Pardon the artifice to post in this forum . . .
I want to establish a roster that more or less reflects the actual rolling stock of the time I'm modeling (1961). I'm doing the a PRR branch in about the center of Pennsy territory. I figure that just about anything except citrus fruits would be able to be shipped completely online, so I'm weighting the roster toward the PRR. My question is:
What percentage would you allocate to the home road? Would the percentage differ for a smaller road?
For the remainder, I developed the idea I presented awhile back:
1. Determine what type of cars you need to service your industries and a quantity based on the number of spots.
2. Figure to have some multiple of that quantity. (I chose 3X so that I could have an empty replaced by a load without having the same two cars just shuttle back and forth.)
3. List out which roads have interchange with yours and make up a spreadsheet with how many of each car type these roads had (based on ORER data). (The PRR had almost 90 interchange roads. For a smaller road consider direct interchanges plus the roads that interchange with them.)
4. Sort each car category by quantity and mark the top 25 in each. (For a smaller road use a smaller cut off, perhaps.)
5. Prune off the spreadsheet any road that isn't in the top 25 for in least one category.
6. Use the spreadsheet to calculate how many cars from each road should be on your layout, based upon needing X, Y, Z, etc. number of cars of each type and each road contributing their percentage of the total. I format the spreadsheet to only show whole numbers in the result, so the total will generally be less than the desired number. For example, for 10 FM-class flats (besides PRR) I get that I should have one each NYC, MILW, CB&Q, C&NW, and RI. That leaves five I can pick from any of the 20 remaining roadnames.
Besides giving some prototypic flavor, it keeps me from buying the odd boxcar from some little road on the west coast just because it's available, or from buying another gondola when I really need hoppers.
It may seem like a bit of work, but it was fun setting up.
KL
Good plan! When I began developing my rolling stock roster I did a lot of impulse buying. Now that I am trying to develop a close to prototype operating plan for my layout I find a lot of my rolling stock is out of date (too early or too late) for my 1981 operating period. In addition some rolling stock is appropriate for my time period but probably did not run on the KCS. I have since developed a list of what I have and what I need to get so I know what to look for at the LHS, ebay and train shows.
JIM
Jim, Modeling the Kansas City Southern Lines in HO scale.
Kurt_Laughlin wrote: I want to establish a roster that more or less reflects the actual rolling stock of the time I'm modeling (1961). I'm doing the a PRR branch in about the center of Pennsy territory. I figure that just about anything except citrus fruits would be able to be shipped completely online, so I'm weighting the roster toward the PRR. My question is: What percentage would you allocate to the home road? Would the percentage differ for a smaller road?
Kurt,
This is a topic that's hotly debated among the proto modelers. With the huge increase in high-quality freight cars over the past ten years or so (resin and plastic), we can now accurately model a fair chunk of the national freight car fleet from about 1930 to today. But what cars do we need to buy, and in what quantities? There are a fw schools of thought on this topic:
OK, so this wasn't a whole lot of help, but it does illustrate that you're not alone in asking this sort of question. And you're scheme for figuring out the numbers and names of cars you'll need sounds as good as anyone else's plan I've heard or seen. As for me, I'll stick to buying lots of boxcars and looking at period photos of my chosen mainline for my roster needs (I "need" more B&O wagontops!)
Ray Breyer
Modeling the NKP's Peoria Division, circa 1943
I have a small percentage for the home road, just 6 cars for now out of what?.. 100?
I do buy multipules of different rolling stock because it is not too realistic to have one car in the same dock on a industry day after day unless it is very local.. like a milk tanker for example.
There are many cars that find thier way onto the railroad that were impulse purchases. I havent had too many of those lately.
Finding sufficient quantities of home road (KCS) cars has been a problem for me but things have been improving. I am not skilled at painting and decaling. I have tried buying multiple cars and changing reporting marks.
BXCARMIKE wrote:I believe a railroad shipping to online customers within their own system would use their own cars, it's how they make money, paying per diem rates to another road for your own customers wouldn't make sense.
