AHM Stock Car 1 of 6

[fishbelly]

This is the first of six cars to be completed. The other five are built, painted & decaled and only need to be weathered. Four of these cars have my freelanced road reporting marks on them and two have NISX reporting marks. One of the NISX cars is part of my nostalgic series and is a copy of an N-Scale car I had. That is why this series of cars is green.

The AHM car is "almost" a prototype. It does represent a NYC double deck stock car. Two things make it wrong. One is the car is to wide. Second it has the deck raising and lowering mechanism on both sides. It should only be on one side. If you are looking at the car side and the brake wheel is on the left, then the mechanism should be on the side facing you.

This car has an Accurail roofwalk and Accurail underframe and Tichy ladders.. The Brake wheel is a Kadee Ajax version. Couplers are also from Kadee. The trucks are 40 ton from Tahoe Model Works. Paint is Tamiya XF-26 Deep Green.

The decals are my own artwork printed by Highball Graphics. Since this car is part of my nostalgic series, I used the N-Scale car as reference for the car data and placement.

I am extremely happy with this car and look forward to finishing up the next five.

[grabirons]

Would like to see the other cars. Great work fixing up a train set car into a quality model.

[fishbelly]

Thanks grabirons. I will post them all as I finish each one.

[edwardsutorik]

That IS a very pretty car. You did good!

For a western modeler, it just feels so weird to see a New York Central stock car. What d'ya ship in them, stockbrokers?



Ed

[gevohogger]

Jan 31, 2021 20:09:13 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

That IS a very pretty car. You did good!

For a western modeler, it just feels so weird to see a New York Central stock car. What d'ya ship in them, stockbrokers?

Lawyers and Politicians.

[Christian]

Jan 31, 2021 20:09:13 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

For a western modeler, it just feels so weird to see a New York Central stock car. What d'ya ship in them, stockbrokers?

Stereotyping. New York State's largest industry is agriculture. It always has been. There is a large city at each end of the state that was established to get the agricultural products out of the state and into markets worldwide. Connecting those cities to the farms is/was an extensive net of canals, railroads, and drayage roads. Most of which followed Algonquin and Iroquois trading trails that predate the Europeans.

[westerntrains]

Many eastern road stock cars made it out west, just like the boxcars and flats did.

[bn7023]

It's a great job! My stuff changed only the wheels and couplers (my blog post). It is surprising that the width of the AHM body is as wide as 0.172". Did you fix it?

[fishbelly]

Feb 1, 2021 7:56:34 GMT -8 bn7023 said:

It's a great job! My stuff changed only the wheels and couplers (my blog post). It is surprising that the width of the AHM body is as wide as 0.172". Did you fix it?

No, no fixing the body. Used the car as is with a very minor modifications to help improve the "look" of the car.

[edwardsutorik]

Feb 1, 2021 5:55:50 GMT -8 Christian said:

Jan 31, 2021 20:09:13 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

For a western modeler, it just feels so weird to see a New York Central stock car. What d'ya ship in them, stockbrokers?

Stereotyping. New York State's largest industry is agriculture. It always has been. There is a large city at each end of the state that was established to get the agricultural products out of the state and into markets worldwide. Connecting those cities to the farms is/was an extensive net of canals, railroads, and drayage roads. Most of which followed Algonquin and Iroquois trading trails that predate the Europeans.

Thanks for pointing that out.

I figured they just mistakenly made them and stuck them in a long siding and never used them.

Now I see that they DID use them, just like other railroads.


Gotta stop doing that stereo thing.


Ed

[edwardsutorik]

Feb 1, 2021 7:29:03 GMT -8 westerntrains said:

Many eastern road stock cars made it out west, just like the boxcars and flats did.

I would surely like to learn more about that. So far, my experience with photos of stock cars in western trains shows mostly home road cars, plus maybe some neighboring roads.

Ed

[idgara]

The NewYork Central was in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan , and Illinois, so plenty of agricultural areas to move cattle and hogs to bigger stock yards. There are a few videos of Central freights hauling stock cars. Don’t forget, those cars have a build date of 1937, so easier to move by rail before interstates were constructed.

