Research – Page 7 – Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads

Digital image resources

Madison, NJ, 1913. — Madison, New Jersey, 1913. Click here to view the original scan.
This image is from the Railfan.net Erie Lackawanna Email List Photo Archive.

The last couple of posts have focused on resources available here on the blog to assist modelers with a focus on 1920s and 1930s freight car fleets. While enjoying my morning coffee, I was reviewing images on a photo archive and realized how much I’ve learned from this resource and realized it hasn’t been promoted as much as other sites. There are great photo archives available on line with thousands of images that date to the first four decades of the Twentieth Century. The Library of Congress has a Mother Lode of images, many of which have been enhanced and posted at the Shorpy site. Several cities and libraries have extensive online digital archives; the Denver Public Library, Historic Pittsburgh, Cleveland Memory Project, West Virginia History on View, and the Vancouver Public Library, to name a few.

The Erie Lackawanna Railroad Historical Society has been posting several images a day from an extensive negative collection for the last few years. The images were taken in the Teens by a company photographer to document accident scenes and places along the right-of-way. Many images capture the railroad traversing a rural scene, while others show the hum and bustle of a small town or larger city. Vintage freight cars can be seen in many of these photos, along with vintage signs, homes, commercial structures, and industries. For a modeler of the Teens through the 1940s, the images are pure gold as they are filled with details that can be implemented along our model right-of-ways and towns. The images are like a window back in time that offer a glimpse of homes and small industries before they were leveled as towns grew with population increases. It was a time when the railroads were moving goods to serve communities and transport people to places near and far. Anytime I view images like these, an old indie rock tune, “Places That Are Gone,” by Tommy Keene starts playing in my head.

The details seen on many of these images inspire our hobby efforts no matter the scale, era, or gauge of our model railroads. I encourage you to visit the Erie Lackawanna Photo Archive regularly and make new discoveries among these century old photos.

20151023_second — Hallstead, Penna., 1913. Click here to view the original scan.
This image is from the Railfan.net Erie Lackawanna Email List Photo Archive.

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Another resource update

20151016_plasticfleet — A few of the plastic HO scale freight car models in the Wheeling Freight Terminal fleet.

I started this blog in May 2009 after moving to a new home and city, and starting a new layout. I had been focused on modeling 1926 since 2005 and met a few other railroad modelers with interests pre-dating World War Two and the Depression. At some point in 2012, a discussion about HO scale freight cars led to creating a guide to plastic freight car models appropriate for a 1920s layout. These discussions ended up as a separate page here which has become a resource for many people who model the 1920s and 1930s. Over time, this resource page has become one of the most visited pages and posts on this blog. Each week when I check the blog statistics, the guide to 1920s era freight cars is among the top five.

As it has been a few years since the page was launched, it was ripe for an update. There have been some new models from Broadway Limited, MTH, and Tangent, as well as a sweet announcement from Rapido. There have also been changes as Red Caboose was bought by Intermountain, so a few notes have been added. The updated page remains at the same location. You can also find the link in the menu along the right side of the main blog page. I think we are set for another couple of years.

Post a comment below and let me know what you think. What is missing?

USRA freight car data

In 1917, the US government formed the United States Railway Administration to control the nations railroads during World War One. In that process, several freight car designs were approved and 100,000 cars were built and assigned to many US railroads. These five USRA freight car designs ushered in standardized freight car design for many railroads and made up about four to five percent of the overall national freight car fleet in the 1920s and 1930s.

Models of these prototypes have been available in several scales for model railroaders. The USRA freight cars have been frequently noted in the hobby press and several articles have been published over the years. Many of these articles reference a 1973 historical summary published by James E. Lane. This has been out of print for years and many of the magazine articles that referenced Lane’s work are also out of print.

As a resource for all model railroaders, I have transcribed the data from Lane’s work into tables for easy reference. This is available as the USRA Freight Car Assignments page of this blog for easy access. The information presented on that page reflects the USRA assignments which differed from the original USRA allotments. Read through the opening paragraphs to gain an understanding of these terms.

I hope readers will enjoy these details and use the USRA Freight Car Assignments page to further their prototype modeling efforts.

Scratchbuilding a Shed

Building models using a minimum of commercial parts or set directions is often referred to as scratchbuilding. Anyone who is building a model railroad that closely follows a specific prototype location will need to scratchbuild a number of structures to capture the look and feel of the real place. In some cases, commercial models can be modified and altered to represent an actual structure but those instances are infrequent. Scratchbuilding has challenged many model railroaders over the years. The fear of failing or messing up a project inhibits many modelers. I think all model railroaders should attempt at least one scratchbuilt structure. I recently finished two small buildings and learned new skills in the process. Click on any image here to review a large size. Let’s take a look at one of these projects.

Continue reading “Scratchbuilding a Shed”

Some thoughts on the Westerfield models line

I have re-posted a Westerfield resin freight car kit models guide as a blog page. The link for this is on the right side of the main blog page, just under the search box. You can also jump to it at the end of this post.

Before you check out the page, please note that I created this to guide my personal freight car fleet based upon the Westerfield line. I created a set of parameters a few years ago in order to determine Westerfield kits that were best for me to invest cash, and eventually, build time. Here are those parameters.

The setting is an eastern urban railroad prototype, circa 1926. When this was originally created, I was modeling a segment of the Wheeling & Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. I hope to return to that inspiration on a future layout.
Freight car designs with a minimum of 8000 cars produced were highly considered, or if it was a distinctive car with several thousand produced, like the PRR X23.
If a freight car model is available as an injection molded plastic kit, then a Westerfield model would be dropped off of list consideration.

Setting parameters can help you focus on building a freight car fleet that will mesh with other components of your model railroad. Every layout will be different, so set your fleet needs accordingly and work from there.

With these thoughts in mind, enjoy your exploration of a quick guide to Westerfield Models for a 1920s model railroad.