Freight car roster - for my LAYOUT

Good plan!  When I began developing my rolling stock roster I did a lot of impulse buying.  Now that I am trying to develop a close to prototype operating plan for my layout I find a lot of my rolling stock is out of date (too early or too late) for my 1981 operating period.  In addition some rolling stock is appropriate for my time period but probably did not run on the KCS.  I have since developed a list of what I have and what I need to get so I know what to look for at the LHS, ebay and train shows.

JIM

Kurt_Laughlin wrote:

I want to establish a roster that more or less reflects the actual rolling stock of the time I'm modeling (1961).  I'm doing the a PRR branch in about the center of Pennsy territory.  I figure that just about anything except citrus fruits would be able to be shipped completely online, so I'm weighting the roster toward the PRR.  My question is: What percentage would you allocate to the home road?  Would the percentage differ for a smaller road?

Kurt,

This is a topic that's hotly debated among the proto modelers. With the huge increase in high-quality freight cars over the past ten years or so (resin and plastic), we can now accurately model a fair chunk of the national freight car fleet from about 1930 to today. But what cars do we need to buy, and in what quantities? There are a fw schools of thought on this topic:

1. Average based on the ORER for your target year. Pretty simple, really. Add up all the cars in the nation, figure out how many each road has, figure out how many cars you'll need on yout roster, and start dividing. Figure 40% (which is a SWAG) for your home road, and start buying cars. This method is safe, and usually what people THINK is correct, but it's not realistic. With interchange rules, any car can go any place. With shipper's routings determined by an odd combination of the shipper's preferances, the deal he struck with the freight agent, and the way roads liked to hang onto cars for as long as possible for the per diem rates, real routings defied logic. And finally, add the fact that most mainline routes saw a steady type of traffic, which will skew the averaged numbers. The N&W's hopper fleet made up maybe 2% of the national freight car roster, but if you stood in the right places along the N&W's main, it would look like their hoppers made up 97% of the national car pool.
2. Base car buying on train wheel reports, photos or other "hard" information. This method is regarded as the overall best way to realistically replicate what sort of freight cars rolled when and where, but there are problems with it too. Mostly, you can never find enough data. If you're lucky to find ONE train sheet for a place and time you're modeling, you're doing better than most. Even well known areas like Horseshoe Curve have little or no real data on just what cars went over it on any given day. And critics of this method will say, "OK, so you know what the trains look like for that two hour span on June 22, 1954. Are you only going to model those four hours?"
3. Chaos theory. I like chaos theory, since it tends to explain most things. Applying it to a model RR roster is simple: buy what you want. Of course, if you want a faithful roster for 1961, you should try to be faithful to your prototype, but that won't keep you from buying that cool W of A 41' gon you like so much (so long as the WofA had 41' gons on their roster in 1961). Buy a "majority" of cars for the Pennsy (they did have the largest roster, after all), but keep it under 35% total, and start buying things as you find them and like them (and if they fit 1961). Don't worry too much if you can't "justify" the car; nobody can say that you're wrong, because they're working off SWAGS and not hard data.

OK, so this wasn't a whole lot of help, but it does illustrate that you're not alone in asking this sort of question. And you're scheme for figuring out the numbers and names of cars you'll need sounds as good as anyone else's plan I've heard or seen. As for me, I'll stick to buying lots of boxcars and looking at period photos of my chosen mainline for my roster needs (I "need" more B&O wagontops!)

 

I have a small percentage for the home road, just 6 cars for now out of what?.. 100?

I do buy multipules of different rolling stock because it is not too realistic to have one car in the same dock on a industry day after day unless it is very local.. like a milk tanker for example.

There are many cars that find thier way onto the railroad that were impulse purchases. I havent had too many of those lately.

I believe a railroad shipping to online customers within their own system would use their own cars, it's how they make money, paying per diem rates to another road for your own customers wouldn't make sense.Shipping to another system was another story, I'm not sure when ICC  ruled that a road had to ship cars back loaded if their was a load designated for a that cars home territory. I would say you should lean to a 1/3 or more of pennsy cars. Since pennsy interchanged with many roads, any other cars will do, but if you model an interchange , you may want a few extra of their cars.

