A Photo and a Story

 

E. M Bittner

This image (click on it to see a larger view) is an ebay purchase. It's a vintage Ektachrome slide that given the decades and Ekta's propensity for color shifting, is actually in tremendous shape. I did little to adjust the color. About the image... as one can see, Yankee Stadium is in the background. The waterway in front is the Harlem River, a strait between the Hudson and East Rivers, separating upper Manhattan from The Bronx. There are two businesses behind the tracks. The one at left is a food distributor and likely the reason for the five food-related cars on the track. From left are an Atlantic Coast Line ventilated box car, a Pacific Fruit Express reefer, a Seaboard Air Line ventilated box car, a Santa Fe reefer, and another ACL ventilated box car. 

It is the business at right that yielded an interesting story. It is Hans Holterbosch. I did a little sleuthing and found the following obituary for H. Dieter Holterbosch:

"Born on July 26, 1921 in Dusseldorf, Germany to Marta and Hans Holterbosch, he immigrated to the United States with his parents and sister at the age of five. Raised in Manhattan, NY, he attended Columbia Prep and then went on to attend Penn State University. He served his adopted country proudly in the Coast Guard during World War II, stationed primarily in Brussels. A self-made man, he built a business empire in the years following the war that included running a family vineyard, importing and building the Lowenbrau* beer brand and starting the largest beer distributorship of major brands in New York State. A life long connoisseur of the fine and rare, he was known for his innate good taste. His first major collection of European royal carriages became the foundation of the permanent collection at the Museums at Stony Brook. He subsequently amassed one of the world's finest private collections of vintage automobiles. Recognized as a respected authority on vintage cars, he served as the chief Mercedes judge at the Concours d'Elegance at Pebble Beach for 20 years. A wonderful raconteur, he was known by his friends and colleagues for his integrity, generosity and great good humor."

Back to the photo... while it's grainy and not too sharp, I was drawn to the pallets and kegs in front of the building that would make a good detailing addition to a similar scale model scene. This scene could be replicated for many different sizes of towns, from the modest track holding five cars, to the vehicles, and the buildings themselves along with their details.

*If you watched any television in the late 70s and 80s, you are familiar with the "Tonight, let it be Lowenbrau" advertisements. Here is an example.

More on the Green Bay & Western Single Sheathed Cars

Will Whittaker photo

Awhile back, I posted about the similarities between the Milwaukee and Green Bay & Western forty-foot single sheathed automobile cars. I was perusing more photos of the GB&W fleet and found similar cars. Both the GB&W and sister Kewaunee, Green Bay & Western rostered 10'0" inside height single sheathed box cars that are obviously based upon the auto car design built by Bettendorf. The cars incorporated an additional sheathing panel and diagonal structural member to the left of the door and dispensed with the stiffening channel section below the side sill in the center of the car, but are otherwise extremely similar/identical to the auto cars. The cars were in the KGB 5500 series and the GBW 8100 series, all built by Bettendorf in 1930. These are yet another group of cars that can be rolled into the auto car project

Tom Klinger Collection

Speedwitch Media update

It’s been awhile since I have communicated about the state of affairs at Speedwitch. As some of you no doubt recall, I had planned to have the Milwaukee 50’ single sheathed auto cars released some time during the past winter with other projects to follow. Unfortunately, as you have surmised, that did not happen. The castings to support that launch never materialized from the provider. I parted ways and have finally received all my patterns and masters back. That ends one journey, but another begins…

For as long as I have been in the resin kit and parts business, an adequate supply of castings has been my number one, two, and three challenges. With that in mind, I have decided to begin to make my own castings. I am fully aware that there will be a learning curve. That means that for the immediate future, there will be no new kit or part releases and in the near term (hopefully, limited to about six months) the only new things will be flat cast items, e.g. parts sets and perhaps a flat car or two. I expect it will be a minimum of 6-12 months before I can reliably produce one-piece bodies using closed molds.

That’s the less than good news. The silver lining is that I have several projects sitting here that require duplication of patterns (e.g. flat castings) to be assembled into one-piece bodies. That means that 2025 could see a bumper crop of new releases. Stay tuned… the ride will likely be akin to an old rollercoaster… bumpy in some places, thrilling in others, and hopefully, fast once we crest the first climb! 

