What should my freight car roster look like?

[Steven Otte]

Hi, David!

If you're modeling a specific railroad, whether real or fictional, your freight cars should be at least half lettered for the "home road," another quarter for roads directly interchanging with your home road, and the remaining quarter or less for all other roads. For example, if you're modeling the Pennsylvania and want to buy 20 freight cars, about 10-12 should be PRR cars; 4-5 New York Central, Central of New Jersey, B&O, and C&O; and the remainder from distant roads like the Santa Fe, Southern, or Northern Pacific.

As for the types of freight cars, that depends on the kind of industries you plan to model on your layout, which in turn depends on the part of the country you're modeling. West Virginia will need more coal hoppers and fewer oil tankers than Texas, for instance. The Midwest will need more boxcars (in your era, grain moved in boxcars; covered hoppers weren't invented yet), and the South and West will need more reefers.

Each train will need its own caboose. They can share, but you'll need one for each road freight or mixed train that will be on the road at the same time. If you want to run two trains at once, you'll need at least two cabooses.

Passenger cars are up to you. Depending on your tastes and choice of locales, passenger operations can be modeled with as little equipment as a single car, RDC (rail diesel car), or combine added to a mixed local. Or you can put together a crack passenger liner with four or five modern streamlined lightweights. It's up to your tastes. But unless you have some particular justification (such as a through sleeper on that crack name train), all passenger equipment should be lettered for your home road.

Good luck building that layout of your dreams!

[SBX]

Hi Everyone. I live in the UK and have been modelling US Railroads since around 1956 - on and off. Over the last few years it has been off but I am back on now.

I am a great fan of Frank Ellison and have his book from the 1950s. Also, I am the proud possesor of Mixed Train Daily by Lucius Beebe. Hence, I am trying to model a short-ish line in the late steam era. I have two Bachmann 2-6-0 Sound/DCC locos and am using Peco Code 83 track which looks fantastic.

My question is this. I have the intial funds to purchase 20 freight cars. Shipping to the UK is expensive and buying in the UK even worse so I am on a tight budget (I am retired and living on a pension).  What mix of cars should I buy (I have one caboose and one gondola already). Also, I quess I should stick to 40' cars but there were some 50' footers around it seems. I was mainly going to stick to the road names that I grew up with - NYC, Pennsy, UP, CBQ etc. rather than all the newer ones (? Like Penn Central - I remember them crashing!).

Any thoughts would be much appraciated.

David