long island jack Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 I've managed to aquire a few Accurail wooden sided boxcars (the price was right,free!!),need some info? Would they be suitable for a 1960's layout? What did they carry in there last days of service? When did they stop using them? There mainly western roads,would they get over to the NE ( New York area)? Looking for websites about boxcars (1950-60's),anyone help? Ray Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1905 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Those are intended to represent USRA single sheathed boxcars designed during World War 1 and built through the 1920's. They would have been in the end of their life spans in the 1960's, a few made it into the 1980's, but they were rebuilt. Many of them were rebuilt in the 1930's with steel sides and look significantly different. They were owned by railroads across the country and traveled nationwide. From a real techinical side, the actual car the Accurail models were copied from was a Canadian variation of the design. The Tichy and Atlas cars are the true USRA and clones cars. the difference being the USRA cars used a hat section stamping on the metal bracing and the Canadian variation used a Z section. http://www.ttnut.com/usra-single-sheathed-boxcars-clones-t1012.html http://prr.railfan.net/freight/classpage.html?class=X26 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davknigh Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 By the '60s most if not all outside braced boxcars would have been used in non-revenue service so they're good for your maintenance trains or wreck trains or at the far end of a long siding as a storage car. Cheers, David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
298 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 If you're interested, I'll swap you the MILW one for a Branchlines 40' AAR Steel Boxcar in Soo, or an Accucraft 40' AAR, Boxcar Red with data printing (to add your own road name)...? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Some wooden cars made it right through the 60s in revenue service, not identical cars by any means (but similar in style if not detail) the CB&Q colour guide has the following snippets in the texts accompanying photo's of single sheathed cars: All the following have 4 'panels' either side of the door so are not identical to the Accurail car: * C&S13500-13999 series, 26 of these were still on the roster when the BN merger happened in March 1970 - photo was shot in 1972 and all were off the roster by the end of that year * CBQ25000-25499 - CBQ25378 photograph dated 1968, CBQ25415 photo 1962 * CBQ25500-25999 - CBQ25779 photo dated Nov 1970 The following has 3 panels either side of the door, but I think are taller than the Accurail with 10' inside height listed * CBQ28000-28599 - CBQ28468 photo dated Sep 1970 Looking at the NP and GN books they both also show a small number of single sheathed cars in revenue service through the 60s into the 70s - there are also comments in both of those to the effect that some of these older cars were assigned to animal hide service, the stink of the hides would make the cars unusable for general freight so them being otherwise rather obsolete may not have mattered to the railroad. All that said, looking at 60s and 70s shots and vids they were certainly getting rare through the 1960s, the presence of lots of nice shots of them in use in the 70 may reflect their looks and unusual nature by then! Most similar cars would likely be either out of use or converted to MOW or other uses. Cash-strapped roads often got creative! http://www.irm.org/gallery/CRIP19135-RESTORATION/aai http://www.mcrwy.com/collectn/caboos/crip17772.html Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor quinn Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 A few CN wooden outside braced boxcars made it to the early 70's in grain traffic, one is illustrated in Canadian Railcar Pictorial vol 2, and another from Fallen Flags http://www.rr-fallen...cn509900ajs.jpg (the C in a yellow circle below the reporting marks denotes grain traffic on CN) Some also survived in "rough loading" service into the 60's, CN's 1967 freight equipment catalogue lists 6 number blocks of 40' steel framed wooden boxcars including two sets of cars in assigned service, one for Pyrite and the other for copper plate. Otherwise some roads converted their wooden boxcars to specialized traffic like pulpwood or woodchips but I'm guessing that's not going to help here. Nick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
