Some 1930s-era freight cars for Sweethome Chicago

[jon grant]

I've been busy building or modifying some more freight cars appropriate for the 1930s-era version of Sweethome Chicago. All have been fitted with metal wheels, kadees set at the right height, and lead weight - the basic standard for the layout inspector.

Tichy rebuilt 55 ton hopper, a very enjoyable kit, although I don't know what decals I have to suit it

Westerfield DS USRA boxcar resin kit - will be Wabash

 

Dennis Storzak resin kit of a NKP auto car

 

An Accurail SS boxcar with 50t Dalman trucks

 

Weathering and decals will be undertaken soon

Jon

[jon grant]

A few more

Accurail 8-panel SS boxcar without fishbelly frame

 

Accurail 8-panel boxcar (needs fishbelly removing)

 

Walthers boxcars with door runner modifications

Jon

[garya]

A few more

Accurail 8-panel SS boxcar without fishbelly frame

 

Accurail 8-panel boxcar (needs fishbelly removing)

 

Jon--

I'm curious; with what do you replace the fishbelly frame?  Is the fishbelly inaccurate for that car?

[tstage]

Thanks for posting, Jon!  I just love the look of those Accurail 6- & 8-panel wood boxcars.

BTW: Jon, do you ever detail/have you ever detailed the underside brake systems of the Accurail boxcars at all?  Probably not worth it but thought it might be fun anyhow.

Tom

[Cox 47]

That 55 ton hopper would look might fine in Wabash decals!....Cox 47

[jon grant]

BTW: Jon, do you ever detail/have you ever detailed the underside brake systems of the Accurail boxcars at all?  Probably not worth it but thought it might be fun anyhow.

Tom 

Two of the Accurails in the photos have had the treatment. I'll get you a photo of the undersides.

 

I got a Westerfield SU boxcar kit ready for the paintshops last night.

Close up of truss rods

 

Close up of brake end

 

Jon

[orsonroy]

I'm curious; with what do you replace the fishbelly frame?  Is the fishbelly inaccurate for that car?

Hi Gary,

(I'm not Jon, so the modeling techniques below might not be the same as his! Bear with me though...)

The fishbelly underframe is inaccurate for most single sheathed boxcars. In boxcar design back then, you essentially had two types of cars: those with a body sitting on the underframe that didn't help support the overall strength of the car, and those that did. Think of the underframe as a bridge: those that didn't use the body for some support are like deck girder bridges, with the body acting as a simple box just perched on top of the frame (which does all of the support work), while the other type of cars are like truss bridges, with the body tied into the frame to actually support it.

In general, double sheathed boxcars are like the girder bridges, so all the support was in the frame. Those cars generally had beefier frames, which is where the first fishbellies came into use. Single sheathed cars are the truss bridges, with the metal side bracing acting as the main structural support for the "bridge". So USRA double sheathed boxcars had the fishbelly underframe while the USRA single sheathed cars did not. When the USRA boxcars were being designed there wasn't an industry consensus on which was better, so both were built. There were some single sheathed boxcars built before and after the USRA that did include a fishbelly underframe, but it was soon discovered that it was unnecessary overkill (and unprofitable added weight). By the time of the 1923 ARA single sheathed boxcar design, basically no single sheathed cars were being built with fishbelly underframes.

None of the Accurail single sheathed boxcars represent a USRA design. The eight panel cars (a "panel" being each space between the vertical posts, minus the door opening) are actually a CP car, while the six panel cars are an IC design (and useful for MANY, MANY cars built in the 1920s; far more than both USRA car designs put together!). Almost none of the road names that Accurail letters any of these cars for needs a fishbelly underframe (except, ironically, those IC cars). Accurail designed their DS and SS cars to use the same underframe, which is why they're included.

Thankfully, it's REALLY simple to fix the fishbelly frame, The two underframe fishbelly sills are seperate parts. Just replace them with scale 2x8 or 2x10 styrene strip (capped with a 1x3 or 1x4 flange if you so desire; I don't bother). Here's a similar conversion I did to an old Roundhouse car:

Once you've fixed the underframe, it looks pretty bare down there (especially with eye level layouts like mine!) so I usually add simplified brake rigging. It really helps the model:

Hope this helps! I recently upgraded the details on 20 Accurail boxcars, so I've got a LOT of experience with this conversion (ten of my cars got straight sills, while one got smaller steel sills with trussrods, a construction technique common before the USRA, but one that's almost never modeled!)

