Flat Car Friday - Milwaukee Heavy Duty Flats

 

uncredited image purchased from ebay auction; note absence of stake pockets

The Milwaukee had two 200-ton heavy duty flat cars (FG* although originally FM) built in 1928 by Standard Steel Car Company's Hammond, Indiana (outside Chicago) plant, car nos. 67051 and 67053. As shown, they rode on four Dalman two-level trucks with a cast bolster, visible between the two trucks at each end. These were a heavily riveted design, as evidenced by the sheer number of rivets visible. They were likely to support some of the online manufacturers of heavy loads, such as A. O. Smith, but they could be used for more traditional shipments, as shown below. By the early 50s they had been renumbered to car nos. 601051 and 601052, capacities of 392500 and 393300, respectively.

ca. 1938, Pacific & Western Model Railroad [club?]

I had it in my mind, perhaps erroneously, that Roundhouse had offered an HO scale model of these (in addition to the smaller heavy duty flat that they offered) although I could be mistaken. Athearn also offered a heavy duty flat of a different type, although that could be fodder for a kitbash of this prototype as the general shape is similar, if not identical.

image from 1945 Milwaukee Road freight car diagrams

*FG is the AAR classification for flat cars to haul "heavy ordnance or other heavy commodities"

Flat Car Friday - Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern 400

 

Al Armitage photo, Ron Morse Collection, ca. 1949-1950

One of the things I thought would be a fun part of this "series" on flat cars would be to highlight some of the more interesting and unusual cars that I have come across in the photos I have acquired over the years. The Spokane International car was one such example, as is the one shown herein. According to wikipedia, the Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern was organized in 1895 to build a line from Waterloo to Cedar Falls, Iowa, completed in 1897. It expanded to Waverly and Cedar Rapids and operated a modest schedule of several interurban trains per day connecting these points. It also operated a freight belt line around Waterloo.

In January, 1953, according to the Official Railway Equipment Register, the WCF&N rostered a whopping 52 freight cars, of which almost half were the 25 flat cars in the 4000-4024 series. I have had this photo on my radar since I acquired the print, thinking it would be a great project to complement one of my two Sunshine Models Farmall tractor load kits. Of note are the towing loops at the bolsters. That's a project for another day, though.

P.S. I do not know when these cars were built or by what car builder. If anyone knows those details, please fell free to share via the comments section below. Thank you!

Flat Car Friday - the same prototype?

Green River, Wyoming, Keith Ardinger photo

I have this Spokane International flat car on my list of projects, likely to appear in kit form (car nos. 5001-5075, built 1951 by American Car & Foundry.) I am hopeful that the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis has drawings and am awaiting their reply to my query. In the meantime, I have been examining my collection of flat car photos for fodder for this blog. I came across the photo shown below and was struck by the similarities to the SI flat shown above (below from St. Louis - San Francisco car nos. 95800-95899, built 1951 by American Car & Foundry.) Dimensionally, the cars are identical and the overall look plus the arrangement of details, notably the type and spacing of the stake pockets, leads me to believe that they were from the same design. I have also inquired about drawings of these Frisco cars to compare, should both be available. I am keeping a keen eye out to see if ACF built other flats like these at around the same time. More about the load on the SI flat coming in the following days, too.

P.S. The SP's F-50-16 class, while similar at first blush and built by ACF, is not the same design as the cars illustrated herein.

Fayetteville, North Carolina, Dec. 23, 1951, Col. Chet McCoid photo, Bob's Photo

Flat Car Friday (Saturday!) - Southern Pacific F-50 family

This version of Flat Car Friday is less a focus on a specific prototype or load and more about a detail. The prototype shown here is one of the SP's (or perhaps an SP-affiliated road's) numerous 50-ton flat cars in the classes F-50-5/-8/-9/-10/-12. The photo illustrates the side sill and stake pocket details quite clearly. Fairly obvious also is the person taking a break on the deck surface. What I want to emphasize, however, is the condition of the deck. The boards are quite distressed and chewed up. This is something most of us try to emulate in our models, but looking at this image makes me realize that I still have some work to do to develop and improve my technique. This image is one of many from the FSA/OWI collection at the Library of Congress.