What’s available as I type this? Mostly books:

• UTLX Steam Era Tank Cars
• Revised Steam Era Freight Cars Reference Manual Vol. 3: Refrigerator Cars
  
• The American Railway Association Standard Box Car of 1932
• Prototype Railroad Modeling
  
• Vol. 1
• Vol. 2
• Vol. 3
• Vol. 4
• Focus on Freight Cars 
  
• Vol. 1: Single Sheathed Box & Auto Cars
• Vol 2: Double Sheathed Box & Auto Cars
• Vol. 3: Refrigerator Cars
• Prototype Railroad Profiles

One other thing of note… I have been following the builds by several people of the 40’ CNW PS-1 auto car and SP A-50-11 auto car kits. I am 100% aware that some of the details are quite fiddly. I am working to make changes on future releases that will include jigs and such to ease assembly as well as provide alternate media for those who want to build the kits, but are ok with details that are not 100% representative of prototype, but are markedly easier to add to the models during constructions. Thanks for all the feedback!

P.S. I will post about the building of the MILW 50’ auto car at my blog here as things progress. I managed to get it about 75% complete and then pushed it to the side as it became apparent that the promises of castings being shipped were not genuine.

Pennsylvania Railroad X41B - Brake Equipment

Siding near Maclay St., Harrisburg, PA, Oct. 19, 1947, Bob Charles Collection, NMRA

While it has been mostly a few minutes here and there as opposed to a long productive session, I have managed to add the AB brake equipment to the Sunshine Models X41B box car that I updated several weeks ago. The location of the equipment was based primarily upon photos from the sides of cars, as I didn't have a brake arrangement (and while it is available from the Pennsylvania State Archives, I did not feel it necessary as I could obtain the majority of what I needed from photos.) 

I included the photo above to illustrate a couple points. The waviness of the welded panels is rendered extremely well in this photo. The other interesting detail is that this car was not equipped with a Royal Type F brake regulator. From this, I would assume that some groups of cars received them and others did not. Note that this car is assigned to grain service.

To simulate the equipment, I used the following:

• Tichy AB brake set
• Tichy phosphor bronze wire (0.010", 0.012", 0.015", and 0.020")
• Royal Type F brake regulator from Shapeways (no longer available through Shapeways given its demise; Kadee has a nice part from their PS-1 underframe)
• Pipe "tee" from Tom Madden part
• mounting brackets, etc., created from excess etched metal "frets"
• A-Line 40 links/inch chain

I have included more photos than is probably necessary, but I wanted to provide plenty of different views to so the details are visible from many angles to help those following along

The bracket for the cylinder was created from spare fret material from a sheet of etchings

The mounting brackets for the reservoirs are from the same fret material, trimmed and bent as shown. For all of these, I used Barge cement thinned with MEK as the main adhesive, followed by some ACC to firm things

The main brake components were also installed with the Barge cement mix followed by ACC, except for the Royal Type F brake regulator, which was attached with only ACC.

The pipes between the brake components were simulated with 0.012" wire, except for the pipe between the dirt collector and trainline tee, which is 0.015" wire. All the parts were pre-drilled prior to installation on the underframe, to accept the wire

The photos tell most of the story. The clevises and brake levers are etched parts that are actually held together with a piece of 0.010" wire that passes through holes in each, simulating the prototype. There are still some rivets and nut-bolt-washer castings that will be added after the model has been gritblasted to prep for painting. One detail I omitted (that could have been added fairly easily but would now be extremely difficult) is the "handle" that should be on the brake lever in the Royal adjuster, extending out to the right in the photo directly above. The photo below (from a different prototype and oriented as if inside a car body looking down) illustrates how the "handle" would appear.

Up next are the ladders, grabs, steps, and end details....

Some Sunshine pics

 

Many years ago (over 20!!!) when I created, ran, updated, and managed the Steam Era Freight Cars site, I would receive notices from manufacturers and add that info to the site. Times being what they were, I uploaded relatively tiny images along with the text. I was recently searching for something on an old hard drive and came across some very high resolution scans that I had made of dupe slides that were sent to me by Martin Lofton of Sunshine Models. They were shot by him on what I believe was a photo module. Regardless, good images of completed Sunshine kits can be rare, so I thought it might be good to share those here in a higher resolution format than years ago. You can click on any image for a larger view. Note that some of these cars have been re-released by Resin Car Works (although may be out of production at the moment, but can be found via the secondhand markets, either in their Sunshine or RCW iterations.) Enjoy!

