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Post by bn7023 on Feb 8, 2021 11:03:45 GMT -8
While the 40-foot cars are often talked about, the 50-foot cars are unpopular. The reason may be that they don't have a specific prototype. Meanwhile, on the site of the AT&SF Historical Society, I found a description that it was SP Class S-70-1. According to the SP fan site, it is 86 feet long. It said that the photo is there on "Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Vol. 1, by Anthony W. Thompson". I wondered if I could do something with the some cars I had, but it didn't work. Has anyone experienced it? Is it a stockyard fence? The brass model is an NP Pig Palace car.
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Post by upcsx on Feb 8, 2021 12:59:53 GMT -8
I have three of them had them for over 40 years the only reason I kept them is because they look modern.
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Post by Colin 't Hart on Feb 8, 2021 13:45:27 GMT -8
One serious error is obvious with the diagonal roof panels: they're mirrored from what they would be on such a roof. Diagonal panel roofs should have the wide end on the right when viewing the car side-on. Here's a prototype example that NACC/PWRS published recently:
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Post by gevohogger on Feb 8, 2021 13:55:54 GMT -8
One serious error is obvious with the diagonal roof panels: they're mirrored from what they would be on such a roof. Diagonal panel roofs should have the wide end on the right when viewing the car side-on. Here's a prototype example that NACC/PWRS published recently: Even more so than that: in that photo, they are arranged vertically. Perpendicular to the right-of-way. Up and down.
Thanks, I'll be here all week!
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Post by mvlandsw on Feb 8, 2021 14:46:31 GMT -8
I have thought of splicing them to make an 86' version. The B&O used to run Food Fair 86' cars on the head end of trailer trains. The spliced cars could be a sort of low grade stand-in.
Mark Vinski
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Post by cemr5396 on Feb 8, 2021 16:07:25 GMT -8
Interesting to see and hear of the various very large stock cars running stateside, up here in the Great White North CN and CP ran steam-era 40' stock cars right to the very end. I believe they stopped hauling livestock in the early 80's, but by then most of it had gone to trucks anyways.
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Post by edwardsutorik on Feb 8, 2021 16:24:24 GMT -8
The AHM car under discussion is a version of SP 78000-78001. The length and height of the prototype cars is exactly the same as an 86' hi-cube box car (IL 86'-6", EXH 17'-0"). Here's a link with more info: www.railgoat.railfan.net/spcars/byclass/stock/s070-01.htmThe link on the above page doesn't seem to be working. Try this one: espee.railfan.net/sp_fcss-18.htmlThere are 5 photos of SP 78001 in Tony Thompson's "Southern Pacific Freight Cars Volume 1: Gondolas and Stock Cars". The roof does not have any impressed diagonal stamp patterns. There are only standing seams, and a roofwalk. The horizontal "planking" of the sides is actually stamped steel channel, with the open side facing outwards. These cars appear to have been the only stock cars that could carry two decks of cattle, which makes one of these cars equivalent in capacity to 4 regular stock cars. I don't have one of these models handy. I am curious about the height of the car above the railtops. It looks to be too low to me. Ed
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Post by bn7023 on Feb 8, 2021 17:28:39 GMT -8
edwardsutorik, the information is amazing. I cut and connected the image. With 14 panels between the doors, the body length changed from 50-ft to 75-ft. How about something like this?
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Post by edwardsutorik on Feb 8, 2021 17:51:06 GMT -8
edwardsutorik, the information is amazing. I cut and connected the image. With 14 panels between the doors, the body length changed from 50-ft to 75-ft. How about something like this? It's certainly a lot closer to the real ones. I think it depends on how "picky" you're gonna be. It's NOT an accurate model. It DOES feel real similar, and is/would be a real improvement. It all depends on what suits ya. Ed
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Post by Colin 't Hart on Feb 9, 2021 3:27:41 GMT -8
edwardsutorik, the information is amazing. I cut and connected the image. With 14 panels between the doors, the body length changed from 50-ft to 75-ft. How about something like this? Captures the look, I reckon. Since so many other details are inaccurate anyway, I'd be inclined to take all of the panels with diagonal bracing -- that will get you close to the 86' length.