Flat Car Friday - Santa Fe Ft-7 95057

 

This week's image is from Epping, New Hampshire, ca. the late 1960s and contains a nice load. The car is Santa Fe FT-7 no. 95057. The FT-7 class continued the Santa Fe's use of GSC cast steel underframes, begun with class FT-W in 1951. The FT-7 class was different in that the 100 cars were 70-ton capacity and 60 feet long. The underframes supplied by GSC were finished by the Santa Fe (addition of brake equipment, trucks, decking, etc.) in 1956 and assigned to series 90900-90999. The car shown above is loaded with International tractors. The adjacent car looks to be a Northern Pacific or Burlington car (although I can't make out the lettering to make a definitive determination.) The machines loaded on it are International-Harvester. Both were part of International-Harvester (Farmall tractors were part of I-H, too.)

There will not be a Flat Car Friday post next week

Flat Car Friday - New York Central 70-ton AAR Flat Car

 

While this image is far from great, it does display two things that I'd like to see more: loads of crates and NYC 70-ton AAR flats. Crates are a fairly simple load to create from styrene stock or the old Sunshine export crates load, if you have one. They are easy to customize by creating your own lettering and printing decals in black stenciling or having them printed by a third party, such as PDC. They are also simple to secure using Chartpack or similar tape to simulate the banding.

I also rarely see models of the NYC 70-ton AAR flat cars in HO. It cannot be a lack of offerings since Intermountain has produced quite nice replicas and Sunshine also offered kits that still appear on the secondary market and do not fetch exorbitant Sunshine prices since there is a good styrene alternative. Protowest also briefly offered resin kits for the 70-ton AAR flats, although they are a bit crude, in my opinion. Fine decals are also available from National Scale Car. With a fleet of 1,000 cars, they are significant flat car prototypes that warrant inclusion in just about any model fleet.

I plan to take my own musings to heart and complete one in the near future.

Flat Car Friday - Louisville & Nashville 24628

 

The Louisville & Nashville had a sizable fleet of medium length flat cars, with over 800 46'9" flat cars built by Bethlehem Steel (nos. 22000-22249, 1926), Tennessee Coal & Iron (nos. 22500-22599, 1927) and Pressed Steel Car Co. (nos. 24300-24819, 1930). This was one of the largest fleets of intermediate length flat cars (longer than 40'-42' and shorter than 50') in North America during the Steam and Transition Eras. Cars of this length were profiled in Prototype Railroad Modeling, Vol. 5 (being reprinted.)

L&N 24628, a Pressed Steel product, was photographed on the New Haven at Providence on December 12, 1957 by Col. Chet McCoid (Bob's Photo) with a carefully blocked and braced load of what appears to be cut marble. This would be a cool load to replicate using styrene skillfully painted and drybrushed to look like marble... perhaps fodder for a future post.

Chad Boas has offered parts for these cars. His list of offerings may be found here and he is a frequent attendee of the St. Louis and Chicago-area ("Naperville") RPMs, where he sells castings.

Flat Car Friday PRR F22 with interesting load

 

I can promise that the subject each week will not always feature Pennsy flat cars, but so far that is the case. This week's subject is one that again should be familiar to modelers as the F22 has been available in HO scale in both brass and as a resin kit from Funaro & Camerlengo. Issues 26 and 32 of The Keystone Modeler had articles containing info about the F22 class, with issue 26 containing info about the sister class F23, as well. Pennsylvania Railroad Flat Cars contains six pages of info and photos about the F22 and F23 classes. These were often referred to as gun cars or flats as two would often be used in tandem to transport large gun barrels as used on naval vessels. The load in this photo is also naval in nature, being a conning tower (edited post: based upon discussion at the Steam Era Freight Cars list, this was determined to likely be part of the "Conning Tower Tube" from the USS Missouri - credit to Ralph Brown and Marty McGuirk for their expertise.) The photo is from the Kheel Center for Labor Management Documentation and Archives at Cornell University

Flat Car Friday

I thought it might be interesting to try to add some routine to my postings, as I have no shortage of material that can be shared. In that spirit, I will run some "Flat Car Fridays" over the coming weeks and months. First up is this PRR F30A with an interesting vessel of some type. I assume it has something to do with the manufacture of rubber/latex, but I am not certain. I am hopeful that the internet can do its thing and that some of you will post in the comments section to enlighten the rest of us. The location of this photo was at the Naugatuck Chemical Division of US Rubber (later Uniroyal) in Naugatuck, Connecticut.

The other item of note that I wanted to highlight is that although I've never seen this detail modeled (at least in HO scale), the deck boards of the F30A were secured with bolts that passed through holes in the the cast frame (the F30A was effectively a giant, one-piece casting with wood added on top). Another detail to be added for those who so wish...