This is a long shot but I need some assistance with an older Walthers kit. (1994 or so according to the instructions.) How tall were the stock handrails on the 5950 DIFCO series? I purchased a kit for a project that got delayed. I started building it today and noticed the handrails were missing. I managed to bend some new ones using some .020" phosphor bronze wire I had on hand. I got the width using the holes on the frame but the height is elusive. As usual, any assistance that can be provided would be most welcomed.
The complete Walthers product number would help.
The only handrail I see is on the end of the car, and they are about the same height of the brake wheel.
While searching around, I notice not all cars have the handrails on the ends.
Mike.
My You Tube
My models, 100-ton Difco Air-Dump cars, also had no railings. Please infer from the following image. Click to enlarge. They are exactly as written by Mike (mbinsewi).
Page 89 of the Car & Locomotive Cyclopedia 1997
Page 113 of the Walthers HO Cotalog 1995
BN7150 Page 113 of the Walthers HO Cotalog 1995
Well, both the photo and the drawing provided by BN7150 do show handrails on the B-end of the car, which would be useful for gaining access to the handbrake wheel. You can, as mentioned, click on the photo to enlarge it and the drawing, and I was able to magnify it further using a feature of my computer. I'd guess that there would be handrails only on the car's B-end, although the photo of the model with the dump-body elevated does show them on the A-end, too.
Wayne
I'd use the prototype drawing from BN7150, draw a line across from handrail to handrail, and see where it intersects the brake wheel houseing, and use that to scale the dimension of the height of the handrail.
There are enough other dimensions given in the drawing that could be used to figure out what scale the drawing is.
I have an instruction sheet from a Walthers 5950 series car and it does show two handrails per end, and quantity 4 is shown on the part list. They are designated as part 17.
The opposite side of the sheet depicts an assembled car. As noted in posts above, the top of the handrail appears to bisect the brake wheel just slightly below the horizontal midpoint of the brakewheel.
Interestingly, the kit I just opened to locate the instructions did not include the handrails. If they were plastic, they were not located on the part sprue, and the sprue was complete w/o any removed or missing parts.
And if they were metal, they were not included.
Funny that I saw one of these (UP) on EBay last week, so I ordered it and built it Mon/Tues. Mine is the 5950 series. The inner box was shrink wrapped but I don't know if that was by the factory or a later seller. No parts 17 handrails were included, though I don't know if a prior owner lost them. I just bent some 0.022 wire to an eyeball height off the photo.
It is a generally a nice kit and I intended to build it tilt-able. However, I found that (1) the clip-in sides (slightly warped) did not clip into the hinge slots and stay very well and (2) the body, with sides up and level, did not seem to sit nice and level in the four support slots reliably. I did not intend to display it tilted, so I just cut off the piston rods, glued the sides up, glued the assembly firmly into the frame slots and then gluded in a rock load. I like the result.
20210126_143532 by Paul Ahrens, on Flickr
20210126_143632 by Paul Ahrens, on Flickr
20210126_143700 by Paul Ahrens, on Flickr
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent