Good Web sites to research time periods of Loco's and Rolling Stock??

[rexhea]

I am looking for web sites to help me know the manufactured and operating dates of prototype Loco's and Rolling stock. Is there a site that covers all?

Being new to the forum and less than a year in MR, I am having a heck of a time trying to find out which loco's and rolling stock to use. I am trying to stay in the 50's and early 60's, but have already screwed up and bought some boxcars that I later found out were made in the 70's.

Certainly would appreciate any and all suggestions.

REX[%-)]

[Paul3]

A good place for diesels is the Diesel Chronology website:

http://www.urbaneagle.com/data/RRdieselchrono.html

For comprehensive lists of rolling stock, keep your eyes open for things called "ORER" or "Official Railroad Equipment Register", which is/was a yearly publication showing the rolling stock of each railroad. Get one in the era you are interested in, and that will help quite a bit.

I model the New Haven pre-1969, and the first thing I look for on rolling stock is the presence of the white-on-black data block on a freight car. All cars, starting in the 1970's, have had this applied to them, so anything that has the data clock is not in my era.

Also, AEI (Automatic Equipment Identification) tags are a dead giveaway that this is "modern" equipment that is beyond 1968.

Finally, look for roofwalks. If it is present, it's probably ok. If they don't, then it is a modern car post-1969.

Paul A. Cutler III
*****************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*****************

[johncolley]

I have the same problem, modeling 1947-48 GN. So I need to cull out a lot of later dated rolling stock and be more cautious what I buy. Another gripe I have is cars that never were! Going thru my roster I found I have an undated 40' Evergreen boxcar....they never had any 40 footers! I don't use any 50 footers for the illusion that a train of all 36'-40'ers appears to be longer than one mixed or all 50's simply because there are more cars.

[Morpar]

Paul3,
Thanks for the posting of the website. This information will help me greatly in my determining the locomotives my road has rostered and when. I hope others can find it as useful. Now if just had time to work on my locos again....

[orsonroy]

The best single resource for freight car information, either on or off the 'web, is the NEB&W freight car database:

http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/

It's a pay site (a whopping and bank-breaking $5 a month), but is the single most informative site on the history and development of the freight car anywhere. It's not all-inclusive, since it's a living document being worked on by essentially one man, and it's biased towards the 1900-1960 period and Eastern railroads, but the information the site contains is invaluable. The site includes photos, diagrams, a fantastic bibliography, and a listing of almost every single HO scale freight car model ever produced, and what it's a prototype of (if anything).

If you model any time period before 1976, and care at all about the prototype accuracy of your model railroad, this site is a must-read.

[egmurphy]

I know you asked about websites, but thought I'd throw in one suggestion on a book. Since I'm one of those steam fans who can't tell one diseasel from another, I rely on books like "Diesel Locomotives: The First 50 Years - A guide to diesels built before 1972" by Louis Marre, published by Kalmbach. Excellent reference book.

Regards

Ed

[coalminer3]

Amen on the NEB&W site. The C&O Historical Society has an extensive photograph collection; a fair amount of it is digitized and can be serached/viewed on their website. ALso don't forget the old Train Shed Cyclopedias. I don't know if they are in operation still, but the books in the series are not that hard to find. X2200 South is an excellent source for diesel locomotive information. Railroad History, published by the R&LHS often runs rosters with pictures. Morning Sun books are pricy, but have good color shots with thorough captions; they have a website. I'll also put in a plug for material produced by TLC Publishing. They are often behind schedule, which is understandable given the nature of rr book publishing, but teir books are, in general, well worth the wait as they have good quality photo reproduction. They have a website, too.

Hope this helps.

work safe

[joseph2]

If a car has a good paint job it will have the builders date on it.Very small print though.

[Anonymous]

I have found most of the historical societys have the data needed to
tell you about cars ect of a set railroad or era.I started to take photo,s in the
seventys and found thirty six ft reffers(that were ice filled) of various roads
still in service.we phograped engines in the original CP paint as cars from
raillines even then history.if you desire to be precise you have to watch as
learn.

May God protect and bless us.

David

[orsonroy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by joseph2

If a car has a good paint job it will have the builders date on it.Very small print though.

True, but you can't rely on a model's paint job and build date to determine if a car is correct for any era you're trying to model.

A 1937 AAR boxcar could have been built in 1940 and retired in 1980, undergoing one minor rebuild and three repaints during it's lifetime. All variations of this car will have a build date of 1940. You have to dig a bit deeper to figure out if the paint scheme is from 1940, or 1950, or 1958. That's where the real proto research comes into play.

Research will also tell you if the correct paint scheme is really on the right car. With the wealth of models we have today, it's pretty easy to assemble a correct fleet of cars for just about any time period after 1900, and really easy for any date after 1945. But manufacturers have a nasty tendency to add correct paint schemes to incorrect cars. Athearn is especially guilty of adding real paint schemes to any old car they feel like. Doing a bit of light reading, either online or hardcopy, can keep a proto-inclined modeler from making costly purchases when other, more correct options are available.