Percent of cars

[Anonymous]

What would be a good percent of cars to have in a fleet? IE box versa tank veras cover hoppers and so on With a line that has no main factories Say out of a hundred cars. What about engines?

[Dboy58]

I would look at what industries are on your line. Also, what is your layout modeled after? Farm country, rocky mountains, sea coast? Even if you have no factories, Look at the area and go from there. If your layout is modeled after Iowa, that is a heavy farming influence and your cars should reflect that. Consider adding one or two industries to your layout and add cars that would serve those industries.

[Anonymous]

Bruce Chub covered this in his book 'How to Operate Your Model Railroad'. As a guide, use the following:
34% Boxcars
22% Hoppers
10% Covered Hoppers
10% Gondolas
8% Tank Cars
8% Flat Cars
6% Refer Cars
2% Stock Cars

These a 1970s figures. I would add a number of intermodal cars, take out the stock cars and then adjust for the 'Flavor' of your locality.

In addition, you should have about 50% of the cars on your road, 25% from major connecting roads, 15% from secondary connecting roads and another 10% from miscellaneous roads and private owners.

Your engines should be almost all from your road unless you come up with a good excuse for borrowing power like having a major engine rebuild facility on your road.

Good Luck - Ed

[Anonymous]

I run autoracks boxes tanks hoppers open tops covereds intermodels centerbeams bulkheads stacks anything from 1990 to 2002.If they come out with it I get all 3 numbers.Have 3 industries operate like a bridge route mostly.I do locomotives also.

[BRAKIE]

J.J.,Of the 244 cars I owned,here is the way I have them broke down for my Chessie System.Frist let me say I model the C&O/Chessie(c&o).Thay said here goes.Boxcars,150.They are broken down this way.C&O(22)Chessie(C&O)(15),B&O(7) Chessie(B&O)(5)Chessie(WM)(1)total 50.Misc railroads (40)Railbox(10)Misc Short line per diem cars(50) total boxcars 150.Hopper cars.40,mixed C&O Chessie/C&O,Chessie/B&O/B&O and WM.The remaining 54 cars is covered hoppers,gons,flats,tank cars.You may woder why I have so many boxcars.This is because I like boxcars more then any other type of car.

[Anonymous]

JJ,

First thing you ought to keep in mind is what
you want your layout to look like. What you
model should tell you what sort of cars to get.
While you can always rely on nice mixed freights
as a way to get just about any kind of car on
your road, the real treat is when you can put
together even a "scaled-down" version of a
particular unit train, be it something as
common as a long coal train or grain train,
as unusual as a tra***rain or a nuke-waste
train, or as unique as the Tropicana Juice
Train.

The rule of thumb I follow is that, if you look
long and hard enough, you'll find a prototype
for any model you create for your layout.

Have fun!

[GerFust]

Sounds like good advice to me. If you don't have any idustries on your layout look at reality. Where I live in Michigan, the CN and CSX lines cross. We see mostly the following:

Autocarriers
Covered hoppers
Double-stack containers
Tank cars
Box cars (mostly auto parts?)
occasionally a train of coal cars.

There are a few things I don't see. Flat cars and gondolas, in particular. I also never see a train that is very mixed. Sitting at the crossings it hopper after hopper. Or auto rack after autorack. Or tank car after tank car. Or box car after box car. You may see large groups of any three on the same train. Reality, around here, never looks like the typical train set, with gondolas, cattle cars, boxcars, hoppers, etc all mixed together.

[tankertoad70]

I am trying to recall what one of my books says about the GN. The vast majority of their cars were boxcars, probably in excess of 60%. The good ol' forty footers were used extensively for lumber and grain haulage, two of GN's primary products.