Not true. Most freight car shipments after WWII were NOT within one system, even one as mighty as the Pennsy. Most loads woule either originate or terminate on a single both, but almost never both (coal is a major exception). So it didn't matter what car went to a shipper, so long as the car fit their requirements. True, you would like to fill a home road car first, but what happens when the nearest yard doesn't have any available? And a moving foreign car is more attractive to a line than a stationary foreign car, especially an empty one. The key is to get a customer the car they need when they need it, something that railroads were better at 50 years ago. So yardmasters were more worried about moving CARS, period, rather than their own cars.
Shipping to another system was another story, I'm not sure when ICC ruled that a road had to ship cars back loaded if their was a load designated for a that cars home territory.
That rule's been in effect for a LONG time. Late 1890s, at least. The problem is that nobody really paid any attention to it. Look at that one LV boxcar Trains followed around in the late 1950s: it spent something like 300 days in a single year offline, and bounced across the country five times! The "spirit" of the rule was "move a foreign car back TOWARDS home." It never had to actually get there.
I would say you should lean to a 1/3 or more of pennsy cars. Since pennsy interchanged with many roads, any other cars will do, but if you model an interchange , you may want a few extra of their cars.
1/3 does sound fair, especially if the line is a branch. But if you're talking about a non-hopper dominated mainline, I'd actually reduce that percentage to about 1/4. But that's just my feel for things.
IRONROOSTER wrote:Since your branchline is in PA, in addition to having more home road cars you should have more cars from eastern roads than from western roads. I don't know the percentages but you would probably have more B&O cars than SP cars, etc.
I figured that, which is why I stuck to direct PRR interchange roads. Consequently I probably won't have any WP, NP, SP, or NdeM cars, but ATSF are possible because the Pennsy had a direct connection with them at Chicago and Morton IL. No B&M or BAR though, either, FWIW.
Granted, it's possible that any interchange car could be seen anywhere, but I'm playing percentages here, to try an keep some bound on things.
orsonroy wrote:I would say you should lean to a 1/3 or more of pennsy cars. Since pennsy interchanged with many roads, any other cars will do, but if you model an interchange , you may want a few extra of their cars.
Thanks Roy, that sounds like a good number. I was originally thinking 60%, then 50%, but looking at most yard pictures there don't appear to be that high of a percentage of home cars in them. What was throwing me was that the PRR was so big, both in area served and in cars, I didn't know if that would really skew things.
This branchline was created in the 1800's as a separate railroad specifically as a connection between the PRR and P&LE, so I'm doubling the P&LE percentages that I would otherwise get.
Thanks,
jamnest wrote: Finding sufficient quantities of home road (KCS) cars has been a problem for me but things have been improving. I am not skilled at painting and decaling. I have tried buying multiple cars and changing reporting marks.
For the PRR, that's not a problem - trust me. The "problem" is that there's a lot of stuff out there with PRR marks that never had a prototype, let alone saw the shops at Altoona. . .
orsonroy wrote: This is a topic that's hotly debated among the proto modelers. With the huge increase in high-quality freight cars over the past ten years or so (resin and plastic), we can now accurately model a fair chunk of the national freight car fleet from about 1930 to today. But what cars do we need to buy, and in what quantities? . . .
This is a topic that's hotly debated among the proto modelers. With the huge increase in high-quality freight cars over the past ten years or so (resin and plastic), we can now accurately model a fair chunk of the national freight car fleet from about 1930 to today. But what cars do we need to buy, and in what quantities?
. . .
Good points Roy.
I've done a lot of research on the configuration of Sherman tanks in WW II. It's surprising how many gaps there are in the info of something made for only three years and in a quantity of less than 50,000. Likewise, it's surprising how much variation there was in something made to a "standard" design. Anyhoo, I learned from that that you have to weigh the data carefully because not all info is of equal value. Any sort of historical reconstruction of engineered items should be published in a "This is a best guess based on available data" binder.
thx,
Kurt_Laughlin wrote:I figured that, which is why I stuck to direct PRR interchange roads. Consequently I probably won't have any WP, NP, SP, or NdeM cars, but ATSF are possible because the Pennsy had a direct connection with them at Chicago and Morton IL. No B&M or BAR though, either, FWIW. Granted, it's possible that any interchange car could be seen anywhere, but I'm playing percentages here, to try an keep some bound on things.
