An excellent new freight car book

As regular readers will know, I’m sometimes called a “freight car guy,” and there’s certainly some truth in that. In that capacity, I was delighted to receive a brand-new book with a breathtaking collection of builder photos of freight cars.

The book is called Canadian Car & Foundry, subtitled “Freight Cars 1900–1960.” It’s by John Riddell, long-time noted Canadian modeler. It’s an 8.5 x 11-inch book, softbound, containing 200 pages with some 370 photos. Here is the cover:

It is published by the Bytown Railway Society, Inc., and is available from them for $64.95 (U.S. dollars). You can order it online at their site, which is https://www.bytownrailwaysociety.ca .

A striking feature of the book is the excellent photographs, which are very well reproduced on coated paper. The company photographers undoubtedly took large-format negatives, and the results really are stunning. I will show just a few examples here.  

 To begin, here is CN 503565, a 40-foot single-sheathed box car with two-piece Dreadnaught steel ends. It’s one of 1600 cars built in spring 1929, number series 503500–505099. This is just one of many very large orders built for CN and CP by CC&F. 

Built at almost the same time was an all-steel box car group for Canadian Pacific, the famed “Mini-box” steel box cars. They were just 8 feet, 7 inches high inside, giving them a 3000 cubic foot capacity. The car shown was the first of a 1500-car series, 24000–241499, and has a recessed two-piece Dreadnaught end.

I was intrigued with the variety and number of tank cars produced. Shown here is an interesting one, part of an order of eight cars built in 1930. It’s an acid tank car, AAR Class TA, as the dome appearance immediately suggests. Its capacity was 7000 U.S. gallons, and was intended for sulfuric acid. All eight of these cars remained in service until 1970, when they were sold to Union Tank Car.

 

And yes, they built cabooses too. This one obviously built for Canadian National, one of 50 cars built in August 1924, numbered CN 77850–77899.

This really is a delightful book to page through, and it definitely adds to our knowledge of North American freight cars. Of course only a tiny fraction of CC&F production could be shown. Some of us will be hoping that there is a Volume 2 some day.

Tony Thompson 

Layout instructions and all that

What do I mean by “layout instructions?” I mean the kind of information provided by a layout owner to prospective visitors or operators of the layout. Over the years, I have received or seen a great many of these, and wanted to offer a few comments. 

Now of course  a brief layout description, often identifying the area modeled, the era modeled, and the railroad(s) modeled, can be most informative for a visitor. The writer may indulge in considerable detail about these choices, or simply state them. Sometimes these are offered in advance of visits, and often they are available as hand-outs during layout visits. My own version of this kind of hand-out has been the subject of a blog post (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-layout-description.html .)

But by the term “instructions,” I mean the kind of document intended for visiting operators.  I have written comments on this before: see https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/04/what-makes-good-layout-description.html . Over the years, I have received everything from half-page summaries to 18- or 20-page documents. An 18-pager is shown below, upside down to not reveal the perpetrator.

What should be in a document like this, however large or small?

I think either a track plan, or a schematic of how the layout works, is very helpful. It certainly can be valuable to study a track plan in advance, but a schematic of the track plan is in some ways better, because it shows you how the layout will work. That isn’t always obvious in a track plan.

Some kind of description of the operating scheme ought to be provided, though it doesn’t have to be terribly detailed if you are expecting experienced visitors. Pages and pages of procedures and copies of multiple forms that are used aren’t essential. I have occasionally gone back after a session on a layout which provided all that paperwork in advance, and found I could understand it far better in retrospect, where in advance it was bewildering. 

It can also be useful to summarize what the layout jobs comprise. I’m sure many experienced readers will recall being at a layout, and the host says, “Who wants the Beanfield Local?” and a bunch of hands go up — but not yours, because you never heard of it before. Or no hands go up, so you figure it’s not a great job, and you don’t volunteer either. Saying that it’s a long job, or a short job; involves lots of switching off the main line, or is right on the main and you have to keep out of the way of lots of trains; is entirely tank cars, or cement cars, or whatever; or it’s a yard job switching industries in town — you get the idea. 

Is there anything that I think ought not to be in such instructions? Many such documents include remarks about the builder’s background, or about the layout’s history (I’m guilty of this, too). But though such information is interesting, it doesn’t contribute to understanding the operating challenges that will be encountered. My suggestion is to keep this kind of content brief.

