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

Shawmut Boxcars

Fellow 1920s modeler Perry Squier recently sent details on his expanding HO scale Shawmut boxcar fleet. Here are his notes and photos.

Ray Breyer’s recent summary of freight cars with truss rod ends caught my interest. The Pittsburg Shawmut & Northern had several boxcars with these unique details in the 8700, 8800, and 8900 series that lasted well beyond the year I model, 1923. A 1904 AC&F builder image of #8700 leads this feature. I wanted to build several of them and needed a source for the underframe. I’ll scratch build the car body to get as close as possible to the prototype.

Prototype inside stake wood gondolas

Prototype gondola designs ran the gamut with wood and steel components. These cars were everywhere in the early 20th century and had many different features. Steve Hedlund has gathered details for an inside stake wood gondola review. This design was popular with a number of railroads. The Missouri Pacific rostered 6,000 of these at one time. Steve covers several other railroads plus a few gondolas that look similar but had slight differences. Westerfield Models offers an HO scale kit for this type of gondola.

This resource PDF document is available on the Freight Car Fleets page. We hope you find it useful to add a couple more gondolas to the fleet.

Many thanks to Steve Hedlund for this fine prototype car review.

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Workbench Update – August and September 2020

Yup, this report was filed late. Let’s catch up on a few models that have been moving along.

Truss Rod end freight cars

It’s time for another freight car resource file. Ray Breyer has compiled information on truss rod end freight cars. We think of truss rods supporting freight car underframes but they were also used in other applications. Ray presents lots of photos and data covering these uses in a handy document.

Ray’s resource PDF is available on the Freight Car Fleets page. We hope modelers find it useful to build early wood boxcars for their fleets. We have more railroad fleet data and details coming soon.

Many thanks to Ray for pulling the data and images into one document.

Thank you for visiting the blog. You can share a comment in the section below. Follow the instructions so your comment can be posted. All comments are reviewed and approved before they appear. Please share the blog link with other model railroaders. To subscribe to this blog, add your email address to the function at the bottom of the right column on the main page.

Workbench update – May 2020

It’s been a busy hobby month, as travel beyond home has been reduced. I’ve seen many modelers share their recent work over the last month. I’ve snapped images of a few models that have been on the workbench recently.