Finding sufficient quantities of home road (KCS) cars has been a problem for me but things have been improving.  I am not skilled at painting and decaling.  I have tried buying multiple cars and changing reporting marks.

JIM

BXCARMIKE wrote:

I believe a railroad shipping to online customers within their own system would use their own cars, it's how they make money, paying per diem rates to another road for your own customers wouldn't make sense.

Not true. Most freight car shipments after WWII were NOT within one system, even one as mighty as the Pennsy. Most loads woule either originate or terminate on a single both, but almost never both (coal is a major exception). So it didn't matter what car went to a shipper, so long as the car fit their requirements. True, you would like to fill a home road car first, but what happens when the nearest yard doesn't have any available? And a moving foreign car is more attractive to a line than a stationary foreign car, especially an empty one. The key is to get a customer the car they need when they need it, something that railroads were better at 50 years ago. So yardmasters were more worried about moving CARS, period, rather than their own cars.

Shipping to another system was another story, I'm not sure when ICC  ruled that a road had to ship cars back loaded if their was a load designated for a that cars home territory.

That rule's been in effect for a LONG time. Late 1890s, at least. The problem is that nobody really paid any attention to it. Look at that one LV boxcar Trains followed around in the late 1950s: it spent something like 300 days in a single year offline, and bounced across the country five times! The "spirit" of the rule was "move a foreign car back TOWARDS home." It never had to actually get there.

I would say you should lean to a 1/3 or more of pennsy cars. Since pennsy interchanged with many roads, any other cars will do, but if you model an interchange , you may want a few extra of their cars.

1/3 does sound fair, especially if the line is a branch. But if you're talking about a non-hopper dominated mainline, I'd actually reduce that percentage to about 1/4. But that's just my feel for things.

Since your branchline is in PA, in addition to having more home road cars you should have more cars from eastern roads than from western roads.  I don't know the percentages but you would probably have more B&O cars than SP cars, etc. 

Personally, I like having a variety of cars.  So while I have mostly eastern roads for my version of the Ma&Pa, I also include other roads for variety.  My UP stockcar is probably a stretch, but hey it's colorful.

Enjoy
Paul

IRONROOSTER wrote:

Since your branchline is in PA, in addition to having more home road cars you should have more cars from eastern roads than from western roads.  I don't know the percentages but you would probably have more B&O cars than SP cars, etc.

I figured that, which is why I stuck to direct PRR interchange roads.  Consequently I probably won't have any WP, NP, SP, or NdeM cars, but ATSF are possible because the Pennsy had a direct connection with them at Chicago and Morton IL.  No B&M or BAR though, either, FWIW.

Granted, it's possible that any interchange car could be seen anywhere, but I'm playing percentages here, to try an keep some bound on things.

KL

orsonroy wrote:

I would say you should lean to a 1/3 or more of pennsy cars. Since pennsy interchanged with many roads, any other cars will do, but if you model an interchange , you may want a few extra of their cars.

Thanks Roy, that sounds like a good number.  I was originally thinking 60%, then 50%, but looking at most yard pictures there don't appear to be that high of a percentage of home cars in them.  What was throwing me was that the PRR was so big, both in area served and in cars, I didn't know if that would really skew things.

This branchline was created in the 1800's as a separate railroad specifically as a connection between the PRR and P&LE, so I'm doubling the P&LE percentages that I would otherwise get.

Thanks,

KL

jamnest wrote:

Finding sufficient quantities of home road (KCS) cars has been a problem for me but things have been improving.  I am not skilled at painting and decaling.  I have tried buying multiple cars and changing reporting marks.

For the PRR, that's not a problem - trust me.  The "problem" is that there's a lot of stuff out there with PRR marks that never had a prototype, let alone saw the shops at Altoona. . .