long island jack Posted July 20, 2012 Author Share Posted July 20, 2012 Cheers guy's for all the help, i'm going to box them up, for when i back date the new layout, when steam will be king once again thanks for all the help Ray Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigZ Posted July 20, 2012 Share Posted July 20, 2012 Single sheathed cars were full of character and individuality...heights, Pratt trusses, Howe trusses, Z-section, hat section bracing. I love 'em. The longevity of them depends heavily on the railroad but suffice to say that they were getting thin on the ground in revenue service by the mid 1960s. http://steamerafreightcars.com/ , well, pretty much what the URL says ...but has a modicum of info on the cars. Look at the models pages and enjoy the variety. Ted Culotta's books are full of great info on these cars. Frankly it's the variety of steam era cars that's pulling backwards in time... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
highpeak Posted July 21, 2012 Share Posted July 21, 2012 I think Craig says it well with his summary of the appeal of the single-sheathed car. If you have a large number of boxcars on a mid 60s period layout then you could throw in a couple of older cars and it would look fine. But if the number of cars wasn't that great, I think the single sheathed car might stand out a bit too much, leading to the "it's that car again" syndrome. As Craig also points out, it would also depend on the road being modelled. The Boston and Maine bought around 2,000 single-sheathed cars in 1929-30, and there were still quite a few around into the 60s to the point where you would probably need to have one show up occasionally. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigZ Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 Prototype info for the Accurail single sheathed car: http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/144/10388/february-1993-page-14 by Richard Hendrickson, a steam era freight car guru... Part two of the article: http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/146/10547/april-1993-page-13 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
clark33 Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 Craig you beat me to it. What with rmweb being u/a in middle of UK night-time, and dodgy Wi-Fi in this downtown Manila hotel. VBG, the post on stmfc yahoo group was my trigger. Prototypes for the Accurail 40 foot single sheathed Z braced box cars are in the seven pages of Railmodel Journal, February 1993, starting on page 14. http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/144/10394/february-1993-page-14 to http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/144/10394/february-1993-page-20 Phil 'grid-locked in Manila' Clark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckley Wells Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Not wanting to hijack....but are their any definitive books on freight cars. I came across an article in a back issue of model railroader covering the move to steel bodies and identifying things like dreadnought ends etc.... But as someone who is moving into 70s/80s US I was intrigued by a throw away line at the end of the piece mentioning rules banning high level brakes/ladders and walkways around that time. There seem to be plenty of books on UK rolling stock often helpfully saying that this design was built at Shildon between xx and xx etc....or could still be seen on such and such a duty as late as xx - but I've struggled to find anything comparable for the US outline modeller. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor quinn Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Some of the Morning Sun "Color Guide to XYZ Railroad Freight & Passenger Equipment" are useful if they did one for you chosen road or roads, otherwise I've referenced articles in magazines as I've come across them. Railroad Model Craftsman is still very good as was the now defunct RailModel Journal for the type of in depth "drawing board to scrapyard" article. Model Railroader has a very useful searchable index of US mags and the NMRA British Region has a large collection of the mags available for loan to members, in my opinion the NMRA(BR) library alone made membership worthwhile. Nick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
highpeak Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Railroad Model Craftsman for February 1979 carried a useful overview of trends in the boxcar fleet for the period you are modelling. In summary: - rule changes introduced by the I.C.C. made it attractive for equipment lessors working in conjunction with shortline railroads to place modern cars in service, leading to a rapid influx of chiefly 50' cars with colorful lettering schemes for relatively obscure railroads. This led to something of a glut and consequent problems of over-supply in the recession of the early 80s - the boxcar fleet was in relative decline as railroads and shippers turned to containers, covered hoppers and other specialized equipment. In 1970 class 1 railroads had 386,499 boxcars in their equipment fleet, this had declined to 281,663 cars by 1977 - at least in the early part of your period the 40' car was still to be seen in significant numbers. The table in the article is undated, but it shows about 40% of the boxcar fleet consisted of 40' cars. The numbers of these cars would dwindle