car with just wheel sets on each end. Early flat short flat cars would work fine, too. Getting into the disconnected log cars is probably too much for a beginner in model railroading. Flat cars with lumber loads should make for an interesting train. Also be sure and get the smallest caboose possible. Bobber cabooses, or four wheel cabooses were typical for lumber railroads. Using a big two truck, 8 wheel caboose would have been quite rare in the 1880 period. Just keep everything as small as possible and you'll be on the right track.

Unfortunately the modeling community does not have much variety to choose from in the time period you want in the way of rolling stock. AHM made quite a bit of early freight equipment, and MDC Roundhouse you have found out has some nice early freight cars. The popular time period for modeling is the 1940-1970 period and most of the steel freight cars modeled cover that timeframe.

[Anonymous]

Something else you might consider is buying some cars in kit form. For many people the little time it takes to assembly one of the easier plastic kits really adds to the enjoyment of model railroading. Just buying a bunch of ready to run trains and throwing them on a track can often lead to boredom quickly.

There are kits on the market that require very little assembly skills and there is usually a lot of self-satisfaction from kids that have been able to build up the kit and then see it operate on the layout. Some kits go together in as little as 15-30 minutes. Athearn kits take all of 5 minutes, but Athearn doesn't have anything in the time period you want. Kits often sell for less then the ready to run cars so your hobby dollar goes farther. If you do decide to buy a kit as a beginner stick with an almost snap together type car, with minimal amount of gluing necessary and no wood parts that require work. Kits can be a blast and after you do one from a particular manufacturer the second one is a true snap.

[Anonymous]

Not to burn a hole into this post with too many responses but the solution here with all these thoughts being a new modeler is to get a catalog that shows everything that is out there with pictures and details. All of your questions would be answered with just one catalog.

WALTHERS HO CATALOG

Here you would find what is available for almost every supplier, color pictures, prices, information. It's like Christmas all over again if you are an HO modeler.

Engines, cars, track, scenery, nothing left to your imagination. If you had a Walthers catalog for reference you could be answering our questions, that's how good that catalog is.

You can go on-line and order the catalog and it will be your best spent dollars to date. Then you can review your options and make choices. I'm not saying you should buy from Walthers, and you can use an mail-order house with likely better prices, but Walthers has the products in stock, is very reliable, and has a long history to back up the reliability of what they sell.

AND, kids love the catalog as they can look through all the pictures and decide what they want, even see the colors and names on the cars and engines. You can evaluate the different prices and determine if the extra expense of the more exotic trains is worth it to you, as sometimes the price differences have little to do with quality.

[Anonymous]

Large caboose's did exist in the 1880 era, the NKP wood caboose's were mostly built in this period and they are among the largest wood caboose's ever built. They lasted until the time of the N&W merger - almost 80 years.

After the shake the box MDC kits, you might want to look at Labelle wood kits and Westerfields Resin kits for older prototype cars.

Rick

[Anonymous]

Rick,

I was thinking more along the lines of a logging or short line railroad for the 1880 period. SP and UP built some rather good size cabooses in the 80's also. I've seen models of the wood NKP caboose, probably one of the best paint schemes ever applied to a crummy. Most cabooses built around the time the transcontinental railroad was completed and for a few years afterward were in the 20-24 foot length, somewhat smaller than later wood style or newer steel cabooses.

[SpaceMouse]

murrieta,

That is good advise. I actually got a Wather's Catalog a few days ago and have been through it cover to cover once. (I hadn't even thought of it for searching for passenger cars.) I'll get the idea eventually. Then I have to find a hobby store to deal with.

As for the freight cars, my problem is not knowing what to look for and the descriptions assume that you do know what you are looking for.

[dave9999]

QUOTE: Then I have to find a hobby store to deal with.

Spacemouse,
They don't go out of their way to make it known, but you CAN order direct from Walther's website.
I have been all the way to the checkout, where they ask for my credit card, just to make sure that
any everyday Joe could place an order. You don't have to be a dealer. Dave

[Anonymous]

It's probably too late for your chosen era, but I think it's cool:
Bachmann's "ACF 40' Log Car with Painted Resin Logs"

See it on http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/index.html,
select Log Cars subhead in Freight Cars in HO Scale.
comes in a 1906-1935 as well as 1935-1960.