KL

orsonroy wrote:

This is a topic that's hotly debated among the proto modelers. With the huge increase in high-quality freight cars over the past ten years or so (resin and plastic), we can now accurately model a fair chunk of the national freight car fleet from about 1930 to today. But what cars do we need to buy, and in what quantities? . . .

 

Good points Roy. 

I've done a lot of research on the configuration of Sherman tanks in WW II.  It's surprising how many gaps there are in the info of something made for only three years and in a quantity of less than 50,000.  Likewise, it's surprising how much variation there was in something made to a "standard" design.  Anyhoo, I learned from that that you have to weigh the data carefully because not all info is of equal value.  Any sort of historical reconstruction of engineered items should be published in a "This is a best guess based on available data" binder.

thx,

KL

Here's my method of attack: I model a 67 mile SP branchline as it was in 1926. It serviced 19 packing houses, 6 winneries, one gravel pit, 1 grain distributor and a massive cement producing complex.

I model in S, no problem with impulse buying, commerical models for the twenties era? forget about it!!

As much as I love those Billboard Reefers that advertised everything from candy to beer, none will be included, I need cars specific to perishable traffic, PFE, WFE and such form the bulk, the open hopper was rather uncommon during this time, a few will suffice to provide contrast with older more common types derived from gondolas. Wine tank cars are a challenge, none are currently available to my knowledge. ( I do believe AF produced one decades ago that could be easily converted to scale)


Box cars will be a 60/30 split between Western / Eastern carriers.. Due to my desire to do more with less, I depend on long out of production craftsman, current craftsman kits, scratchbuilding, On30/Sn3 conversions to build my roster...

Dave

Kurt_Laughlin wrote:

I figured that, which is why I stuck to direct PRR interchange roads.  Consequently I probably won't have any WP, NP, SP, or NdeM cars, but ATSF are possible because the Pennsy had a direct connection with them at Chicago and Morton IL.  No B&M or BAR though, either, FWIW. Granted, it's possible that any interchange car could be seen anywhere, but I'm playing percentages here, to try an keep some bound on things.

In that case, you DEFINITELY need to have loads of SP cars on your roster. They had the sixth largest car fleet in North America, and had the largest roster of flatcars (2500 more than the Pennsy)

Morton was a hole on a Pennsy Branch (I know; part of that branch is on my layout!) that didn't see all that much traffic. The Pennsy would have seen THOUSANDS of cars coming off the ATSF from their connection in Chicago (via the many belt lines). Roads don't have to physically touch to be heavy traffic partners. On my modeled mainline (NKP between Peoria, IL and Frankfort, IN) the NKP saw a LOT of western road cars, especially from the ATSF and SP. While the NKP and ATSF did physically touch just east of Peoria, that ATSF line isn't where the traffic came from. ATSF cars came to the NKP via the TP&W, which hauled the cars east from their western (Iowa) terminus. We're talking 20,000 cars a year, mostly SFRD produce reefers and SP auto parts (and stock cars, of all things).

And don't forget what railroads hauled out of their home turf. The IC is remembered for flashy passenger trains, but they made their money hauling coal out of Illinois and Kentucky, and by racing meat trains east at 80 miles an hour. The NP and GN hauled the bulk of the nation;s lumber around, so you'll have to include their boxcars on your roster.

What I'm getting at is that figuring out just what cars you should have on your layout is a pretty tricky guessing game. Case in point: you;d see an ATSF car running on the Rutland, but wouldn't likely see the reverse. Seeing Rock Island cars in Pennsylvania and PRR cars in Califirnia is almost assured, since they were both major railroads serving industries that sold all over the nation. Heck, there's even video footage of N&W hoppers heading over Sherman Pass!

