I am starting my thinking/planning for assembling two of these kits, by Funaro & Camerlengo. In looking at the parts, I see what appears to be a really unusual brake air valve and two different sizes of cylindrical tanks that I presume to be for brake and emergency application air. Then again, I may be way off base as to what these things are as the model includes the Tichy kit for all manner of air brake rigging equipment.
I cannot find any photos of the prototype showing the under-frame detail, and the F & C kit don't show this detail. I'd like to run all the prototypical air and steam line piping for this model. Does anyone have information, photos or sources that would help me out?
This is not going to be too helpful, bfwiw the April 2002 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman had an article on building one of the Borden butter dish milk cars. There are two drawings showing the car layout, a side view and the brake wheel end, but unfortunately there is not any view showing the underframe. The side view does show what I'd call the brake cylinder plus some chains that are used in the brake gear linkage connections. There is not enough information for you to make any piping arrangements.
The article has some information directing the reader to the Rensselaer Model Railroad Society website for pictures of a similar car, and I wnt looking there to see if perhaps they gave a bottom view. Unfortunately the site has now become a pay site and you have to belong to join. If that interests you, the site is http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/article.php?article=19
You might try sending an e-mail to them asking if they have the information you need and offering a donation if they can supply it. The contact the site gives for information is John Nehrich. The e-mail given for him is nehrij@rpi.edu. The site is pretty emphatic that e-mail is the best contact method.
Alternately, maybe there is a RPI club member on this forum who might be willing to look through their archives for you.
Good luck.
Thanks for the reply. When you mentioned the article in RMC, I remembered I had scanned and saved that article. You were right - it does not show the underside.
I've also emailed Funaro & Camerlengo to see if they have any more information, but I doubt that will be fruitful. Otherwise, I believe they would have included it.
I also emailed Kalmbach Memorial Library to see if they have a source. I sent a similar email to John Nehrich to see what they have.
If you can get yourself to Union Illinois, the railroad museum there has a nicely restored Borden butterdish milk reefer -- however the car is painted to look like it's 1935, but I cannot swear as to the underframe, as some info on the internet suggests that Borden kept the car in "Elmer's glue" service to about 1970. The color photo I found on the internet does not suggest anything special in this way.
I guess we could speculate that this car would have received passenger car type braking capability, and the combination of passenger train speeds but many starts and stops might suggest a larger than normal reservoir of air -- purest speculation by me. If that was the case there would have been no need for that in its final use after milk service ended. Perhaps F&C equipped the kit for all eras in which it saw service.
Dave Nelson
Maybe a Lil help here.
http://www.irm.org/gallery/BFIX520
The pics are rather dark but I gamma corrected them local and could make out some under carrage detail.
Good luck
Ah yes, the infamous F&C instruction sheet. There has been volumes written about them on the web. I personally think this is one of the biggest holdups to their kits. In fact if they would redo them I think their sales would double as they would be easier to assemble.
Send an Email to Sharon @ F&C. she has sent me pictures of brake rigging that is done on their show models that was a big help to me. The address is on their web site. I have not done any of these cars so I can not help you with any pics.
Dan Pikulski
www.DansResinCasting.com