In that case, you DEFINITELY need to have loads of SP cars on your roster. They had the sixth largest car fleet in North America, and had the largest roster of flatcars (2500 more than the Pennsy)
Morton was a hole on a Pennsy Branch (I know; part of that branch is on my layout!) that didn't see all that much traffic. The Pennsy would have seen THOUSANDS of cars coming off the ATSF from their connection in Chicago (via the many belt lines). Roads don't have to physically touch to be heavy traffic partners. On my modeled mainline (NKP between Peoria, IL and Frankfort, IN) the NKP saw a LOT of western road cars, especially from the ATSF and SP. While the NKP and ATSF did physically touch just east of Peoria, that ATSF line isn't where the traffic came from. ATSF cars came to the NKP via the TP&W, which hauled the cars east from their western (Iowa) terminus. We're talking 20,000 cars a year, mostly SFRD produce reefers and SP auto parts (and stock cars, of all things).
And don't forget what railroads hauled out of their home turf. The IC is remembered for flashy passenger trains, but they made their money hauling coal out of Illinois and Kentucky, and by racing meat trains east at 80 miles an hour. The NP and GN hauled the bulk of the nation;s lumber around, so you'll have to include their boxcars on your roster.
What I'm getting at is that figuring out just what cars you should have on your layout is a pretty tricky guessing game. Case in point: you;d see an ATSF car running on the Rutland, but wouldn't likely see the reverse. Seeing Rock Island cars in Pennsylvania and PRR cars in Califirnia is almost assured, since they were both major railroads serving industries that sold all over the nation. Heck, there's even video footage of N&W hoppers heading over Sherman Pass!
Well hold on a minute, Roy. I'm looking at a total roster of about 50 cars, so I won't be having "loads" of anything on my pike. If I allocate 30 to 40% to the PRR, I'm only left with 35 to 30 "foreign" cars. Also, the scheme I'm looking at only covers XM, HM, HT, GB, and FM car classes (although LO could be easily accomodated). I will need three RS/RP, three RSM, and four TM, so I'm really looking to fill out just 25 to 20 slots. I also figure that the hopper classes carrying coal or sand will be local just out of economic reality - it doesn't make sense to spend $3 to ship $1 worth of sand 1000 miles.
If I play percentages to include lots of SP like you suggest, doesn't that ignore geographic considerations?
For specialized cargo, I'll have to do something. Meat will be coming out of the midwest going to either the Armour or Cudahy packing house (both were present, haven't chosen yet). Fruits and vegetables will be from the west and south. Refractory sand would likely come from West Virginia. Coal's got to be coming from the immediate area. Lumber might just as likely come from Maine or Georgia, wouldn't it? Other than that, I'm looking at appliances, manufactured goods, general merchandise, basic steel, finished steel, and steel fabrications, all of which could be expected to be travelling within the PRR (roughly bounded by Chicago - St Louis - Baltimore - NYC) and environs.
What cars you should have on your layout is a pretty tricky guessing game.
Yeah, but fun though.
Thx,
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Kurt_Laughlin wrote: IRONROOSTER wrote:Since your branchline is in PA, in addition to having more home road cars you should have more cars from eastern roads than from western roads. I don't know the percentages but you would probably have more B&O cars than SP cars, etc. I figured that, which is why I stuck to direct PRR interchange roads. Consequently I probably won't have any WP, NP, SP, or NdeM cars, but ATSF are possible because the Pennsy had a direct connection with them at Chicago and Morton IL. No B&M or BAR though, either, FWIW. Granted, it's possible that any interchange car could be seen anywhere, but I'm playing percentages here, to try an keep some bound on things. KL
If you have an on-line destination for California produce, you can bet the branch line that it will arrive in PFE reefers, and that they will have both UP and SP heralds on them. On the opposite hand, with as much coal as Pennsy originated, an N&W or Chessie hopper would be less likely to appear on your line than a special run of the Coast Daylight.
As for BAR - don't the people in your area eat Maine potatoes? Or do they prefer Idahoes (delivered in GN, NP or MILW cars?)
The general idea? Where do your inbound carloads originate, and what railroad served the originating point? That should give you some ideas when shopping for "foreign" cars.
Actually, I don't have the problem under discussion. Since the 1964 JNR was a government monopoly, all cars are home road cars until proven otherwise, and the only "otherwise" are the cars in TTT unit train service.
