What Era ?

[ChrisWaring]

Hi

I have been modeling British railways for some time and now have started to look into creating a US based model railroad. I am having a problem sorting which era RTR models belong in, lots of cars look very similar but come from different era's. Is there an easy rule of thumb or a list of model manufacturers products against era available or is it just a case of research.

Chris.

[jward]

here is a rough idea of when these freight cars are appropriate for.....

wooden cars, 40 ft or less are steam era, 1950s or before. the shorter the cars the older they are for the most part.

steel cars are appropriate from the 1920s on. 40 foot cars appeared first. 50 footers came into widespread use in the 1950s.

the late 1950s saw the rise of piggyback cars, with truck trailers on flat cars. the earliest ones were 50 foot cars...

the 1960s gave us the 86' freight car, mostly boxcars, auto racks and piggyback flats. this era was also the birth of the high cube (excess height) boxcar. 100 ton capacity hopper cars and covered hoppers came into widesspread use. the mid 1960s also gave us the first center flow (smooth side) covered hoppers. tank cars also underwent a transition, with frameless cars becoming common. a few monster size tank cars riding on 12 or 16 wheels were built.

the 1970s gave us the bathtub type coal gondola.  also, due to vandalism problems, auto racks were first protected with metal sifde panels and later fully enclosed.

the 1980s saw advances in the piggyback car fleet. the first articulated well cars for double stacked containers came into use, along with a short lived car called the front runner which rode on single axles at each end. intermodal service, up to this point primarily truck trailers, began seeing a large influx of containers. roadrailers, truck trailers which rode on railroad wheels, came into use on norfolk southern. the earliest ones had a single railroad wheelset permanently mounted to the truck trailer. 40 foot boxcars and offset side hopper cars disappeared. cabooses also disappeared from the rear of most freight trains.

the 1990s saw the further rise of the shipping container to its current dominant position in intermodal. single unit well cars came into use. the front runners were pulled from service by the late 1990s. aluminum cars for coal service came into widespread use, hopper cars of less than 100 ton capacity were retired. conrail bought into the roadrailer concept, joining with norfolk southern in a greatly expanded network of trains.

2000s saw the first cars equipped with electronic brakes. other than that, the past decade has seen mostly the further refinement of existing designs.

hope this helps....

[Joe Satnik]

Dear Jeff,

Your excellent and concise response should somehow be archived.

Cheers.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

[ChrisWaring]

Jeff.

Thanks.

That was exactly what i was looking for. i would always research a model before adding it to my layout but the range of models was so vast that i would not know where to start. Now that i have some general guidelines i know where to start.

Thanks again for your reply, it has saved hours of frustration.

Chris. 

[Terry Toenges]

Since I like the "old timers", I look for cars with the truss rods underneath.

[richg]

A good way to accumulate a lot of info is to do a Google search for say: railroad cars 1940 as an example.
Try railroad cars 1900. Try different years. You will amass an amazing amount of data.

I just did that and found many links in a few minutes.

Get your Favorites folder ready for the different eras and you can make a lot of comparisons and store the links. This way you can have links in your PC browser to share with those who do not know they can search the biggest library in the world and you do not have to leave the house.

Rich

[jward]

thanks everybody. i watched alot of these cars appear and disappear over the years. i have had my favourites, which dictates the era i model (1970s)....

i do have a couple of anamolies that i am trying to place and get a handle on......

3 dome tank car: i would expect that the 40 foot 3 dome tank car would have been relatively common during the steam era, and i have seen quite a few 3 compartment tank cars ( the modern equivalent) but i don't recall ever seeing the 3 dome tank in service. the only one i ever recall seeing in person, in fact, was a penn central car in the scrap line at altoona, pa about 1985. does anybody know when these were actually used, or why even though the single dome cars were common right up to about 1990 the 3 domers were not?

the other oddball was the 40' high cube "ugly duckling" boxcars. these are odd being a 40 foot car dating from an era where the 40 foot cars were obsolete. why a tall 40 foot car when a standard height 50 footer would appear to do the job? this is another car i don't ever recall seeing in person, though research has turned up different versions built for several different railroads......

[K487]

Jeff:

First, excellent summary.

Regarding the 40' high cube boxcars.  My GUESS is that some customers wanted more product in a boxcar, but because of typical warehouse multiple doors' spacings (all built for 40' cars so the car doors and warehouse doors would line up), the railroads accomodated these customers with the 40' high cubes because a string of 50' cars' doors wouldn't match the warehouse doors - this could create a lot of loading/unloading problems.  Also, some (most?) warehouses didn't have a dock between doors so most of the 50' (or greater) cars' doors in a string would be useless.

K487

[Doneldon]

K487-

I think you are right, but only to a point.  Shorter but taller cars also made for shorter trains which fit into sometimes quite old sidings and spurs.  And they were quite a but cheaper to build because the frames had enough capacity to be used under heavier cars without modification.  Longer cars required completely new engineering and more materials for the build.
                                                                                                                                                        -- D

[jward]

the frame capacity is an interesting idea. maybe back in the 1960s with alot of older 40 foot cars still on the road length wouldn't have been an issue either.

i know that railroads to-day don't like shorter cars, as the mismatch in lengths in a train can cause problems. an example would be on penn central/ conrail intermodal trains they often put a 50' boxcar ahead of the caboose so that when helper locomotives were put on the rear at altoona, they weren't pushing a 35 foot caboose against an 89 foot flatcar. this prevented the front of the caboose from raising off the track and derailing.

for the most part to-day, the only cars you'll commonly find of less than 50 feet are either in maintainance service, hoppers in unit train service with cars of similar length, or tank cars with shelf type couplers that keep them securely coupled to adjacent cars.

i know conrail/ns also has had problems pushing on the articulated intermodal cars as well. of an articulated car is on the rear of the train, a helper must be placed on the front of the train instead of the rear.

it is interesting  the trade offs that go into the design of railroad equipment.....