They are not cheap - MSRP $30; we received our one copy as a gift.

These are *heavy*, particularly with the logs on board - you will find out fast how good a puller the loco is and where any grades are way too steep.

[twhite]

Spacemouse--the IHC freight car section in the Walther's catalogue lists a selection of old-time freight cars that would work for the 1880's. Many of these are former AHM cars that were designed to fit behind AHM's Genoa and Bowker locomotives. You could probably use the IHC 34' flat cars for your log loads--IHC also puts out 30' log-buggies, but the price is kind of high ($16 per car as I remember). They put out box, gondola (a flat car with stake sides) a tank car (flat car with 3 wooden tanks on it) a couple of 'work' cars and a 4-wheel caboose. MDC has a series of old-time 34' cars that would work--box, gondola, tank, cattle and an early wooden refrigerator car, plus an 8-wheel 1880's caboose--but right now their stuff is very hard to find since they are being bought over by Horizon hobbies and all of their dies are in the process of being shipped from Carson City, NV to Southern California. You might try E-bay or some of the other on-line hobby shops to see what they have. For your time period, it's going to be kind of slim pickin's for a while, but there IS stuff out there. You've just got to search. Hope this helps. How's the Lil' Guy doing, by the way?
Tom

[SpaceMouse]

Lil Guy is doing great. I have not made any modifications to him other than cleaning him up. I'm going to make a project out of him just to get the hang of working on this stuff.

[Anonymous]

I've not kept up with the current availability of HO cars and was not aware that IHC offered the old AHM cars.

The AHM cars are well detailed and proportioned cars for the era you are looking for. When they were first introduced by AHM years ago they would fly off the shelves quicker than the dealers could stock them. They are priced reasonable, stay on the track, and look good behind most of the steam locos that are made for that time period. You can't go wrong and I suspect their price is very competitive.

[Anonymous]

I just bought a couple of IHC 30' MOW cars kits. With a little relettering (or perhaps just haevy weathering these will pass for late 19th C cars. They go together very quickly, but they're a bit wide for cars of that era. The box car seems tall, but car heights varied a geat deal in those days.

[Jetrock]

The IHC "Old-Timer" series of freight cars are great--although I do recommend replacing the awful couplers that come with them with Kadees, and replacing the awful wheelsets with Intermountains. The boxcar and flatcar are very simple, and they produce some nice Maintenance-of-Way equipment (bunk car, derrick, blacksmith car, ballast car) that provide some variety.

What to look for in an 1880's freight car:

* Length. Freight equipment was generally 30-36 feet long.

* Arch-bar trucks. Trucks in the 19th century were built up from straps of iron, bolted together. They look like this:

Sometimes, especially on passenger cars, early trucks would have a top crossmember made of wood.

*Wood bodies. Wooden cars lasted much later, but anything you'd find for the 1880's would be made of wood.

*Truss rods.

If you look at the underside of the car between the trucks, you will see that there are two posts with a wire running between them, and up to the car body. These are called truss rods. The problem with wooden cars is that wood tends to warp under weight, so railroads installed these truss rods to keep the cars from looking like swaybacked mules. When a car body started to sag, a few turns on the truss rod would bring things back in line.

* Handbrakes. You have seen the little brake wheels on railroad cars, right? In the 1880's, Westinghouse air brakes were around but little-used, and trains were stopped by crews of brakemen who ran over the tops of the cars and cranked the brakes on each car by hand, via a brakewheel at one end of the car. You can see an appropriately old-fashioned brakewheel in the photo above, on the upper right of the car.

*One feature of 1880s cars that you will want to TOTALLY IGNORE: Until about 1900, most railroads used what were called link-and-pin couplers. The modern "Janney" coupler, the ones that look like a little hand, did not go into universal use until around 1900, and until then cars were hooked together by a big chain-link that was attached manually using a pin. Brakemen would stand between the cars and drop the pin into place as the cars came together, one of the many activities that made a brakeman's job exceptionally deadly and dangerous (typically you could tell an experienced brakeman by how many fingers he was missing!) Now, in HO scale you don't have to worry about losing your fingers, but trying to manually couple cars with an HO scale link and pin set will almost certainly make you lose your mind.