[edwardsutorik]

Feb 1, 2021 9:49:28 GMT -8 idgara said:

The NewYork Central was in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan , and Illinois, so plenty of agricultural areas to move cattle and hogs to bigger stock yards. There are a few videos of Central freights hauling stock cars. Don’t forget, those cars have a build date of 1937, so easier to move by rail before interstates were constructed.

I do know that NYC got "way over there", into even more farmland. While that's west of New York City, it's not so far west that the lefthand 2/3 of the country is included.

I think that the build date should be 1947, not 1937. The below linked photo shows a string of new cars in that year:

www.rr-fallenflags.org/nyc/nyc028091d19.jpg

Here's a closer look at the first car:

www.rr-fallenflags.org/nyc/nyc028091d20.jpg

Those cars look like the AHM car to me (showing the "clean" side--looks like you can see the vertical mechanism on the other side, through the slots).

Note the date of 5-47 up high on the side.

Of course, there could have been cars built just like these in 1937, too. I've got doubts about that, considering it's 10 years and a World War between. But maybe......



Ed

[fishbelly]

I always liked this car. It has a really stout look to it. I never had any reason to buy any of them until now though. My railroad runs bottom to top in Illinois. A friend I used to have who lives in southern Illinois mentioned that live stock was moved a lot down there. This finally gave me a reason to get the cars and letter them for my railroad which is partially owned (62%) and controlled by the NYC. Back in 1970, this was one of the cars that came with my very first N-Scale train set. Naturally with what I am doing I had to model it in HO. Two of the cars will be NISX of which one will be a copy of the N-Scale car. That is why all the cars have a 1937 build date on it. The N-Scale car did. The layout of the lettering on my cars is not prototype either if you compare the prototype photos posted to my car. That is OK though because again, it is a copy of the N-Scale car.

I could not have just one car so I bought eight of them. I think the most expensive one was $6.00. The least expensive was $1.00 I bought at a train show. One of them I bought to replace a car that was all busted up in shipping. Another I was going to see what it would take to turn the car into the prototype. To much work to make it worth it for me. One of the cars is done as you see here and the remaining five are on the paint bench to be weathered. I started the weathering on a second car today.

[edwardsutorik]

A string of those cars is going to look gorgeous!


Ed

[lvrr325]

Would you even know it was an AHM car if nobody told you? It looks great.

I would guess the body could be fixed but it would be major surgery, you might only be able to re-use the sides.

[alexandrianick]

The larger Jewish populations in major East Coast had a hand it in too. To meet the Kashrut requirements to render the meat kosher, there were large number of live animals heading into those metro areas instead of packaged meat. Eventually, trucking supplanted those movements too.

[edwardsutorik]

Feb 1, 2021 11:38:44 GMT -8 lvrr325 said:

Would you even know it was an AHM car if nobody told you? It looks great.

I would guess the body could be fixed but it would be major surgery, you might only be able to re-use the sides.

I think these cars are in the NYC 28000-28499 series--500 cars.

The dimensions of the prototype cars are exceptionally close to a USRA boxcar. The ends match. The roof is essentially the same, with maybe different batten spacing. Or not.

Rapido makes such a car. They even make one in New York Central, so you can be REALLY authentic (I'm assuming NYC made the stock cars from their old USRA's).

So you put the sides on a Rapido car. The question then is how much you fix up the sides? What I'd LIKE is new ladders and grabs, replace the cast-on lift rods and chains with separate, and of course do the "other" side correctly (see the linked photos).

A brief stint of work will be involved (Hah!).


Ed

[idgara]

My photo of car number 28000 shows a reblt date of 3/47 , no actual blt.date.
Its a great looking model, nice work.

[orangec]

Emery Gulash videos, NY-4 had "live ones on the head end and cold ones trailing."

[lvrr325]

Rapido and AHM parts on the same model, that would make some guys pass out and fall over.

[edwardsutorik]

I asked on the SP&S HS group page whether anyone had ever heard anything about a NYC stock car getting into our neck of the woods.

