Category Archives: Mow

Failure

In any endeavor, sometimes trying new and different things leads to a dead end. Model railroading has its own pitfalls in that regard. To wit:

I recently started a project to scratchbuild at least 6 flat cars for the model S&NY, the reasons being 4 fold: The Barclay Chemical plant in Laquin needed more dedicated traffic coming in, in the form of hardwood loads, in order to give a local train a bit more to do during an op session; it would help fulfill the requirements towards the NMRA Achievement Program “Master Builder-Cars” certificate; it would help build my skills before taking on more complex projects; and it might be “fun”. The “fun” part is entirely subjective as we shall see…

Anyway, I wanted to build several cars using these S&NY examples as a basis:

Bradley-Hahn Collection, RRMPA

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

The basic flat car could also serve as a foundation for the S&NY flanger:

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Also a crane-flat:

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

And also the gondolas seen in the background in this photo, and in the one prior:

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Mr. Dave Vinci wrote an excellent article on scratchbuilding a PRR class Fk flatcar for “The Keystone Modeler No. 42 January 2007”, and the article is available here: Scratchbuilding a Class Fk Flat Car . I figured I would follow his techniques, but using dimensions from a PRR class Fh car instead. The Fh was shorter than the Fk, (36’5″ vs. 38’4″) and used archbar trucks with a 5’0″ wheelbase, rather than 5’6″ trucks on the Fk. I had half a dozen Tahoe Model Works trucks with the shorter wheelbase, and desired to use these as I think they give a really older feel, visually, than the “standard” archbars.

Mr. Vinci described the difficulty in adding adequate weight to the model in order to bring the weight up to NMRA standards, which should be about 3-1/2 oz. total. The article shows how to use lead shot in the underbody voids to accomplish this, but the weight still comes up short.

I had hoped to add more weight to my cars by laminating lead sheet into the flatcar deck during assembly. I had some 1/32″ lead sheet on hand, and smugly set about building the flat car deck. I had to tweak the dimensions of the end beams and side members a bit, but it looked like it might just work. I used contact cement to glue the lead to a piece of 0.040″ styrene, and used a small wooden roller to ensure even contact. Started to work on the bolsters and underframe, and the coupler height looked like it would be dead-on. So far so good…

Except today when I went to work on the car…something…was…wrong…:


The deck was now all warpy and curved. What the…..?

I had built the deck during some hot and humid days when we had the house A/C on. Meanwhile, the weather cooled off and we turned off the A/C and kept the windows open. The basement warmed up a bit and the air got a touch more humid. Not sure if the lead sheet expanded a little relative to the styrene, or if there was air trapped between the plastic and lead that expanded, or if the glue continued to out-gas and caused some delamination and deformation of the plastic. Either way, the idea of using lead in the deck of the car was not going to work…

Thus, FAILURE!

Also, other issues arose at this point. The PRR Fh is 36’6″ long. The April 1940 ORER lists the S&NY flats as being 38’1″ long. Uh oh.

Further review of some of the photos shows what looks like hoppers underneath some of the cars. Could some of these “flatcars” actually be old cut-down drop-bottom gondolas? I really would prefer not to have to scratchbuild underbody hoppers for 6 or more cars. Double uh-oh…

Well then…What to do, what to do?

After a bit of soul-searching and creative use of profanity, I’ve decided to press ahead using the PRR Fh and Mr. Vinci’s article as a guide. I have no dimensions or more-detailed photos of the S&NY cars to work from anyway, especially the undersides. I’ll construct them to mimic the S&NY flats in appearance as much as possible (and practical!). I’ll lose some conformance points for the NMRA AP certificate, but that is a secondary issue. The ultimate goal is an operational model railroad based on the S&NY, and a few compromises will always be necessary to achieve that.

I’ve already built a new flatcar deck without lead this time, and so far no warping. I’ll update as I can!

Talky Tuesday #112

Last week’s “WW #154” is a snapshot of a S&NY section crew and their transportation. The “speeder” looks to be a home-built contraption cobbled together from hand-car wheels applied to a Model-T chassis. While probably a pleasant mode of transport to the job site during fair weather, the ride was probably a cold, wet one in inclement weather. On the deck of the trailer we can see a keg of track spikes and a jack of some sort, stacked together with various tools. I cannot identify any of the fellows in the photo; even magnified there is quite a bit a of blur to the faces. The location is also a mystery.

Wordless Wednesday #154

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Wordless Wednesday #132

Bill Caloroso- Cal’s Classics

Talky Tuesday #53

“WW #81” from last week is a wide shot of the S&NY facilities at Newberry, I believe looking south, probably near the time of abandonment in 1942. Everything exudes an atmosphere of decrepitude: MoW bunk car #210 is looking the worse for wear, and a Model-T rail car is junked in the foreground. Still, we can get an overall sense of the layout of the place, with the engine house to the left and the car shop to the right.