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Post by stevewagner on Feb 9, 2021 6:53:09 GMT -8
I'll try to link a photo of one of the stock cars used by Cross Bros. Packing Co. of Philadelphia. These very definitely were used to carry cattle, not hogs, because the firm was a kosher slaughterhouse. Cars like these with Cross Brothers lettering were mass produced in styrene in N scale, but not in HO. Other packers also had them, making what was published in the February 2021 Trains in answer to a reader's question about the Northern Pacific "Pig Palace" cars a few issues ago inaccurate. www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fconrailphotos.thecrhs.org%2Fphotos%2F86-stock-cars-heading-to-cross-brothers-at-frankford-jct&psig=AOvVaw2kmEhmVzeKugCD-SiTHs9E&ust=1612968422889000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCMiix-GF3e4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABADThe link apparently works. If it's not proper to link a copyrighted photo here, I what follows will be allowed to remain.. It's what I wrote on this subject in a column of media reviews, as printed in the March 2021 issue of the Bridge Line Historical Society Bulletin , which reached my house last Saturday, February 6. I found the printed response to the first “Ask Trains” question inadequate, as I explained in this letter I will send to the magazine’s editor [which so far I've been unsuccessful in sending -- SW, 2/9/2021: “The February Trains reached my mailbox this afternoon. “I suspect that the Pig Palace cars Ortner Freight Car built for the Northern Pacific in 1970 may have been taller than the first such car the NP itself built, which is what the photo printed in the magazine shows. “I know for a fact that Cross Brothers Meat Packers, Inc., of Philadelphia, PA had very similar cars, which, unlike the car shown in Trains, had no rooftop running board and a flatter roof. A good color photo can be found in the O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum.; the firm's reporting marks were CBPX. The same source also shows what look like identical cars, one lettered for Rochester Independent Packer Inc., reporting marks RPX. “Cross Bros. dated back to 1920 and finally closed in 1979. The big stock cars may have been designed to haul hogs, but Cross. Bros. was a kosher slaughterer and received shipments of live cattle, not porkers, at a big plant adjacent to the Pennsy’s New York Division in the city’s Kensington section. The company’s herald, featured on the big red cars and various advertising items, including at least a meat thermometer and a clock, portrays a steer that looks me like a Hereford, though, having grown up in Philly and one of its adjacent suburbs, I'm far from expert on breeds of bovines.” I added more in an email to in an email to BLHS member Dan Hulitt, who has even more memories of the grocery business in the Philadelphia area than I do, since he worked for a produce distributor and has farming experience in both New Jersey and Minnesota: “I was sure I'd seen some in Philly at least as big, and I was right, though they hauled cattle, not pigs or hogs, although they may have been designed to transport porkers. . . . (I actually remember seeing a Cross Brothers sign near a Lummis Peanuts -- or Peanut Butter -- sign from the right side Market-Frankford Subway-El trains after they took the sharp underground left turn off Market Street and started coming up onto the El at Front Street, but that may have been just an ad.) The big stock cars, at least, served a large facility at Front and Venango. “I’m pretty sure that a model railroad supplier made plastic models of the Cross Bros. cars in N scale; I don't think they've ever been mass produced in HO. “I knew [the heavyweight boxer] Joltin’ Joe Frazier worked for a while in the 1960s at Cross Brothers. Back then I imagined him as hitting the steers in the forehead with a sledge hammer before I learned that the firm was kosher and that knocking an animal out before slaughtering it wouldn't have been permitted.” Here’s an excerpt from the online Wikipedia article on “Stock Car (Rail)”, which as of January 7 didn’t cite any sources: “In the 1960s, the Ortner Freight Car Company of Cincinnati, Ohio developed a triple-deck hog carrier for the Northern Pacific Railway based on [NP’s] design of [an] 86-foot . . . long “hi-cube” boxcar called the “Big Pig Palace.” They later brought out a double-deck version called the “Steer Palace” that hauled livestock between Chicago and later Kansas City to slaughterhouses in Philadelphia and northern New Jersey until the early to mid-1980s on Penn Central and Conrail intermodal trains.” Again, Cross Bros. closed for good in 1979. An article on some of the last shipments of livestock by mail in Railroad Model Craftsman some years back indicated that railroaders often disliked working with stock cars, particularly those carrying swine, especially if they had to go underneath the cars to work on their brake system components. If the hogs got upset . . .
