jamesdmcdonald.bsky.social
Musician & historian. Drummer playing ska, reggae, cumbia, & more. Composer & sound designer. ABD historian of technology writing about convenience. Railroad history, food history, DDR Alltag & Underground, building things large & small, &c.
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Ultimately fleet building rests on plausibility and how much you care about realism (and it's your RR--you needn't explain your choices to anyone). But if you want help locating specifics on fleet building for your RR let me know. I work with that data daily. 4/4
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Likelihood of a car can be influenced from production numbers, traffic flows, geographic proximity, and other factors like RR rivalries. The aim of a lot of prototype modelers is trying to model the commonplace, not the exceptional. Just about any car can show up once. 3/4
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I feel like I’ve downloaded some fleet proportion tables over the years but I’d have to check what they are and who made them. Most folks that do this analysis are concerned with their road’s likely foreign cars in a specific year range. Like designbuildop.hansmanns.org/bo-freight-c... 2/4
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It is complex. The production info generally exists. The hard part is mapping it to interchange patterns, which were not stable over time. Some statistical models, most famously Nelson-Gilbert, are attempts to map the likelihood of foreign road cars but these don't apply universally. 1/4
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Presuming in HO:
BTS offers the XA built 1870s+ but still in service into early 1900s.
Westerfield offers the XG built 1895-6 and the XH built 1898+ (over 17K built).
(Westerfield has XG/XH in ventilated versions too)
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Every modeler modeling any interchanging railroad in North America 1880-1970 can justify *at least* 1 PRR car. Realism prolly demands more than 1. The PRR fleet size dwarfed other railroads. PRR had more X29s (just 1 class of boxcar) than all USRA single sheathed boxcars built.
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Nice haul!
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Looks really nice. All of your weathering is very realistic.
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Usually I take a light touch to weathering but for those cars, have at it! When I lived in the GDR a lot of the Ucs cars for cement were so coated you couldn't read the lettering. There would even be cars where workers had chipped away the cement to read the lettering. :)
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Well done!
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A 1900 trade guide gives a bunch of potential names of firms making vinegar at the time. Might be fun to imagine and draw up art for how they'd have done up their car. See hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b33...
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IIRC Heinz used coffin cars in your era, but there were a lot of other big firms in that business (Squire-Dingee, Lutz & Schramm, Claussen, etc.) that shipped vinegar. I don't see private cars registered for any of those companies in the 1901 ORER but you could "roll your own." 2/3
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Yeah, that was going to be my next question about whether you intended to keep the tank wood or sheath it in metal. If wood, the most likely candidate in your era would be for a company shipping acids, such as a vinegar or pickling firm. 1/3
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I can make some suggestions but what are the bookend years for your modeling?
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Wow, these look really great. I'm presuming NYC&HR for the gon & obs but for what firm will you finish the tank car?
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Long used for massage and therapeutic reasons, when America instituted Prohibition distillers underscored the fact that IPA was for rubbing, not drinking. Medical alc was not banned. This is why most USians know it as rubbing alcohol first. The term IPA is used too, just not as colloquially.
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IIRC, most IPA gets stuff added to it to make it taste bad specifically so people don't drink it.
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Don't have a current roster handy but I'm pretty sure, yes.
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It definitely worked out. Bringing new life into old kits is rather satisfying.
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Looks great!
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Nice. Very active in the Historical society myself.
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@blau06.bsky.social I'm modeling Milford, VA. Sleepy now, but busy in my era. I never met Bill in person but we corresponded and he was always very generous with info and photos. His books are always within hand's reach here.
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One of the good things about modeling 1904 is that the average train length on the RR I model (RF&P) was 25 cars. Much more affordable. :)
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No experience with them but at that price my wallet runs screaming from the room when I contemplate the cost of modeling a train like www.railpictures.net/photo/690515/
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The good thing is that in Z you're likely not dealing with removing a lot of material. For any destructive process do what @blau06.bsky.social says and just work slowly.
Hope you'll share how it turns out.
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Weird that Bsky didn't show me your earlier response or I'd have just agreed, not posted essentially the same. :)
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For rectangular windows I tend to drill the 4 corners and use a cutting tool to connect the holes. Then I file the remainder by hand, or perhaps with a Dremel and then hand, as needed. Doing final edges by hand generally gives more control.
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Drilling out windows: You'll want to work up to your largest bit size. Start by creating a follower dimple using a needle in a pin vise. Place it so the biggest bit you use won't hit the window frame. Use that dimple to guide a pilot hole using a thin bit. Then follow with a thick bit. 1/2
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I think it's also relevant to note that we can inhabit multiple stages simultaneously, and that's also kind of wonderful.
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You too! So very needed.
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Looks great! You could take inspiration from ads in 1900s ironwork trade press. A line drawing of a birdbath or spittoon with radiating sunbeams and the company name enclosing it on top and bottom might be slick. Or you could put a paper ad poster on the door (very common) or remnants thereof.
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Sorry, I don't have direct links to the texts but your local library's ILL should (hopefully?) be able to get the books for you. That's how I read the first two books I linked.
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IIRC Tony Reavy’s “The Railroad Photography of Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg” book describes their relationship. Reavy also coauthored www.jstor.org/stable/43524... that has some discussion too. I think you can get to that last link with a free JSTOR account. 2/2
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It’s been a couple years since I looked at this and when I went through my notes the sources were mostly books. Gruber’s book has a whole chapter on their personal lives railphoto-art.org/beebe-and-cl... 1/2
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Yes. Beebe & Charles Clegg were partners. A couple of good articles have been written about their life together.
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Very good point. I never understood layouts/dioramas that include no or almost no people.
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Bonus points if only 10% of them still write.
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Everyone’s favorite: drilling holes for grab irons. 😀
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I mostly model HO, which is what this car is. What's the material of your F7 shell? Usually the warps in urethane resin come from the cooling of the resin during the casting process, so if your shell wasn't warped earlier it generally shouldn't warp when you cut it.