*About logging railroads: Most logging railroads ONLY CARRIED LOGS. They were lumber companies who used railroads as a tool, not railroad companies. The only passenger equipment they had were cars to carry logging crews to logging sites, and the only freight equipment they had were cars to carry logging equipment to the crews. They generally did not have boxcars, passenger cars, or other equipment we associate with railroads' revenue service. With this being said, most logging railroads didn't carry anything PAST THE MILL--which means other railroads were needed to carry milled lumber to market! These railroads, as opposed to the dedicated logging lines, DID tend to carry things like general freight and passengers. Which means you don't have to worry about things like logging disconnects and donkey engines, unless you really want to--just get some flatcars and boxcars to carry cut lumber from the lumber mill to Hogwarts to turn into magic wands or something.

Oh yeah, those Overton cars are passenger cars, not boxcars, right?

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dave9999

QUOTE: Then I have to find a hobby store to deal with.

Spacemouse,
They don't go out of their way to make it known, but you CAN order direct from Walther's website.
I have been all the way to the checkout, where they ask for my credit card, just to make sure that
any everyday Joe could place an order. You don't have to be a dealer. Dave

I have ordered from direct from Walthers 5 or 6 times with no problem. However, you will pay full retail except on Walther's sale items. Some hobby shops may discount slightly and/or may have a sale not related to Walther's sales.

[IRONROOSTER]

This book by White, John H. Jr. "The American Railroad Freight Car from the Wood Car Era to the Coming of Steel" may be helpful.

Also, Newton K. Gregg did reprints of car builder's and locomotive dictionaries. These are out of print, but I have seen them at train shows. Gregg also did a series of Train Shed Cyclopedias which were reprints of the more interesting parts of the car builder's and locomotive dictionaries. They cover the time period from 1879 to the 1940's.
Enjoy
Paul

[dave9999]

QUOTE: Originally posted by DSchmitt


Some hobby shops may discount slightly and/or may have a sale not related to Walther's sales.

Maybe so...but most will sell at msrp, that is how they make their $$. The price you see in the Walther's catalog is not what a dealer will pay, so they have a little breathing room. My LHS
will usually cut me some slack on special orders... but I do spend a lot of money (and time)
at their store.

Regardless, sometimes you have no choice but to pay msrp for items.
Dave

[Anonymous]

Spacemouse,

To find more cars from the era you will have to go the "craftsman kit" route. Westerfield, Labelle and Rio Grande Models have some great models that would fit your era. Building them is a major project and might want to be attempted after you have a few other kits under your belt. I can see scratchbuilding becoming part of your repertoire if you stay in this era.

There was an article with in the last year (some one help me out here) in MR about which rolling stock is available for your era.

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dave9999

QUOTE: Originally posted by DSchmitt


Some hobby shops may discount slightly and/or may have a sale not related to Walther's sales.

Maybe so...but most will sell at msrp, that is how they make their $$. The price you see in the Walther's catalog is not what a dealer will pay, so they have a little breathing room. My LHS
will usually cut me some slack on special orders... but I do spend a lot of money (and time)
at their store.

Regardless, sometimes you have no choice but to pay msrp for items.
Dave

Iam fortunate. There are three good sized well stocked train stores within 50 miles of my home.

One full retail with very few sales. The second discounts 10-15% (in some cases more) with few sales, and the third is mostly full retail, but has a sale on a varying, but substantial % of their stock at least 1/2 the time.

All three stores order from Walthers, Horizon, and a number of other suppliers. They carry a different mix of products from each other, however. Because of this and the fact it is 15 min from may home (as opposed to an hour), overall I buy almost as much from the "full retail" store (which stocks more of interest to me) than from the other two stores combined.

[dehusman]

MDC sells 36' boxcars and reefers, plus tank cars (actually they are newer than the 1880's but close enough).
IHC sells older cars.
There are some trains sets on E-bay you see every once in a while called "President's Choice" with a 2-6-0 camelback, they have some nice 1880's era cars in that. Bachmann makes some 1880's era cars.
LaBelle makes craftsman kits.
I have found some cars by Pocher (sic) on e-Bay that are suitable.

You can also buy Grandt Line parts scratchbuild your own cars. Some of the narrow gauge detail parts are about the right size for 1880's standard gauge cars.

Athearn, Accurail, Westerfield and the Walthers line of cars sell NO cars that are suitable for the 1880's.

Dave H.