Walthers Ore Car Trucks

Walthes offers part 920-2013, a set of 12 rigid sideframes for HO ore car trucks, without wheels. These are five foot wheelbase, rather than the normal five foot-six inch used for 70 ton trucks on standard freight cars. HO models prior to the recnt Walthers releases used the standard wheelbase trucks, but the difference is visible. This applies to both the smooth side and ribbed style Lake Superior 24 foot ore cars, as well as the longer Bessemer & Lake Erie cars.

The Walthers part makes it possible to replace trucks on older Roundhouse and Roco-AHM cars inexpensively. I got two sets, which should be enough to re-do most of my older ore cars. Here is a pair of AHM type cars that I relettered for C&NW cars they acquired from the B&LE. I used Circus City decals for the lettering. Some of the C&NW cars were completely repainted, while others were patched and retained the Bessemer herald.

CNW 121175 on the left still has the older style five foot-six inch wheelbase AAR standard trucks. CNW 121193 on the right has the new Walthers truck sideframes and Kadee 33 inch wheels. If you redo AHM ore cars to improve the trucks and couplers, the new Walthers trucks are useful, since you have to toss the original trucks anyhow.

I think the difference is visible and an improvement.

Atlas Illinois Terminal RS-1

I've said here that I seek out models of interurban lines that had diesels and standard freight operations. Here's a fairly recent Atlas RS-1 that I recently converted to DCC with a Digitrax DH165A0 decoder. This had LED headlights, so it was an easy-to-intermediate level install. I don't know if Atlas has ever updated the Classic RS-1 to have 8-pin sockets; this one didn't.

It's shown with an Accurail Fowler boxcar also lettered for IT. This site has prototype data on the IT Fowler cars.

[I]n late 1928 the Illinois Terminal ordered 100 unique cars that were taller than a Fowler, but shorter (less long) than a standard ARA boxcar design of the time. The road needed “modern” boxcars to replace their ageing fleet of all-wood double sheathed boxcars, and their mechanical engineers came up with an odd compromise boxcar design that was both familiar (short, and comparable to the rest of their boxcars) and modern (single sheathed). The cars were remarkably long-lived, with a few stragglers running into the early 1970s. That makes this little group of cars the last American-owned short single sheathed cars in operation.

The Illinois Terminal's history with diesel operations is complicated. According to George Hilton and John Due's The Interurban Electric Railroads in America, Illinois Terminal was a short steam line in the East St Louis, IL area that was acquired by the company that controlled the Illinois Traction System in the mid 1920s. The company adopted the illinois Terminal name for the entire system in 1928.

Two other steam lines between East St Louis and Alton were acquired at the same time. All were operated by steam under the IT name amd were never electrified.

IT RS-1 755 was built in 1950. The Atlas model is in the as-delivered paint scheme. RS-1s and some Alco S-2s were used by the IT in the legacy steam service; I've seen DVD videos of them operating on non-electrified IT track in the East St Louis area in the 1950s.

Several IT electric interurban lines were upgraded in the 1930s with belt lines around cities to avoid street running and allow longer freights to be operated. These were originally operated with electric freight locomotives, Between 1952 and 1956, the IT abandoned all passenger service and removed the overhead wire. However, diesels like the 755 were used for freight service on the upgraded electric lines before the wire was removed.

After that time, of course, the Illinois Terminal was freight only and all diesel.

Walthers New Haven PA-1 -- A Pleasant Surprise

I got a Walthers Mainline New Haven PA-1 and am quite impressed. Given Walthers Mainline, I'd been expecting something "generic" with pretty basic detail, but one or two items stood out:

New Haven units had the pilot cut away below the coupler. Not all PAs had this. Looking at photos of other Walthers units, it appears that all their versions have this cutout, but at least New Haven modelers got lucky.

Here's the overall view. The paint and lettering are very good.

The model has factory-installed wire grab irons at the doors.

The fan has see through screen and fan blades.

There's a sprung diaphragm on the rear. I got to ride and railfan the New Haven a lot in my teens, but by then the PAs were gone from passenger service.

Apogee Locomotive Works Porter Fireless Loco

Over the past few months, a new model railroad supplier has emerged, Apogee Locomotive Works. At least for now, he specializes in 3-D printed bodies for unique prototpyes that fit on commercial chassis, primarily Bachmann.

He makes several fireless locomotive shells that fit on the Bachmann HO Porter 0-6-0T chassis. This model is out of production, but it's possible to find them as old stock in hobby shops or on eBay. Here is a stock Bachmann Porter 0-6-0T:

I was always intrigued by the idea that other types of locos like fireless locos, steam dummy locos, and so forth could potentially be made using the Bachmann chassis. Apogee finally ran with the idea. Here is the Bachmann chassis with the factory shell removed next to a stock loco:

The Apogee body is a careful slip fit on the Bachmann chassis. It's necessary to move the Bachmann decoder from its location in the side tank area to the top of the motor to get the Apogee fireless body to fit.

Here is the Apogee body test fitted onto the Bachmann chassis:

The prototype for the Apogee loco is a fireless loco built by Porter in 1923 for the Public Service Electric & Gas Company in New Jersey. It's currently preserved at Steamtown. The Steamtown site has a copy of the entry for the loco from a Locomotive Cyclopedia:

These locos were often used at power plants that had a steam supply from their boilers. A charge of steam would last a few hours. The locos typically switched hopper cars of coal to fire the power plant's boilers.

I painted my loco Scalecoat Southern Railway Green.

Both this loco and the stock Bachmann verson can switch about three HO cars.

Accurail 36 Foot Boxcars

My interests are eclectic, and I've never been the sort to see my hobby as something I do to satisfy someone else's tastes. So I run what I like, and that includes hauling turn-of-the-20th-century prototypes behind diesels. I really like the Accurail variations on the 36-foot steel underframe boxcars they've brought out over the past several years.

I substitute the plastic wheels in the kits with Kadee 33 inch ribbed back wheels and the couplers with Kadee 158. I also substitute the flexible plastic steps in the kit with A Line Type A stirrups. I tend to create batches of brass brake wheels soldered to brass wire to install on Accurail cars that use them, so I haven't finished such a batch for these cars.

On the Boston & Maine car below, I substituted a pair of old Roundhouse Fox trucks for the arch bars in the kit. The Boston & Maine had a number of these cars in storage at Walpole, NH when I found them there in 1967, and they had kept their Fox trucks.

I seek out models of standard freight cars lettered for interurban lines like the Fort Dodge, the South Shore, the Sacramento Northern, and the Pacific Electric. This Accurail Fowler car is lettered for the South Shore. I'm working on another Accurail Fowler lettered for the Illinois Terminal.

I have a 1928 Official Railway Equipment Register, and the South Shore did in fact have ten of these cars.