This should fit here. I have a bunch of reefers and boxcars like this one
http://www.discounttrainsonline.com/Bachmann-Reefer-50-Steel-Santa-Fe/item160-70952.html
I am going to model 2007 instead of 1979 now. To use them, I have concocted a plan. The railroad, wanting some frieght cars, bought these cars at $1000 above scrap price. They had truck re-builds five years earlier, but still had the roof walks. A blow torch and welder took care of that. Think this is stretching plausibility? I am not above freelancing out the FRA. My whole RR is freelanced, so it wouldn't matter. Your thoughts, please. Thanks!
Sawyer Berry
Clemson University c/o 2018
Building a protolanced industrial park layout
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
It's not whether or not I think you are stretching plausibility. It's what you think. Is the story you concocted to justify the cars that don't fit going to nag at you, or is it going to satisfy?
I've had to relocate and remap my fictional prototype because the track plans I wanted to use just wouldn't match the real topography. And I have had to redraw the layout plan because the towns got out of logical order. The excuses just wouldn't satisfy me. But that's me.... I have been told....
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
the UP rebuilt the UPFE cars like that into ARMN reefers with new cooling plants.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
With the lousy paint jobs and clunky details on those Botchmann cars, your best bet would be to let the scrapper have them.
Atlas Trainman offers a pretty good mechanical reefer, it's a warmed over old shell, but their paint is top notch, they've improved on the roof walks and trucks, and they come equipped with knuckle couplers. All at a pretty modest price point.
I have some of the Bachmann cars in PFE, and I did what you're planning to do, pulled the roof walks, touched em up. They fill out the fleet, but I hide them whenever someone brings a camera over...
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
I dont worry about that. I keep three sets of motive power on hand. One for pre1940; one post war and one for modern after 1965 or so. It will be a very long time before I run SD70MACs though.
Carefully replacing the trucks, cars and moving objects on the railroad replicates the era more or less. That old pete tanker truck for instance or a Boley Modern tanker at the oil depot?
Once in a while a truss rod sneaks into the modern train or vice versa. I wouldnt worry too much.
Run what you like. Dont worry about us.
But the bachmanns are overpriced and rough around the edges. I have taken to buying ALOT of athearn RTR's because they are sooo noice... cannot help myself.
I've always found that the very best thing about my model RR is that it's MY world. If it works for me, it works.
Until other people want to buy you freight cars, or pay your bills, do what you want in your MRR world. God knows you won't get that chance too often in the real world!
Haha my entire layout plan stretches palusibility: First and foremost, the entire setting is freelanced to do what I wanted in a layout, there is a major metropolis on a string of islands where Lake Ontario meets the St. Lawrence River. Second there's a string of mountains running along the north shore of Lake Ontario as well (offshoot of the Laurentians). Sure this isn't at all how the topography or population looks in reality but it's my layout. I knew I wanted a freelanced major port city, a coastal mountain range, a great lake and I wanted it in Canada, so I made it up.
As for the rolling stock, well, Canadian Pacific's business train is pulled by a Trainmaster, not F-units. The commuter line uses C-Liners (a-la Long Island Railroad) and British Electric Class 08s work the docks, since GE44 Tonners weren't up to the job.
Long story short, my line is built on enough "what-ifs" to make a pentagon strategy planner explode. I've made up stories that sound plausible (at least to me) for each of them because I wanted to, but in the end, it's just that each layout is a world created from the mind of it's designer, so do what you will and enjoy every miniute of it, no matter how implausible.
Cheers Mates!
~METRO
You want to stretch plausibility by running some improbable (but distinctly possible) cars.
I stretch plausibility by mining coal in an area that never had an active coal mine, then shipping it in cars unlike anything ever seen anywhere, behind a couple of locomotives which never smoked up a Japanese right-of-way.
If the mundanes take exception to what you are doing, tell them you're modeling the Ballox O'Malley universe because the Neil Armstrong universe is too - mundane. If the exceptions persist, there's always the door.
Always obey the golden rule. He who spends the gold, makes the rules.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - sort of)
philnrunt wrote: I've always found that the very best thing about my model RR is that it's MY world. If it works for me, it works. Until other people want to buy you freight cars, or pay your bills, do what you want in your MRR world. God knows you won't get that chance too often in the real world!
That has got to be one of the best posts I've ever seen here!
Thank you, sir!
Rotor
Jake: How often does the train go by? Elwood: So often you won't even notice ...
I clicked on the photo link, expecting to see ice hatches at the top. To me, that's about the only thing that would disqualify the cars completely from modern-era operations. So, if it matters any, you have my approval for your plan on the signature sheet. (I work at a big company where we have to pass around signature sheets for managers to approve things. Slows progress to a crawl.)