Of course what we layout owners hope will happen, and often enough does not happen, is the visitor carefully reading the instructions he’s been given. But here’s photo of John Goodrich doing just that with the instructions for a train, at Dave Loveless’s layout (Loveless photo).

I should be quick to state that I don’t have the perfect solution to these problems, as I have sometimes learned when a new operator comes to one of my sessions and tells me that they couldn’t figure out part of my description. But I think it’s useful to keep trying to do better.Your next visitors will appreciate it.

Tony Thompson

Rapido’s new 1937 AAR box cars

A long-awaited arrival for Rapido is the 1937 AAR box cars in HO scale. I was impressed with the original announcement, because they intended to supply a range of roofs and ends to match specific prototypes. More on the models in a moment.

This landmark car design, in all its many variations, cannot be better presented than in Patrick C. Wider’s monumental 384-page opus, Railway Prototype Cyclopedia, Volume 35 (Silverlake Images, 2020). He presents all the railroad ownerships of some 94,000 AAR 1937-design cars manufactured, with very complete presentation of many specialties and distinctive design aspects of these cars. 

Canadian railroads happen to have been major purchasers of these cars, more than 28,000 of the total.  They were led by Canadian National, who received 18,315 cars between May 1937 and July 1945. 

The car shown below (Library and Archives Canada photo) was part of 1350 cars built by National Steel Car in 1944 (CNR 484165–485514). You may note the eight-rung ladder with integral sill step. The white “Serves All Canada” emblem shown was first applied in 1943. 

Canadian Pacific was second only to CNR in its purchases of the 1937-design box cars, receiving 9947 cars between June 1937 and November 1946. The car shown below (Library and Archives Canada photo) was one of 1700 cars built by Canadian Car and Foundry in 1937 (CPR 226000–227699). It has seven-rung integral-sill-step ladders. At the time of their construction, CPR was not applying emblems, as you see here. 

The CPR car had a flat panel roof, unlike the familiar style of roof with raised rectangular sections in each roof panel. Below is a photo of such a roof (actually for a later CNR car, with steel running board).  

I have to confess I chose the individual cars that I did because of the paint schemes, neither of which I already owned. I photographed the models as they arrived from Rapido. They will receive coats of flat finish, be weathered, and receive fresh reweigh and repack stencils, route cards and chalk marks. Here is the CNR car: 

And here is the CPR model, with its distinctive flat-panel roof. It depicts a repainted car, because it has the “Spans the World” logo, first applied in 1947, well after the car was built. Like the CNR car above, it has the correct ladders. 

I look forward to getting these weathered and otherwise ready for service on the layout.

Tony Thompson 

 

My lemon packing house

My layout is set in coastal California, and in the southern half of the state, such areas are suitable for lemon cultivation. Accordingly, I wanted to have a packing house for lemons. 

 In addition to the geographic suitability, there is an attractive traffic consequence, because lemons are harvested all year long. It is a commonplace observation that during most of the year, one can find blossoms, tiny green baby lemons, and ripe yellow lemons on lemon trees. Thus lemons are shipped year-round, rather than seasonally, as for most crops.

I described recently how I made my Zaca Mesa winery from a Magnuson kit structure (see the post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/11/my-zaca-mesa-winery.html ). I show the kit box photos below for clarity. The major part of the structure became the winery, as described in the post cited, but the smaller receiving building, at right in the upper view below, became the lemon packing building. 

This brick structure had large arch openings at each end for hopper cars of coal. Since these made no sense in my intended use, I filled both arches with doors, first filling the curved part of the arch with brick paper. Below is the east end of the building as I modified it, which faces on Corralitos Lane. Note the smear of epoxy glue from the previous owner, which I tried and failed to remove.

At the west end, facing Laguna Street in my coastal town of Santa Rosalia, I instead modeled the doorway as a roll-up door, using corrugated metal and a half-round shape for the mechanism at top. 

A view of just the building on the layout shows a side view. I again added a roll-up door in the center, perhaps as a replacement for a deteriorated wooden door. I filled one window with brick, and the doorway at the right end is open, with some field boxes visible inside, containing lemons. I also added a couple of lemons on the ground, using craft beads.  At right is a truck picking up empty field boxes.

The building is on the small side for a packing house, but lemons require little work in packing, really only washing and grading, and putting into shipping boxes. Thus I believe that the building, though small, is just about big enough for credibility. I lettered it with dry transfers.