[Ibflattop]

That 55 ton hopper would look might fine in Wabash decals!....Cox 47

Jon

Not to step on Coxs' toes, but I think that you should put the hopper into the NKP sublettered for the LE&W. But maybe the NKP didnt have these types of hoppers! 

                                                                                      Kevin

 Modeling the NKP and Wabash

[orsonroy]

That 55 ton hopper would look might fine in Wabash decals!....Cox 47

Jon

Not to step on Coxs' toes, but I think that you should put the hopper into the NKP sublettered for the LE&W. But maybe the NKP didnt have these types of hoppers! 

                                                                                      Kevin

 Modeling the NKP and Wabash

Actually, they did! I forget the number series right now, but they had almost a thousand of them. Funny thing too; Jon's about to get some NKP decals in the mail...

[garya]

I'm curious; with what do you replace the fishbelly frame?  Is the fishbelly inaccurate for that car?

Hi Gary,

(I'm not Jon, so the modeling techniques below might not be the same as his! Bear with me though...)

Thankfully, it's REALLY simple to fix the fishbelly frame, The two underframe fishbelly sills are seperate parts. Just replace them with scale 2x8 or 2x10 styrene strip (capped with a 1x3 or 1x4 flange if you so desire; I don't bother). Here's a similar conversion I did to an old Roundhouse car:

Once you've fixed the underframe, it looks pretty bare down there (especially with eye level layouts like mine!) so I usually add simplified brake rigging. It really helps the model:

Hope this helps! I recently upgraded the details on 20 Accurail boxcars, so I've got a LOT of experience with this conversion (ten of my cars got straight sills, while one got smaller steel sills with trussrods, a construction technique common before the USRA, but one that's almost never modeled!)

Ray--

Thanks for the excellent reply. I appreciate your well-written and informative explanation of these cars and how to modify these models.

I did have a reason for asking, as I have recently started purchasing many Accurail cars, especially some of the single-sheathed boxcars. I find them affordable, reasonably well-painted and detailed, and easy to build. I spend some time prowling around http://www.steamfreightcars.com/index.html, and I found that the majority of the Frisco's boxcar fleet well into the transition era was a Howe truss single sheathed car: http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/boxauto/slsf162854main.html. The Accurail model, though looks like this: http://www.accurail.com/accurail/art/7100/7108.jpg, so it seems I need to replace the fishbellies (and maybe add brake gear).


Oddly enough, the Frisco also had some single sheathed cars with fishbelly frames, which were rebuilt as steel sheathed cars, retaining the fishbelly--a truly odd looking car: http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/boxauto/slsf145910main.html (I think I'll leave mine as wood sheathed cars).

Thanks for the help! For those of us on a budget, Accurail is a good compromise, but I wouldn't mind getting my cars closer to the prototype.

[jon grant]

Here's my version of the Accurail underframe without the fishbelly.

 

Thanks for the comprehensive answer, Ray, and the offer of the decals. They will come in most useful.

Sod's Law said that I started to convert the Accurail boxcars on the very last one to build, so I will have to retrofit the others. D'oh!

Jon  

 

[orsonroy]

Jon: my underframes look almost exactly like yours! I'll see if I can free up some space on my Trainboard gallery and add a couple of shots. I think you'll be interested in my trussrod conversion.

Gary: I fully agree about Accurail. Frankly, they're my favorite kit manufacturer, because they combine decent looking simple kits with affordability. It doesn't take a whole lot to superdetail them, and their paint jobs are first rate! Between Accurail's wood cars and Branchline's Yardmasters, I've got a good looking and affordable fleet assembled and running while I slowly slog through building all of my resin car kits!

[JWhite]

So are you guys telling me that the fishbelly underfame of the F&C IC single sheathed boxcar I'm building is wrong?  I guess the rest of my SS boxcars will be modified acurails...