Chuck
Kurt, number three in your plan overlooks the idea that traffic doesn't just come from the roads you connect with, but from all over the country in cars owned by roads to which you have no connection.
You need to take into account the type of traffic and the origin or termination points of that traffic. If it is fruit or produce coming off the SP, it should be in SP reefers, generally speaking. Soda ash coming off the Great Northern, it should be in GN covered hoppers or possibly privately owned cars (You would have to research that one.).
Also, railroads make deals on certain moves. The originating and terminating carriers will agree to supply a certain number of cars for the traffic. The bigger moves had pools of cars assigned and some were stencilled to that effect (Assigned pool service out of..., or Return to a certain yard for loading, etc.).
Your scheme also overlooks all those leased and privately owned cars, even back in 1961. Okay, there weren't many lease-fleet cars back then, but there were still privately owned cars.
For smaller roads this rule still would apply. Depending upon the time period, you might not have many shortline owned cars on a shortline or smaller railroad. Even today, of the 100's of shortlines out there, not many own cars. And not many who do own cars, own large quantities. Freight cars represent a huge investment (The average basic covered hopper/box car is in the $65k+ range today.) and most shortlines don't have the kind of capital it takes to buy a lot of cars. And per diem (Paid by the hour now.) and mileage doesn't offset the cost of a car, especially as it gets older and needs increasing amounts of maintenance.
But that is a little off topic.
My point is there are more variables than you have built in now. If you use just the ones you have now, you will be artificially limiting the types of cars on your railroad.
Kurt_Laughlin wrote:Well hold on a minute, Roy. I'm looking at a total roster of about 50 cars, so I won't be having "loads" of anything on my pike. If I allocate 30 to 40% to the PRR, I'm only left with 35 to 30 "foreign" cars. Also, the scheme I'm looking at only covers XM, HM, HT, GB, and FM car classes (although LO could be easily accomodated). I will need three RS/RP, three RSM, and four TM, so I'm really looking to fill out just 25 to 20 slots. I also figure that the hopper classes carrying coal or sand will be local just out of economic reality - it doesn't make sense to spend $3 to ship $1 worth of sand 1000 miles.
Three produce reefers: one each PFE, SFRD and MDT (the forgotten giant)
Three meat reefers, all for the same shipper. I'd go with Cudahy, since they had a more interesting fleet. Go with two of the Intermountain 40' steel cars and one Red Caboose 36' wood.
Four flats: two Pennsy, one SP, one "other". The "other" should "probably" be eastern, from the NYC or B&O (the next largest flat fleets out east)....UNLESS you want it to haul heavy machinery. If Caterpillar bulldozers, then the car should be NKP (their preferred shipper); if IH then Milwayukee (likewise).
Yes, but "house" cars also ignored geography. And if you play straight percentages, then you'll end up with several B&O, C&O, Southern and SP boxcars, and none from roads like the Rutland, KCS, and SAL.
For specialized cargo, I'll have to do something. Meat will be coming out of the midwest going to either the Armour or Cudahy packing house (both were present, haven't chosen yet). Fruits and vegetables will be from the west and south. Refractory sand would likely come from West Virginia. Coal's got to be coming from the immediate area.
All of the above sounds reasonable, with the exception of the coal. Believe it or not, the per diem was so good on hoppers that they would travel around randomly, looking for a buyer. So technically, your coal could be coming from anywhere east of the Big Muddy. If it's industrial grade, it's likely hard antharacite, which means L&NE or LV origins.
Lumber might just as likely come from Maine or Georgia, wouldn't it?
Maine, no. Georgia yes, but soft Southern yellow Pine wasn's as desirable a building medium as it would become in the 1970s. In 1961, houses were still framed out in Pac NW pines. Likewise, most of the nation's plywood, trim molding wood, and hardwood floors still came out of the PNW.
Other than that, I'm looking at appliances, manufactured goods, general merchandise, basic steel, finished steel, and steel fabrications, all of which could be expected to be travelling within the PRR (roughly bounded by Chicago - St Louis - Baltimore - NYC) and environs.
It's reasonable that about 25% of your boxcars, 90% of your hoppers, and 100% of your gons would be Pennsy. That should cover all of your mineral and dimensional steel shipping, and give the Pennsy a big enough slice of the finished goods, while retaining at least SOME flavor of the rest of the nation.