Our archivist posted a photo of just that: an NYC stock car in with a bunch of others, in 1948. Looks like Wishram, to me. It's NOT the AHM one, but close enough for me.

I'm gonna DO it! Well. START to do it. Which means wondering if I have one of these in the garage.

Aw, hell. I just went over to ebay and bought a nice NYC one. Might as well be authentic, eh? Now I've gotta find an NYC Rapido USRA box.


Ed

[idgara]

Ed,those stockcars were rebuilt from USRA boxcars, they were rebuilt in ‘47. You might try using an Accurail 4300 series boxcar for ends and roof, removing the cast on details, then use a standard Accurail under frame, and the AHM sides and carefully removing the detail from one side.

[westerntrains]

Feb 2, 2021 17:37:16 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

I asked on the SP&S HS group page whether anyone had ever heard anything about a NYC stock car getting into our neck of the woods.

Our archivist posted a photo of just that: an NYC stock car in with a bunch of others, in 1948. Looks like Wishram, to me. It's NOT the AHM one, but close enough for me.

I'm gonna DO it! Well. START to do it. Which means wondering if I have one of these in the garage.

Aw, hell. I just went over to ebay and bought a nice NYC one. Might as well be authentic, eh? Now I've gotta find an NYC Rapido USRA box.


Ed

I think in a past issue of RMC there is an article about using the Tichy Train USRA boxcar kit to kitbash the car. Might be easier than a Rapido car and cheaper too.

[edwardsutorik]

Thanks for the alternate source suggestions!


Ed

[bn7023]

If we use the USRA boxcar ends of the Tichy Train Group to narrow the body width, what is the part number? There are a lot of them on their parts list and I'm wondering which one to choose. By the way, does "rapido" mean N scale "Arnold Rapido"?

[edwardsutorik]

Feb 3, 2021 12:15:50 GMT -8 bn7023 said:

If we use the USRA boxcar ends of the Tichy Train Group to narrow the body width, what is the part number? There are a lot of them on their parts list and I'm wondering which one to choose.

It'll be a 5/5/5 end, so you're down to three of them. After that, I don't know. You should probably buy all of them, and use the ones that work. Then you'll have two sets left over for "other projects". They're only $3. I think for a pair, but not sure.

[quote}

By the way, does "rapido" mean N scale "Arnold Rapido"?

[/quote]

Not on an HO forum. It means the new-ish Canadian company that's of some significance in the HO field.



Ed

[bn7023]

Thank you for your answer, edwardsutorik. The gap between the expensive Rapido USRA 40' box car and the cheap AHM stock car was beyond my imagination. Is the Rapido's an improvement on the ex-ERTL tooling?



Reconfirming page 84-91 of the RMC Mar. 1997 issue, the width of the NYC stock car is 8'-9", so it seems that #3020 of the Tichy parts is applicable to. Well, like the author of the article, we can also truncate the middle by 1'-3" (HO scale). I wish we could be confident in the finish of the seams.

[edwardsutorik]

I suspect the Rapido is better than the Ertl. I've got a pile of the Rapido, and when the AHM shows, I will be checking dimensions. I also have some of the Ertl. I will also be comparing the amount of cast-on detail.

To me, the whole point of my operation is to do a near-superb NYC stock car. That means I want the best box car on which to affix the sides. But they also have to fit. Right now, the Rapido looks like the best choice. My model will definitely not be sporting cast grabs on the ends, like the Ertl.

The problem I saw with the dimensions of the Tichy ends is what the measurement is based on. What, on the prototype, IS 8'-9" wide? And, for the ends, what dimension is 8'-9"?

Most of this is going to get solved by seeing if tab A is a good fit in slot A. So I'll be wanting both parts in my paws.


Ed

[Christian]

Feb 3, 2021 12:15:50 GMT -8 bn7023 said:

By the way, does "rapido" mean N scale "Arnold Rapido?"

No connection. Nowadays "Rapido" refers to the Canadian company producing a wide range of rolling models, mostly HO scale. Some N scale.