In that case, you DEFINITELY need to have loads of SP cars on your roster. They had the sixth largest car fleet in North America, and had the largest roster of flatcars (2500 more than the Pennsy)

Well hold on a minute, Roy.  I'm looking at a total roster of about 50 cars, so I won't be having "loads" of anything on my pike.  If I allocate 30 to 40% to the PRR, I'm only left with 35 to 30 "foreign" cars.  Also, the scheme I'm looking at only covers XM, HM, HT, GB, and FM car classes (although LO could be easily accomodated).  I will need three RS/RP, three RSM, and four TM, so I'm really looking to fill out just 25 to 20 slots.  I also figure that the hopper classes carrying coal or sand will be local just out of economic reality - it doesn't make sense to spend $3 to ship $1 worth of sand 1000 miles.

If I play percentages to include lots of SP like you suggest, doesn't that ignore geographic considerations?

And don't forget what railroads hauled out of their home turf. The IC is remembered for flashy passenger trains, but they made their money hauling coal out of Illinois and Kentucky, and by racing meat trains east at 80 miles an hour. The NP and GN hauled the bulk of the nation;s lumber around, so you'll have to include their boxcars on your roster.

For specialized cargo, I'll have to do something.  Meat will be coming out of the midwest going to either the Armour or Cudahy packing house (both were present, haven't chosen yet).  Fruits and vegetables will be from the west and south.  Refractory sand would likely come from West Virginia.  Coal's got to be coming from the immediate area.  Lumber might just as likely come from Maine or Georgia, wouldn't it?  Other than that, I'm looking at appliances, manufactured goods, general merchandise, basic steel, finished steel, and steel fabrications, all of which could be expected to be travelling within the PRR (roughly bounded by Chicago - St Louis - Baltimore - NYC) and environs.

What cars you should have on your layout is a pretty tricky guessing game.

Yeah, but fun though.

Thx,

KL

Just a thought, find some videos and books like the Morning Sun publications showing PRR for the time period you are interested in. They should give you an idea of what was really there including some near and far foreign railroads. I have found Morning Sun books and videos on MEC and B&M very useful in my modeling.

Kurt_Laughlin wrote:

IRONROOSTER wrote: Since your branchline is in PA, in addition to having more home road cars you should have more cars from eastern roads than from western roads.  I don't know the percentages but you would probably have more B&O cars than SP cars, etc.  I figured that, which is why I stuck to direct PRR interchange roads.  Consequently I probably won't have any WP, NP, SP, or NdeM cars, but ATSF are possible because the Pennsy had a direct connection with them at Chicago and Morton IL.  No B&M or BAR though, either, FWIW. Granted, it's possible that any interchange car could be seen anywhere, but I'm playing percentages here, to try an keep some bound on things. KL

If you have an on-line destination for California produce, you can bet the branch line that it will arrive in PFE reefers, and that they will have both UP and SP heralds on them.  On the opposite hand, with as much coal as Pennsy originated, an N&W or Chessie hopper would be less likely to appear on your line than a special run of the Coast Daylight.

As for BAR - don't the people in your area eat Maine potatoes?  Or do they prefer Idahoes (delivered in GN, NP or MILW cars?)

The general idea?  Where do your inbound carloads originate, and what railroad served the originating point?  That should give you some ideas when shopping for "foreign" cars.

Actually, I don't have the problem under discussion.  Since the 1964 JNR was a government monopoly, all cars are home road cars until proven otherwise, and the only "otherwise" are the cars in TTT unit train service.

Chuck

Kurt, number three in your plan overlooks the idea that traffic doesn't just come from the roads you connect with, but from all over the country in cars owned by roads to which you have no connection.

You need to take into account the type of traffic and the origin or termination points of that traffic. If it is fruit or produce coming off the SP, it should be in SP reefers, generally speaking. Soda ash coming off the Great Northern, it should be in GN covered hoppers or possibly privately owned cars (You would have to research that one.).

Also, railroads make deals on certain moves. The originating and terminating carriers will agree to supply a certain number of cars for the traffic. The bigger moves had pools of cars assigned and some were stencilled to that effect (Assigned pool service out of..., or Return to a certain yard for loading, etc.).

Your scheme also overlooks all those leased and privately owned cars, even back in 1961. Okay, there weren't many lease-fleet cars back then, but there were still privately owned cars.