In use, you can see the two streets on either side of the building, as well as the layout surroundings, and a reefer being loaded. Street names are shown on the fascia. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

I enjoy having a citrus packing house on the layout, both for California flavor and for its year-round traffic. It exchanges loaded and empty reefers in nearly every operating session on the layout, regardless of the month of the session, just as it should.

Tony Thompson

What about “mundane” freight car kits?

Following my lengthy saga about kitbashing an Erie 50-foot automobile car from a Branchline kit, with replaced roof and ends, and a detour considering it as a C&NW car (about which I put up five posts, concluding with this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/07/my-erie-50-ft-auto-car-conclusion.html ), I received a question. I’ll paraphrase it like this: “These big, complicated projects are fine, but do you ever do a plain old simple kit?” As a matter of fact, I do, and so I’ll show one. 

I think most modelers would agree that Accurail kits qualify as simple kits. Recently I built one of their USRA double-sheathed box car kits, a Great Northern car that models one of the 1500 box cars of this design that GN received in 1919. They were numbered in the 23494–24993 series, and were GN’s first box cars with a steel underframe instead of truss rods. Below is a GN photo of one of these cars, freshly repainted at St. Cloud shops in March 1925 (GNRHS collection).  

These cars were very durable. By my own modeling date of 1953, there were still 1222 of the original 1500 cars in service. and they continued in use through the 1950s. Below is a photo of one in 1958 (Virl Davis photo, Richard Hendrickson collection), with the original USRA Andrews trucks and 5-5-5 corrugated end visible.

(For a condensed history of the GN box car fleet, along with the rest of the GN freight cars, I recommend the chapter by Richard Hendrickson and Staffan Ehnbom in Patrick Dorin’s book, Great Northern Lines East, Second Edition, Signature Press, 2001) .

The Accurail kit is, of course, straightforward. It could be upgraded by replacing the molded grab irons with wire ones, but for me this is a layout model, and can serve in original condition. However, there are a few changes to the kit as supplied that I do make. 

To begin, I cut the steel weight in half, glued the two halves together with canopy glue, and glued the pair in the center of the floor. This leaves truck screw holes completely open, and I tapped them 2-56. Mechanically, I put InterMountain wheelsets in the kit sideframes, and Kadee #158 whisker couplers in the kit coupler boxes. Here is that weight application.

Next, I replaced the vulnerable plastic brake wheel with a Cal-Scale brass one, soldered to a brass wire staff. And third, I added roof corner grab irons with the Tichy wire parts. 

Then, after a protective coat of flat finish, I weathered with acrylic tube paint, in the form of washes (see “Reference pages” linked at the top right of this post). The GN emblem here is the 1941–48 version. Finally, I added decal paint patches for fresh reweigh and repack stencils, along with route cards and chalk marks.

This kind of straightforward freight car kit is fun to build and quickly gives a layout-quality result. It will go into service on my layout right away.

Tony Thompson 

Route cards, Part 36: even more examples

This now-substantial series of posts is intended to provide examples of the great variety of formats and appearances of prototype route cards, the small tags of light cardstock affixed to freight cars to indicate switching work. They were attached to small tack boards, which were 5.5 x 9 inches in size (see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/12/route-cards-6.html ). You can find previous posts on the subject by using “Route cards” as the search term in the search box at right.

Today I want to begin with something rarely seen: blank route cards. Since these have been rarely used in railroading for some time now, it’s an unusual condition. These were provided to me by Richard Townsend, who mentioned that they are used as scratch paper at the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad.

The two shown below are interesting to me in that they don’t have identical lines to fill out. The one at left, for westbound shipments, is simpler than the one at right, for connection to the Rock Island eastward. Both are 4 x 5 inches in size. 

Next I want to turn to still more examples from the vast array of these cards collected by Michael Litant. Below is a Burlington form, directing a car to be transferred to the D&RG; it must be an old form, predating adoption of the D&RGW mark. The car is SP 176476, a Class B-50-28 box car modified with a 10-foot door and a broad yellow stripe diagonally across the door, signifying assignment to lumber and plywood loading. It’s destined to Eugene, Oregon, and is thus likely an empty returning for loading. I don’t know what the “XB” notation means. It’s 3 x 4 inches. 