 

Jeff 

[orsonroy]

So are you guys telling me that the fishbelly underfame of the F&C IC single sheathed boxcar I'm building is wrong?  I guess the rest of my SS boxcars will be modified acurails...

Jeff 

NO! On both the F&C and Accurail IC single sheathed cars, the fishbelly underframes are correct. The IC was an early adopter of large numbers of SS cars, so their designs were from the time when railroad engineers weren't sure if they were necessary or not.

Conversely, no Milwaukee Road SS boxcar should have the fishbelly underframe. They didn't convert to SS boxcars until after they took delivery of 1000 USRA SS cars, and found out how useful they were (the Accurail six panel SS car with steel ends and doors, is almost completely correct for thousands of Milwaukee cars, IF you remove the fishbelly!)

[garya]

Conversely, no Milwaukee Road SS boxcar should have the fishbelly underframe. They didn't convert to SS boxcars until after they took delivery of 1000 USRA SS cars, and found out how useful they were (the Accurail six panel SS car with steel ends and doors, is almost completely correct for thousands of Milwaukee cars, IF you remove the fishbelly!)

Add another car to the list to convert...off to the hobby shop while my wife watches my daughter (luckily, it's near the grocery store). Jon and Ray--what kinds of parts did you use for the brake gear?

I have some of the Branchline Yardmasters, too, and I like them--the AAR car is a good one.

[doctorwayne]

Nice work on those cars, Jon.  I agree that the Accurail cars are a great way to economically add to your freight car fleet, and you can easily upgrade the detail on them, if you wish.  While I usually leave the fishbelly underframes in place, I do add the basic brake gear, and replace the sill steps and most grabirons with metal parts.  Here's the 9-panel car as a door-and-a-half car, using the conversion kit from New England Rail Service:

 

 

The second car shown above is Accurail's more accurate version of the Walthers (formerly Train Miniature) USRA double sheathed car seen in the second picture below.

jon grant

Walthers boxcars with door runner modifications

Jon

Before the Accurail car was available, I rebuilt a number of the Train Miniature double sheathed cars to more accurately depict one of my favourite prototype's version of this car, acquired in 1940 from the NYC:

 

 

I scribed the original sidesills to match the existing board pattern, then added new sidesills built from strip styrene.  The ends and doors are from Tichy. 

The Train Miniature cars shown in Jon's 1st and 3rd pictures, above, are also a good starting point for '30s-era cars.  On the one shown below, I added strip styrene to better simulate the prototypes "Z" bracing, then replaced the ends with parts from Tichy.  The doors are reworked Athearn parts.

 

The Train Miniature/Walthers steel cars are also good candidates for kitbashing or detailing:

 

 

And you can backdate Athearn wood reefers by replacing the steel ends with scratchbuilt wooden ones, either with the original roof or a scratchbuilt "metal clad" one:

 

You can also backdate Athearn boxcars by lowering the roofline.  I removed 6" from the top of the carside, then re-installed the original roof.  Some Tichy ends, plus a few parts will give you a slightly different looking car from the original, although the paint scheme on mine is too modern for the '30s.

 

Finally, here's another lettering choice for your panel-side rebuilt USRA hopper:

 

Wayne 

 

[jon grant]

Excellent work Wayne.

It gives me plenty of food for thought about possible conversions, although I'm a bit strapped for time right now. I have a show in a couple of months and need suddicient freight cars for the whole layout to run in 1930s era (about 130 needed)

Jon

[jon grant]

Another Westerfield reaches undercoat stage. This time it's a UP 50' automobile car (the 1930 peaked-roof modernisation).

This kit was a bit more difficult than most as the side castings were slightly banana-shaped (one rose slightly to the right and the other dropped down).

Still I'm happy with the result.

 

I also got the undercoat on the SU boxcar

Jon

 

[jon grant]

I knocked up a video tonight, showing a train of Accurail SS boxcars. It's sort of 1930s-ish, apart from the 1950 Bewick- D'oh!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-BmCAl5vp0

Still, it's starting to get there 

Jon