For smaller roads this rule still would apply. Depending upon the time period, you might not have many shortline owned cars on a shortline or smaller railroad. Even today, of the 100's of shortlines out there, not many own cars. And not many who do own cars, own large quantities. Freight cars represent a huge investment (The average basic covered hopper/box car is in the $65k+ range today.) and most shortlines don't have the kind of capital it takes to buy a lot of cars. And per diem (Paid by the hour now.) and mileage doesn't offset the cost of a car, especially as it gets older and needs increasing amounts of maintenance.

But that is a little off topic.

My point is there are more variables than you have built in now. If you use just the ones you have now, you will be artificially limiting the types of cars on your railroad.

 

Kurt_Laughlin wrote:

Well hold on a minute, Roy.  I'm looking at a total roster of about 50 cars, so I won't be having "loads" of anything on my pike.  If I allocate 30 to 40% to the PRR, I'm only left with 35 to 30 "foreign" cars.  Also, the scheme I'm looking at only covers XM, HM, HT, GB, and FM car classes (although LO could be easily accomodated).  I will need three RS/RP, three RSM, and four TM, so I'm really looking to fill out just 25 to 20 slots.  I also figure that the hopper classes carrying coal or sand will be local just out of economic reality - it doesn't make sense to spend $3 to ship $1 worth of sand 1000 miles.

Three produce reefers: one each PFE, SFRD and MDT (the forgotten giant)

Three meat reefers, all for the same shipper. I'd go with Cudahy, since they had a more interesting fleet. Go with two of the Intermountain 40' steel cars and one Red Caboose 36' wood.

Four flats: two Pennsy, one SP, one "other". The "other" should "probably" be eastern, from the NYC or B&O (the next largest flat fleets out east)....UNLESS you want it to haul heavy machinery. If Caterpillar bulldozers, then the car should be NKP (their preferred shipper); if IH then Milwayukee (likewise).

If I play percentages to include lots of SP like you suggest, doesn't that ignore geographic considerations?

Yes, but "house" cars also ignored geography. And if you play straight percentages, then you'll end up with several B&O, C&O, Southern and SP boxcars, and none from roads like the Rutland, KCS, and SAL.

For specialized cargo, I'll have to do something.  Meat will be coming out of the midwest going to either the Armour or Cudahy packing house (both were present, haven't chosen yet).  Fruits and vegetables will be from the west and south.  Refractory sand would likely come from West Virginia.  Coal's got to be coming from the immediate area.

All of the above sounds reasonable, with the exception of the coal. Believe it or not, the per diem was so good on hoppers that they would travel around randomly, looking for a buyer. So technically, your coal could be coming from anywhere east of the Big Muddy. If it's industrial grade, it's likely hard antharacite, which means L&NE or LV origins.

Lumber might just as likely come from Maine or Georgia, wouldn't it?

Maine, no. Georgia yes, but soft Southern yellow Pine wasn's as desirable a building medium as it would become in the 1970s. In 1961, houses were still framed out in Pac NW pines. Likewise, most of the nation's plywood, trim molding wood, and hardwood floors still came out of the PNW.

Other than that, I'm looking at appliances, manufactured goods, general merchandise, basic steel, finished steel, and steel fabrications, all of which could be expected to be travelling within the PRR (roughly bounded by Chicago - St Louis - Baltimore - NYC) and environs.

It's reasonable that about 25% of your boxcars, 90% of your hoppers, and 100% of your gons would be Pennsy. That should cover all of your mineral and dimensional steel shipping, and give the Pennsy a big enough slice of the finished goods, while retaining at least SOME flavor of the rest of the nation.

And don't forget to weather the snot out of your older Pennsy stuff. The circle Keystone was still around until the late 1960s, but you could hardly tell under all the grime!

Ray, what about an FGE reefer,they were  abig shipper on the east coast? Also BAR(potatoes) could fit in.

BXCARMIKE wrote:

Ray, what about an FGE reefer,they were  abig shipper on the east coast? Also BAR(potatoes) could fit in.

FGE were oranges from Florida.