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Post by gevohogger on Feb 9, 2021 8:10:32 GMT -8
“I’m pretty sure that a model railroad supplier made plastic models of the Cross Bros. cars in N scale; I don't think they've ever been mass produced in HO. . . . I sense an opportunity in the marketplace for the next Tangent car.
Watch your email notifications so you get your orders in before they sell out!
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Post by edwardsutorik on Feb 9, 2021 10:41:19 GMT -8
Thank you, Steve, for bringing up these "other" cars. They are new to me. Regarding the NP 85' (nominal) stock cars: NP made one home-built car, 84200, apparently by splicing two 40' cars together (and adding 5'). The IH was 4-11, 4-11 (two decks) and the EXH was 14-8. The car appears in the October 1966 ORER, but does NOT appear in January 1965 or April 1968. NP ordered similar cars, 84300-84321, from Ortner. The IH was 5-2, 5-5 and EXH was 15-0. I think it's POSSIBLE NP built these from Ortner kits. These cars are in the October 1966 ORER, but without a quantity showing. At least some of them were eventually turning into tie cars by BN: www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=647014Regarding the Cross Brothers (85') stock cars: First, it should be noted that these are NOT a match for the NP cars (which had no diagonals) or the SP cars (which had diagonals, but not in an X pattern). It appears General American built these cars. They leased them out under their own reporting marks as GASX 100000-100039. The Cross Brothers cars had reporting marks of CBPX, but it appears the cars are all the same. Perhaps their lease had different terms, or perhaps they bought theirs. There was also an RIPX. Maybe more. The cars had an IH of 5-8, 5-6, and an EXH of 15-6. CBPX (date and location incorrect): www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1808547GASX: www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1670889The NP cars were blatantly pig cars, as they were named (Big Pig Palace) on each side. Twice. And included a picture of an exceptionally happy pig. They could also transport lambs, sheep, calves and goats. But it appears they were of insufficient height to be called Big Steer Palaces. The General American cars had an increased internal height of 6" and 1". I am wary of assuming steers were carried in these cars, though I know little about variations in steer height. Or steer loading. The SP cars had an increased internal height of 18" and 7" over the NP cars (12" and 6" over the GASX cars). I can't see why SP would have made these cars taller than "normal" unless they felt they would benefit. Hence my belief that they were definitely designed for full size cattle. I am surprised that most of these cars had non-matching heights for the two internal levels (NP 84200 being the exception). I thought I'd add in a shot of one of my favorite stock cars: www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3861901GN 157000-157025. These were also splicing two 40' cars together, but they're only 60' long. "Stubbies". Ed
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Post by thejadefog on Mar 23, 2021 6:19:14 GMT -8
Good morning all,
I have made some of these Cross Bros stock cars exactly as outlined above, but made them to be about 85/86 feet long.
And following the tongue-in cheek nature of model railroading I added a few details not found on the prototype:
And with a fellow railroader who follows Green Bay Packers, I made this foobie
I couldn't find this photo again to simply link it here, but here is the prototype in action during the Penn Central years
And almost forgotten to time- the wreckage of the Cross Brothers packing plant moldering away in Philly at the corner of West Venango and North Front Street.
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Post by edwardsutorik on Mar 23, 2021 6:40:42 GMT -8
Excellent!
Thanks for showing the "theory" turning to reality.
Ed
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Post by TBird1958 on Mar 23, 2021 7:28:12 GMT -8
Great work on those cars! Wow!
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Post by thejadefog on Mar 23, 2021 8:11:06 GMT -8
Thank you very much everyone. I stumbled through the backdoor here actually in looking for a photo of the AHM stock cars to show a friend who has commissioned one or two for his home road. So to the flea market and bandsaw I go!
I like the work I see here on this board, but my level of modeling is a notch or two below the standard here, but I am sure from time to time some of my serious and ridiculous creations will show up for comment, critique and outright belly laughs.
No harm in that.