Wordless Wednesday #81

Bradley-Hahn Collection - RRMPA

Bradley-Hahn Collection – RRMPA

Talky Tuesday #46

A 3/4 view of snow flanger #11 is the subject of last week’s “WW #74” . The cobbled-together appearance of this fascinating piece of equipment suggests just that; that it was home-built by the S&NY shop forces. The flanger is present on my 1926 ORER, but is not listed in 1905, so it was built in the 11 years between those dates. #11 has a wealth of interesting details: note the piping and airtanks on the deck for raising and lowering the flanger device integrated into the rear truck, which itself may have been a scavenged locomotive pilot truck; the bolted-on deckside reinforcement; the side grab-irons giving access to the roof and a probable surplus locomotive headlight; the smkoejack; and the fabricated sheet-iron plow.

Certainly a scratchbuilding project for “someday”…

Bunk Car #210

Bill Caloroso - Cal's Classics

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

This ancient car, #210, was listed on the ORER’s from 1926, 1938, and 1940 as S&NY’s “Bunk Car, Maintenance of Way – 210”. Per Kaseman’s book, this car along with a presumed similar car #209, was acquired from the John Strong Lumber Company, and used primarily on work trains. ( I have no further information regarding the John Strong Lumber Co.) The date of acquisition is not specified in the book, but neither car is on the roster on an ORER from early 1905. Interestingly, there is no car numbered 209 on the roster on any of the ORER’s I have.

Reader and pre-1900’s railroad fan John Webster stated to me that the roof style of this car suggests a build date around 1870. If this car does indeed date to that era, it would have already been an antique when purchased by the S&NY.

Bill Caloroso - Cal's Classics

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Bill Caloroso - Cal's Classics

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

In the photo above, the car seems to have a different paint scheme than in other photos, and seems to be in a worse state of decrepitude. (Note the partially caved-in clerestory mid-car.) Could this actually be #209? Perhaps 209 was in such bad shape the S&NY never listed it on the ORER as a usable piece of equipment. We will probably never know.

Bill Caloroso - Cal's Classics

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Here is 210 with major end-sill damage and a pulled drawbar, possibly due to a coupling accident. I would imagine the 70 or 80 year old wooden underframe was probably rather fragile by the time of S&NY abandonment in 1942.

Bill Caloroso - Cal's Classics

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Still, #210 soldiered on until the very end. In the above photo the car is in the middle of a salvage train, possibly the the very last train on the S&NY to run prior to abandonment in 1942. In the end, per Kaseman, 210 was sold and ended up as a chicken coop near Newberry Junction, PA.

UPDATE 8/25/15:

“Train friend” and regular model SNY crew member Freed Lotte dug through his railroad library found this interesting bit of data excerpted from John H. White’s encyclopedic work “The American Railroad Passenger Car, Vol.1”:

“A ‘projecting roof’ was first used on horse drawn cars built by Richard Imlay of Philadelphia about 1835. They looked more like elongated stage coaches with a foundry ridge vent than rail cars. Imlay’s shop closed in 1840. The clerestory plan went into dormancy for 20 years until it was revived by Webster Wagner to improve ventilation in his sleeping cars. Wagner’s first clerestory roof was built in 1859. He called them ‘Monitor’ roof cars. They were operated on the New York Central and associated lines. The Hudson River RR extended the idea to coaches with the first 4 built in Aug 1860 by Eaton & Gilbert. Other RR mentioned are Michigan Central, Burlington, Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati. A lot of cars with arched roofs were converted to the style. The cramped, tunnel like appearance of the arched car roof gave way to the open dignity of a more spacious edifice. … at last a properly attired Victorian gentleman could stand erect, top hat and all.

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD, CLERESTORY ROOF CAR, 1862

The Pennsylvania Railroad began a program of standard passenger car design in 1862 with its class PA. This style of car was to be used system-wide and built to an exact common standard, whether it was constructed in the company shops or in a contract shop. The exact number produced has not been determined, but photographic evidence indicates that there were a great many PAs and that they were in service on nearly every portion of the system.

The design incorporated the most advanced styling elements of the period, including the clerestory roof. The short-lived Monitor plan was used, however. The body had a wide letter board, small, square windows, and batten-board sides. The platform canopies or hoods were made as separate structures and were not integrated with the roof—a peculiarity of construction common on the Pennsylvania until the end of wooden car construction. (See Figures 1.90 and 1.91.)”

PRR Class PA Fig 1.90

PRR Class PA Fig 1.91

Based on this information, I believe Bunk Car #210 almost certainly was originally constructed as a PRR class PA coach sometime in the mid to late 1860’s. This car could have been 80 years old at the time of S&NY abandonment in 1942. Too bad it could not have been preserved, but there was a war on, and new lumber for chicken coops was probably very hard to come by…

Talky Tuesday #29

Maintenance-of-Way car #210 is the subject of last weeks “WW #57”. See this post for more details about this ancient relic.

Wordless Wednesday #57

Bill Caloroso - Cal's Classics

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics