guest post – Page 3 – Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads

Progress on the Lake Erie & Western

Ray Breyer recently sent photos of his layout progress. Since my Wheeling Freight Terminal is not set up, I figured it’s time for a layout feature. Ray is focused upon the First Subdivision, Peoria Division, Lake Erie & Western District of the Nickel Plate Road, circa 1929. Got that? Here’s Ray with some details and photos.

I spent a couple of weeks recently roughing in scenery, dropping feeders, and soldering joints on the layout. These photos document progress along a couple miles of mainline.

Southern Ventilated boxcars

A Southern ventilated boxcar can be seen in the lower right of this circa 1925 image. Keefer, Potomac Yards, Alexandria, Va. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/npc2008013406/>.

Fenton Wells has presented an interesting kitbash at a couple recent RPM meets. He shares his tips and techniques to transform an Accurail 36-foot boxcar into a Southern ventilated boxcar. Click on any image here to view a larger size.

Ventilated boxcars were once a common element of the freight car fleet. Several southeastern railroads had thousands of ventilated boxcars on their rosters to move fruits and vegetables from packing plants to wholesale grocers in northern areas. Distinctive screened doors and end vents set them apart from typical boxcars. Most of the ventilated boxcars were older cars of double-sheathed wood construction, thereby standing out all the more over the years as the national freight car fleet modernized with taller steel-sheathed cars.

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Assisting others: CNJ box car

In mid-February I received an email from a friend who was responding to a question from Alan Mende. Alan needed decal help to finish a box car project and I was added to the email response as a possible resource. Alan was lucky as I had a decal set on hand to send to him. Here’s Alan with more details.

I had scratchbuilt a Central Railroad of New Jersey box car from a plan published in the January 1972 issue of Model Railroader. The model reflects the pre-Safety Appliances appearance, which is why there is only one grab iron on the car side. I was planning to use a Clover House dry transfer set, but the HO versions were out of stock. What to do?

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Passenger Car kits

Harold Oakhill sent an update on recent passenger car projects from his workbench. We haven’t touched on passenger car models, but they were an important element of the railroads into the 1940s. Harold models the Ulster & Delaware in 1924 and passenger cars were extremely important to move people to the Catskill resorts. Here’s Harold with his update.

I recently finished a project I have been working on for several months. These passenger cars are a trio of Ambroid coach kits from the 1950s that my father began building in the early 1960s. I don’t know why he never finished them, but I remember taking them out and looking at them from time to time as a kid. Mom sent them to me a few years ago (Dad has been gone ten years now) and I decided it was time to finish them.

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New Haven steel coal gondolas

Fellow Pre-Depression Era modeler Dave Parker has sent notes on a recent resin freight car kit build. Click on any image here to review a larger size. Here’s Dave’s story.

In 1929, the New York, New Haven and Hartford received 500 class GA-2 gondolas from the Pressed Steel Car Company. These all-steel, drop-bottom gons had an inside length of 40 feet, and were numbered in the 58000-58499 series. Based on my collection of Official Registers, 496 remained in service as of 1945, but by 1955 this number had dwindled to 276 cars, and all had been rebuilt as solid-floor cars (GB classification). At some intermediate date, probably about 1950, the 58000 series apparently contained a mix of original and rebuilt cars, but I do not own an ORER that gives the exact numbers.

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