The Jade Fog refers to my penchant and zeal for Penn Central and I am happy to see that venerable old line show up here from time to time, particularly in some new product advertisements.
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Post by lvrr325 on Mar 23, 2021 9:01:05 GMT -8
And almost forgotten to time- the wreckage of the Cross Brothers packing plant moldering away in Philly at the corner of West Venango and North Front Street.
And now you have a full scale prototype for all your backdrop buildings that are just a wall with nothing behind them.
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Post by bn7023 on Mar 23, 2021 9:20:14 GMT -8
Oh! Great modeling! Outstanding design! And sure execution power! My knowledge of Pratt truss got in the way and I got into a dead end and stopped thinking. Our big challenge is how to be free from the curse while sharing the image of the prototype. This might sound bossy to you.
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Post by slowfreight on Mar 23, 2021 10:54:45 GMT -8
Green Bay, Michigan?
Really?
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Post by thejadefog on Mar 23, 2021 11:21:34 GMT -8
Some decal printers won't print anything remotely associated to a trademark. I have a great PAC-man theme reefer in the works and can't find a commercial printer to touch the file.
So Green Bay moved to... Michigan!
There has to be a steer herd or two there?
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Post by stevewagner on Mar 23, 2021 11:25:18 GMT -8
Tuesday, March 23, 2021 about 3:25 p.m., EDT
A belated Happy Spring to everyone! I just noticed excellent posts on this thread that I hadn't seen before. Thanks and congratulations to all of the recent posters!
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Post by keystonefarm on Mar 23, 2021 17:35:10 GMT -8
Good morning all, I have made some of these Cross Bros stock cars exactly as outlined above, but made them to be about 85/86 feet long. And following the tongue-in cheek nature of model railroading I added a few details not found on the prototype: And with a fellow railroader who follows Green Bay Packers, I made this foobie I couldn't find this photo again to simply link it here, but here is the prototype in action during the Penn Central years And almost forgotten to time- the wreckage of the Cross Brothers packing plant moldering away in Philly at the corner of West Venango and North Front Street.
Where did you get the Cross Brothers Decals
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Post by thejadefog on Mar 23, 2021 17:48:28 GMT -8
I cheated. By trade I am a graphic designer and work in t-shirts and all the promotional swag that companies like to toss out. So after work I come home plop in front of a creaky old Mac and dive back designing my own creations. It comes in as a handy skill to make my own looney cars such as this or this, at least a little more believable... I've tinkered with DIY inkjet decals but they are always an iffy proposition and very fiddly to work with. I usually wait till I have a few projects that I can jam onto a commercially printed decal sheet to keep the per car cost low.
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Post by stevewagner on Mar 23, 2021 18:00:29 GMT -8
You realize, I hope, that as a kosher operation Cross Brothers couldn't have sold cheese steaks sandwiches! But it's all in good fun.
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Post by thejadefog on Mar 23, 2021 18:16:35 GMT -8
That's true, but I suspect some of their beef made it to Pat's or Geno's steakhouses there in Philly.
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Post by lvrr325 on Mar 23, 2021 20:49:03 GMT -8
I wonder if Fishbelly could make one of those giant 3 dome tank cars look like something realistic. Maybe using the bolsters out of a heavy duty 8 axle flat car....
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Post by fishbelly on Mar 24, 2021 5:49:31 GMT -8
I kind of like the trucks that are on that three done car. I think they look appropriate.
I do like it and next time at a train show. I will pick one up for a couple bucks.
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Post by fishbelly on Mar 24, 2021 5:55:43 GMT -8
I like that Havaline Rail Co. car too. Not so crazy about the Blue Moon Route logo, but I like the rest of the car.
So what is a Blue Moon Route? A route that is very seldom traveled?
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Post by thejadefog on Mar 24, 2021 6:17:10 GMT -8
Fishbelly- the tanker is the "classic" Tyco triple dome and I've seen some rebuilds that make them look less fantasy land. They're climbing in price and generally command $10-20 at shows, but often are missing the Buckeye trucks. There is one decorated for Sohio and that runs $50 or more since it's a rare bird. If you find one for under $20, please pm me!
The Blue Moon is as you guessed- only run once in a great while.
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