rapidly during your period. - a fair number of the 40' cars had been through some sort of rebuild, typically involving wider doors and consequent reinforcement of the car side, removal of the running board and so on Running boards were supposed to be removed from boxcars by 1974, this deadline was extended to 1979. They had not been required on new cars since 1966. There was some variation in how cars were modified: some might have the ladders cut down to four rungs and the brake wheel lowered, others might have the brake wheel left where it was. Other things that mark your period (or at least the first half of it, I lost interest in taking pictures once Maine Central was run into the ground by Guilford) were changes in lettering requirements (the consolidated stencils), the car identification placards (the barcode labels) that were part of a automatic car identification program that didn't work out too well, and the white/yellow dot stencils that were required for a time to identify cars with potentially troublesome wheels. Graffiti on cars was not very common in the first half of your chosen period, but became increasingly typical in the 80s. There is some useful information on some of these topics at http://www.hosam.com/mod/rsdet.html Kalmbach has a couple of books you might find of interest: The Model Railroader's Guide to Freight Cars by Jeff Wilson (ISBN 0-89024-585-1) and Detailing Freight Cars by the same author (ISBN 978-0-89024-691-7). Hope this helps. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWB Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 If your layout is 1960s based, I wouldn't pack away your Accurail single-sheathed cars just yet. The Central Vermont operated CN and GTW influenced single-sheathed cars through the 1960s, http://centralvermontrailway.blogspot.com/2011/08/central-vermonts-42000-43000-and-44000.html and a number of midwestern roads, like the Milwaukee and the Burlington, kept them on as well. They would have been in grain service or general freight, with the worst-off in hide service.I would strongly recommend various videos by Emery Gulash, a very prolific railfan filmmaker in the 1950s and 60s, available from Green Frog and others. His shots from the 1960s definitely show single-sheathed cars in service. Accurail has had cars lettered for Milwaukee, Burlington, DM&IR, Frisco, Rock Isand, and others that would be entirely appropriate for the 1960s -- certainly the first half. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scaro Posted October 13, 2013 Share Posted October 13, 2013 Craig you beat me to it. What with rmweb being u/a in middle of UK night-time, and dodgy Wi-Fi in this downtown Manila hotel. VBG, the post on stmfc yahoo group was my trigger. Prototypes for the Accurail 40 foot single sheathed Z braced box cars are in the seven pages of Railmodel Journal, February 1993, starting on page 14. http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/144/10394/february-1993-page-14 to http://www.trainlife.com/magazines/pages/144/10394/february-1993-page-20 Phil 'grid-locked in Manila' Clark An old thread, but i have been using Richard Hendrickson's article to build a TT scale Burlington car. I might venture that the boxcars in the Feb 1993 Rail Model Journal are not the ones that the OP asked about. Those pictured look more like Howe truss composite cars which were built by AC&F and other builders, as an alternative to the 1920s ARA design (which used hat section and a Pratt Truss). The railroads preferred the alternative car with Z section and a Howe truss -they outsold the official ARA car by a factor of ten to one. I imagine using a Pratt truss hat section sloping toward the lower part of the door may have conveyed too much moisture to that area, resulting in rust damage to the movable parts of the door. Neither the cars in the picture or those in Hendrickson's article are USRA cars. The Accurail car in the Hendrickson article, excepting GTW and a wrecker car that ended up on the Rutland, was I believe a 'Canada only' beast, though a number of US RRs had similar versions, mostly of 8' inside height instead of the 9' IH of the Accurail car. Ben Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bigbee Line Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 I think the Accurail boxcars make a nice change to the profile of a freight train. They are easy to complete and make a nice boxcar. The moulded grabs are very fine, roofwalks can be replaced if you want but the supplied version is OK. They weather nicely with chalks, A google search will reveal more articles on simple conversions eg http://whiteriverdivision.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/cv-accurail-boxcar_26.html I would give these 8/10 Likewise the Athearn Blue Box 50' boxcar can be gilded into a passable lily. Mainly lowering slightly on the trucks and tarting up the door gear. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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