Type of cars on your railroad

[rrebell]

Out west most of the traffic is container cars, next automobile cars, then tankers, then covered hoppers and the rest are few and far between. In urban areas you still see boxcars.

[MisterBeasley]

Cars on my railroad I seldom if ever run: TOFC flat cars, auto racks, empty flats, empty bulkhead flats, a depressed center flat with a transformer on it.  These are old cars with no industries supporting them on my layout.  There's a Toy R Us boxcar and a Vlassic pickle boxcar from LifeLike which are just too toy like.  My sister gave them to me.

I like a few one-of-a-kind cars, even if they're just passing through.  Some day I will build those pickle vats because I have a couple of those cars.

[DSchmitt]

chorister

I am finding that like the prototype my railroad has more covered hoppers in operation than box cars. Anybody else discover this?

 

The overall distribution of car types on the railroad you model is a starting point but note the distribution  of types is probably very  different on any given line.

For instance:

On a line that serves the grain industry covered hoppers will predominate.

A line serving the auto industry - auto racks and autoparts boxcars.

[PRR8259]

Also, although I notice what I see in dvd's etc. at the end of the day, it is my railroad, and I'm going to run what makes me happy.

There are days in real railroading, when I pass Enola Yard (which is all the time) where traffic types seem to vary widely.  Some days there are virtually no regular general service 50' boxcars to be found; other days there are long cuts of them (many looking rough at this late date).  It just depends.  Other days there may be long cuts of relatively new TTX 50' and 60' high cube boxcars (the general purpose cars of tomorrow once the IPD 1970's leftovers become outlawed).

So I'm trying to generally stick to modern or post-2000 era and the freight cars that were surviving then (also since my motive power is exclusively SD40-2's).

John

[davidmurray]

I set my layout in 1960, and a branch line.  With little through traffic, car types are dictated by what the industries need.  Everything except from one industry is shipped in boxcars.  The iron ore mine of course uses ore cars.  Very few raw materials travel by covered hopper.

 

All this being said, I have more 40' boxcars than anything else.

[Pruitt]

My layout is set in the late 1930's - mid-1940's, in Wyoming.

Major car types are ice bunker reefers (layout predates mechanical reefers), since Casper had a major icing facility for through trains; stock cars since a lot of livestock was shipped out of and through this area; tank cars since there were refineries in many of the towns I model (two on the layout - Standard Oil in Casper and Husky Oil in Cody); and the ubiquitous box car for most everything else.

[cv_acr]

DSchmitt

The overall distribution of car types on the railroad you model is a starting point but note the distribution  of types is probably very  different on any given line.

For instance:

On a line that serves the grain industry covered hoppers will predominate.

A line serving the auto industry - auto racks and autoparts boxcars.

 

And on my railroad, a wilderness resource hauler, none of the above. Most cars are hoppers, flatcars, and gondolas. Some limited overhead traffic of boxcars and covered hoppers, but my railroad owned none of these cars themselves, except for some non-revenue/company service boxes.

[doctorwayne]

KitbashOn30

Speaking of that, (and in all the post formatting tools in the three grey toolbars at the top of the write a post box I find nothing to click for designating quotes)

To quote from the posts of others (or your own), you need to "REPLY" to the post that you wish to quote:  simply left-click on the portion you wish to quote, and drag the cursor over the portion you wish to quote, in order to highlight it, then click on the "Add Quote to your Post" box at the bottom of that post.

If you wish to quote other excerpts from the same post, simply repeat the process. 

If you wish to include quotes from other contributors, simply open a new tab of the same original topic (or other related topics) and repeat the same operations, then "Copy & Paste" them into your original submission.

Wayne

[groundeffects]

My railroad is set in the 1950-1957 time range with Southern Pacific and is based upon the perishable fruit industry of Southern California.  As such I do not have but a handful of covered hoppers.  I have tried to keep a high percentage (probably 80 percent or more) of Espee freight cars with the others mostly western railroads such as WP, UP, ATSF and GN.

As I enjoy modeling the perishable fruit industry I mostly have ice reefers (PFE), with a smaller percentage of box cars, flat cars, gondolas and tank cars.  I own a few covered hoppers but I don't use them much, they are only seen on through trains for the most part.

It really depends on the location that your model railroad is supposed to represent, as well as the era.  For my modelled location/era covered hoppers do not have a large representation.

Jeff B

[doctorwayne]

chorister

I am finding that like the prototype my railroad has more covered hoppers in operation than box cars. Anybody else discover this?

 

While I probably have more hoppers than I need, I have a fairly significant number of cars that I like or find appropriate for my layout.  The main exception would be my use of covered hoppers in a late '30s setting. 

I've always liked the looks of the early covered hoppers, and justified their use by building GERN Industries, which ships product in either covered hoppers

or boxcars...

 

 

 

While my "home road" cars are freelanced, I have a considerable number of cars which represent railroads from all over North America. 

That is because, as a child, that's what I saw in my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, which was served directly by three major railroads (the CNR, CPR, and NYC), plus the locally-based TH&B.

Hamilton, at that time, saw cars from all over North America, as the city was a major industrial hub...much moreso than it is nowadays.  This allows me a lot of "modeller's licence" in choosing rolling stock.
I'm at a point where I'm unlikely to buy much more than a few cars to fill in some gaps, but I do have a few scratchbuilds that I'd like to tackle just for the challenge.

 

Wayne

[chatanuga]

Locomotives:

7 Amtrak (3 SDP40F, 2 F40PH, 2 P40)
19 Freight (various models and road names)

Freight cars:

25 Bi-Level autoracks (2 articulated, 2 partly enclosed, 21 fully enclosed)
27 Tri-Level autoracks (3 open, 24 fully enclosed)
26 Boxcars
24 Covered Hoppers (various sizes/models)
12 Cusion Coil
5 Gondolas
22 Intermodal cars (11 89-foot flatcars, 8 Front Runners, 3 Athearn 5-unit Impacks)
62 TripleCrown RoadRailers (40 configured for rail service, 22 configured for road/terminal service)
13 Tankers (various sizes/models)
7 Cabooses

Passenger cars:

9 MHC (3 Con-Cor, 6 Walthers)
3 Heritage Baggage
4 Heritage Sleepers (2 Slumbercoaches, 2 10-6 Sleepers)
1 Heritage Lounge
1 Amfleet II Lounge
1 Heritage Diner
2 Heritage Coaches
3 Amfleet II Coaches
2 Amfleet I Cafe
6 Amfleet I Coaches

Kevin