And don't forget to weather the snot out of your older Pennsy stuff. The circle Keystone was still around until the late 1960s, but you could hardly tell under all the grime!
BXCARMIKE wrote:Ray, what about an FGE reefer,they were abig shipper on the east coast? Also BAR(potatoes) could fit in.
FGE were oranges from Florida.
The PRR did have rail lines in Maryland and probably took a few of these from time to time.
Yeah, but who can use up a whole 40' boxcar full of spuds?!? (besides a canning plant of major grocery warehouse/distributor, both generally overlooked as great sources of traffic.
As for the FGE question: yes, FGE did handle a lot of traffic out east. Byt so did PFE and SFRD. The thing to remember is that cars can go ANYWHERE, and with large fleets of cars (FGE was the #3 fleet of reefers), chances are good that they'd pop up anywhere.
Safety Valve wrote:FGE were oranges from Florida.
And raspberries from Michigan, and blueberries from Indiana, and asparagus from Missouri...FGE, like SFRD, PFE, MDT, ART, and a few others, was a car leasing company. Their fleets followed the crops, much like day-laborers.
Probably, but keep in mond that different rail lines and leasing firms had personal relationships with each other, that meant sometimes less than logical routings. A good case in point was the fact that PFE HATED the Pennsy, and used the Erie instead. The routing was longer distancewise, but the cars would show up in New York City about 24 hours faster. Why? Better customer service on the Erie, which also handled the PFE cars more gently. I wondered about the high numbers of SFRD reefers on my NKP line, when the cars should have logically been routed thorugh Chicago (instead of Peoria and bumf.... Indiana). Then I started looking at transit times on various lines, and realized that a routing through Chicago would have added DAYS to the car's routing, even if it was 300 miles shorter and involved fewer interchange handoffs. So maybe no so illogical after all...
UGH! I had a really long reply 90% typed up and lost it by a single misplaced mouse click. I don't have the heart or energy to start it over, but here's some comments anyway.
orsonroy wrote: And if you play straight percentages, then you'll end up with several B&O, C&O, Southern and SP boxcars, and none from roads like the Rutland, KCS, and SAL.
And if you play straight percentages, then you'll end up with several B&O, C&O, Southern and SP boxcars, and none from roads like the Rutland, KCS, and SAL.
Well, yeah. Remember, I'm looking at something like a TOTAL of 20 to 25 XMs. If I make 30% to of them PRR (which is reasonable, I think, plus lets me model more Pennsy equipment then your recommended 25%) I'm looking at filling up 14 to 18 slots. I might NOT have any Rutland cars in that case.
I guess maybe I could use suggestions like you made for altering the percentage of PRR cars for different types. Or should I change my spreadsheet to cover all roads (not just PRR interchanges) with a certain number of cars or maybe even all roads regardless of their car quantity?
Believe it or not, the per diem was so good on hoppers that they would travel around randomly, looking for a buyer. So technically, your coal could be coming from anywhere east of the Big Muddy. If it's industrial grade, it's likely hard antharacite, which means L&NE or LV origins.
That's something I'll consider. I was looking at 70 ton HTs but for the small coal dealer I'm thinking about 55 ton HMs would be more sensible, I think.
Lumber might just as likely come from Maine or Georgia, wouldn't it? Maine, no. Georgia yes, but soft Southern yellow Pine wasn's as desirable a building medium as it would become in the 1970s. In 1961, houses were still framed out in Pac NW pines. Likewise, most of the nation's plywood, trim molding wood, and hardwood floors still came out of the PNW.
OK, some WP/GN/NP XMs seem reasonable.
Other than that, I'm looking at appliances, manufactured goods, general merchandise, basic steel, finished steel, and steel fabrications, all of which could be expected to be travelling within the PRR (roughly bounded by Chicago - St Louis - Baltimore - NYC) and environs. It's reasonable that about 25% of your boxcars, 90% of your hoppers, and 100% of your gons would be Pennsy. That should cover all of your mineral and dimensional steel shipping, and give the Pennsy a big enough slice of the finished goods, while retaining at least SOME flavor of the rest of the nation.
That's good info, and makes sense to me.
These forums are great for sounding out ideas, even if they do lose messages on ya.