I personally would never buy a reefer without ice hatches, but that's my era, and my railroad.
Incidentally, in my world, the government never banned billboard advertising on reefers. Not only is it my railroad, it's also my government.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
It's your layout. You can run whatever you like as long as YOU'RE happy. The purists and rivet counters may look down their noses at you but screw 'em.
Go for it!
-G-
I am reminded that someone who volunteered there told me that the Burlington Northern once borrowed a Swift Reefer from the Illinois Railroad museum because they needed every possible car for the fall grain rush. The reefer was in good running order when it was donated. I think this was back in the early 1980s when there were still branch lines that shipped grain by boxcar rather than covered hopper due to axle loading issues with the track.
Back in the 1970s some older Milwaukee Road reefers would be leased or sold to industries that had a spur and needed storage space. Two such reefers were at the factory that made Excaliber replica antique cars in West Allis. The cars were parked at loading docks and used for parts storage.
I once saw a de-trucked mechanical reefer near an industrial plant of some sort and quite possibly it was being used as a stationary refrigeration plant for storage.
And for years, up until just a couple of years ago, a classic old ice bunker reefer with one end removed was parked at the site of the former Edelstein station in Illinois -- just west of the famous railfan location Edelstein Hill.
Dave Nelson
Since you asked...
Plausibility is one of my soap box issues.
The question that others have posed is important. Are you trying to convince yourself, or are you trying to convince other people?
Generally, the more you have to explain to a visitor with a backstory, the less plausible it is. In other words, the most plausible layout speaks for itself (at least to a savvy train buff).
I remember the gist of something Tony Koester said (and this is a paraphrase): "The key to plausibility is in modeling the mundane, not the unusual." If find this a much more useful mantra in realistic modeling than the other, equally-true saw that "there's a prototype for everything."
It's quite true that it's your layout, and in the end the critical thing is that you're satisfied. Of secondary concern is if other people will find it credible. But again, if that is a concern, remember that the farther you distance yourself from reality, fewer and fewer people will find your layout credible.
All that said, the specifics of what you're doing don't seem so far-fetched as to be implausible. Something you could do to emphasize the "recycled" nature of the cars is to heavily weather them all and add fresh paint patches with your road's reporting marks. I think if you do that, you won't need a backstory, and it is quite plausible.
Since I still occasionally see cars with original Penn Central paint rolling through my town I can imagine ex-AT&SF cars still rolling with faded AT&SF logos but new reporting marks.
As long as you don't paint 'em pink and yellow with flowers and puppies, you should be fine!
Good luck!
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
Frankly I would not do that in a thousand years because my prototype knowledge and modeling style would never permit me..I also know freelancing is not a license to do as I will.
That's me.
For you..Happy is the modeler that allows what he will.
In other words if you like what I call "free style modeling" then by all means do whatever pleases you.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I don't see anything wrong with your plan, but then I'm not an "expert".
I do know that railroads will do some unusual things to get the job done. As an example, the Alaska RR bought up a bunch of old WWII troop cars and converted them to boxcars when they needed a bunch of boxcars.
They also did things like use war surplus variable gauge locos for motive power and had special cowls built for RSD-1s.
-George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
You know what also works? If it looks right, and you don't know better, run it! I used to have no problem running a 1940s era UP covered hop. in cement service, until I learned about the different trucks and realized the friction-bearing trucks on it would never be allowed nowadays.
I still run it, BTW. I saw a photo of a car with friction-bearing sideframes, but with the modern wheelsets. I might modify the side frames and patch the car for my home road or a leasing company, but for now I can live with it.
Same goes for an ex-MSL 40' box, heavily weathered and patched for my home road.
THANKS EVERYONE!
Another thing I've noticed in model railroading, the better the story or more natural it looks the less likely someone is to question it.
Now I'm not saying you can get away with running a GEvo in 1890 or anything like that, but for smaller things, it's a good general rule. I've got two British Electric Class 08s that are going to be used for dock switchers. I'd actually argue that it's less likely to have GE 44 Tonners (which would generally be doing the job in the USA). British Rail considdered for a long time making an export version of the Class 08 "Gronk" shunter, particularly with the aim of selling the engine to Canada and Australia. However eventually it was realized that there really wasn't a niche for these engines in those markets. In my layout's world, the dock assignment is perfect for the Class 08 (it's very like the Boston street running NH did with 44 Tonners) As such BR found a market for the sale of their engine overseas, and jumped on it. So that's how Gronks got to Canada.
Cheers!