Pennsylvania X41B Underframe

 

The (mostly) finished underframe, as described in the following text with photos

In my last post, I discussed my recent clinic for the Philadelphia Chapter of the PRRT&HS. Part of that presentation was about modeling PRR welded box and auto cars and specifically, the work begun on a Sunshine X41B. This post continues that. The focus of this post is the underframe, which is scratchbuilt and relies heavily upon etchings. The images herein provide a mostly step-by-step look at how I replicated the X41B underframe, continuing what had been presented in the clinic. Note that the X41C underframe, shown via photograph in the clinic file, was quite similar, with the difference being that the X41C substituted pressed steel crossties (which can be seen herein and will be noted as such) in place of the two center crossbearers located under the door posts on the X41B, meaning the B had four crossbearers while the C had two.

The image above (all images can be seen in a larger format by clicking on them) was recorded after all the stringers between the bolsters and the four main pairs crossbearers were added. The flanges of the center sills, 0.010" x 0.060" strip styrene were also attached, completing the center sill sections between the bolsters. Note that the crossbearer sections that are located where there are separate side sill support tabs extend past the edge of the floor. This is because these will tie directly into the channel shape of the etched tab sections.

These two images provide other views at the same stage as the photo referenced previously. One interesting (and cool to this freight car geek) thing is the difference in "height" of the stringers between the crossbearers (five scale inches) versus the stringers between the crossbearers and bolsters (three scale inches.) The difference is quite pronounced and shown to good advantage in the photo below. Note that the floor had not been glued into the body (yet!) at the time of these photos.

The floor had a slight bow to it from end to end. In addition, it was necessary to tack the floor into the body, yet leave the areas away from the center of the car "free" in order to ensure proper orientation of the crossbearers and their corresponding side sill support tabs. I carefully secured the center portion of the floor into the carbody with ACC, in the area highlighted in the graphic shown above. This served to secure the floor into the body, yet allowed some "play" to adjust the alignment of the floor relative to the carbody when securing the outer crossbearers and their tab segments.

The preceding three images illustrate how the crossbearers and the tab side sill support sections are integrated and attached. The beauty of the etchings is that they are thin enough in profile to accurately mimic the prototype and yet are still quite durable. Again, note that the ends of these crossbearers extend past the bottom of the side to nest into the channel of the tab.

The crossties were created by drawing the basic shapes with fold lines in the appropriate spots for etching. These came out exactly as planned, nesting into the center sill flanges and clearing the stringers. The ones between the side sill support section in the center of the car required some shortening to fit. The ones at the tab sections nest into the channel "behind" the tab sections. The photos above and below illustrate the crossties.

The side sill support tabs that have been replaced with etched parts are visible in this side view of the model

The lower bolster cover plates feature "knockouts" in the exact shape of the prototype. They were bent slightly to match the shape of the scratchbuilt bolsters.

The image above shows the underframe after the addition of the bottom bolster cover plates, as highlighted in the previous photo

The two preceding photos highlight the addition of the bottom crossbearer cover plates. While I etched pieces for the segments that span the center sills, I opted to use 0.005" styrene as I found it generally easier to work with and the shape is a rectangle, as opposed to the complex shape of the outer portions of these unusual plates, where etching made the work of matching the shape far easier.

The channel section crossties had a small rectangular steel brace that was welded to the crossties and the center sill. This is simulated with an etched piece, as illustrated in the two photos above.

The stringers between the bolsters and end sills incorporated trapezoidal-shaped plate that was welded to the ends of the stringer and to the end sills, tightening things up a little more. These are simulated with etchings, as shown in the two accompanying photos.

While there are still a couple of things before the underframe is completed, including truck mounting and simulated bolt heads on the stringers, as well as the brake equipment, the basic structure is complete. The next post will pick up to cover brake equipment and other details. Stay tuned...