The PRR did have rail lines in Maryland and probably took a few of these from time to time.

BXCARMIKE wrote:

Ray, what about an FGE reefer,they were  abig shipper on the east coast? Also BAR(potatoes) could fit in.

Yeah, but who can use up a whole 40' boxcar full of spuds?!? (besides a canning plant of major grocery warehouse/distributor, both generally overlooked as great sources of traffic.

As for the FGE question: yes, FGE did handle a lot of traffic out east. Byt so did PFE and SFRD. The thing to remember is that cars can go ANYWHERE, and with large fleets of cars (FGE was the #3 fleet of reefers), chances are good that they'd pop up anywhere.

Safety Valve wrote:

FGE were oranges from Florida.

And raspberries from Michigan, and blueberries from Indiana, and asparagus from Missouri...FGE, like SFRD, PFE, MDT, ART, and a few others, was a car leasing company. Their fleets followed the crops, much like day-laborers.

The PRR did have rail lines in Maryland and probably took a few of these from time to time.

Probably, but keep in mond that different rail lines and leasing firms had personal relationships with each other, that meant sometimes less than logical routings. A good case in point was the fact that PFE HATED the Pennsy, and used the Erie instead. The routing was longer distancewise, but the cars would show up in New York City about 24 hours faster. Why? Better customer service on the Erie, which also handled the PFE cars more gently. I wondered about the high numbers of SFRD reefers on my NKP line, when the cars should have logically been routed thorugh Chicago (instead of Peoria and bumf.... Indiana). Then I started looking at transit times on various lines, and realized that a routing through Chicago would have added DAYS to the car's routing, even if it was 300 miles shorter and involved fewer interchange handoffs. So maybe no so illogical after all...

UGH!  I had a really long reply 90% typed up and lost it by a single misplaced mouse click.  I don't have the heart or energy to start it over, but here's some comments anyway.

orsonroy wrote:

And if you play straight percentages, then you'll end up with several B&O, C&O, Southern and SP boxcars, and none from roads like the Rutland, KCS, and SAL.

Well, yeah.  Remember, I'm looking at something like a TOTAL of 20 to 25 XMs.  If I make 30% to of them PRR (which is reasonable, I think, plus lets me model more Pennsy equipment then your recommended 25%) I'm looking at filling up 14 to 18 slots.  I might NOT have any Rutland cars in that case.

I guess maybe I could use suggestions like you made for altering the percentage of PRR cars for different types.  Or should I change my spreadsheet to cover all roads (not just PRR interchanges) with a certain number of cars or maybe even all roads regardless of their car quantity?

Believe it or not, the per diem was so good on hoppers that they would travel around randomly, looking for a buyer. So technically, your coal could be coming from anywhere east of the Big Muddy. If it's industrial grade, it's likely hard antharacite, which means L&NE or LV origins.

That's something I'll consider.  I was looking at 70 ton HTs but for the small coal dealer I'm thinking about 55 ton HMs would be more sensible, I think.

Lumber might just as likely come from Maine or Georgia, wouldn't it? Maine, no. Georgia yes, but soft Southern yellow Pine wasn's as desirable a building medium as it would become in the 1970s. In 1961, houses were still framed out in Pac NW pines. Likewise, most of the nation's plywood, trim molding wood, and hardwood floors still came out of the PNW.

OK, some WP/GN/NP XMs seem reasonable.

Other than that, I'm looking at appliances, manufactured goods, general merchandise, basic steel, finished steel, and steel fabrications, all of which could be expected to be travelling within the PRR (roughly bounded by Chicago - St Louis - Baltimore - NYC) and environs. It's reasonable that about 25% of your boxcars, 90% of your hoppers, and 100% of your gons would be Pennsy. That should cover all of your mineral and dimensional steel shipping, and give the Pennsy a big enough slice of the finished goods, while retaining at least SOME flavor of the rest of the nation.

That's good info, and makes sense to me. 

These forums are great for sounding out ideas, even if they do lose messages on ya.

Thanks,

KL