An additional example of a transfer card is this one from the Cotton Belt, being a transfer to the Nickel Plate, evidently at St. Louis (the large “AS” on the card likely means Alton & Southern, an East St. Louis belt line owned by Cotton Belt). The car is presumably a Cotton Belt car, abbreviated as SW, thus SSW 46322, a 40-foot double-door box car, with a cargo of plywood. Note that it’s identified as “car 18,” presumably the 18th car in a cut. The card is 3.5 inches square and obviously was attached with a staple.

A fourth example, again showing the use of cards that simply identify an outgoing train or perhaps even a track for intermediate switching, comes from the Atlantic Coast Line. In very light handwriting, at the top is noted UP 164194, a 50-foot steel box car with double 8-foot doors, and at the bottom is the load, which seems to say “paper.” The card is 3.5 inches square and has a single nail hole.

Next is a Union Pacific card, with the legend “West End” in large letters, probably a local train. The car is NYC 177867, a 50-foot steel box car with a single 8-foot door, and the contents were “OK Starch.” The card must have been placed at Ogden, near the location of Thiokol Chemical’s plant, specifically Building 10. This card is 4 x 5 inches.

Finally,  an Illinois Central card, either at or destined to IC’s yard in Memphis. The car was IC 17935, a 40-foot wood-sheathed box car, and the cargo, lumber. Time of card appears to be 3 PM on the 19th of whatever months it was. The card is 4 inches square.

As I always mention, I continue to find these cards interesting, both as artifacts, and as insights into railroad communication back before so much became digital.

Tony Thompson 

 

My Erie 50-ft. auto car: Conclusion

In preceding posts, I described a somewhat meandering project to build a 50-foot automobile car from a Branchline kit, and add a Viking roof (because I had one in my stash). My first plan was to do this for the Chicago & North Western, as described in the initial post in this series (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/06/a-simple-freight-car-kitbash.html ).

But upon discovering that I already had a 50-ft. C&NW auto car with a Viking roof (memo to self: check fleet before dreaming up projects), I decided to pivot to doing an Erie car, even though it meant removing the Dreadnaught ends I had already applied to the Branchline body (that is presented in the third post in this series, which can be found at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/04/my-50-foot-automobile-car-part-3.html ).

I replaced the Dreadnaught ends with inverse Hutchins ends from Chad Boas, and continued onward to finish the body details, then painted the model with boxcar red sides and roof and black ends, as was common on Erie cars of the decade after World War II.  That work is shown in Part 4 of this series (you can see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/07/my-50-foot-erie-auto-car-part-4.html ).

In trying to understand the Erie 50-foot automobile cars, I turned to the April 1940 Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER). There I found several groups of such cars. First was series 68100–68199, cars with paired 6-foot side doors, and series 62200–68224, almost identically dimensioned cars except for paired 8-foot doors; and cars 68225–68299, again, cars with 6-foot doors. 

Since my Branchline car body has 8-foot doors, my choice of number series was obvious. Luckily I was able to obtain a nice photo of a car from this series, which is shown below. You can just see that it does indeed have a Viking roof, and though the black ends are not very visible, what is visible is consistent with the Hutchins ends. And this is the paint scheme I wanted to apply, with the six-foot herald. Incidentally, in this photo, only the right-hand door is open.

In the year I model, 1953, there were 24 of the original 25 cars in the series Erie 68200–68224. Of those, 16 had auto loading racks and thus had AAR mechanical  designation XMR, while 8 of them had racks either disabled or removed, and were AAR designation XM. That includes the car shown above, 68220, and the car number I chose to model, 68214.

You can click on the image above to enlarge it. If you do, you may note that the capacity of this car is somewhat surprising, only 70,000 pounds, a value confirmed by the ORER.  

The photo above shows clearly the arrangement of side lettering. It also suggests what the end lettering arrangement is, but a better view is in the Magor view shown in Part 4 (link above). Here is just the end portion: 

I dug around in the decal stash I inherited from Richard Hendrickson, and found Champ set HN-63, and also a set HB-3 with the large Erie emblems. Dimensional data were pieced together with elements from two Champ data sets HD-2. Below is a view of the model with lettering applied; I did apply the 70,000 pound capacity. Next comes trucks and couplers, the running board, and then weathering. 

As mentioned earlier, I applied a Kadee 50-ft. running board, attached with canopy cement, along with Kadee #158 couplers and the kit truck frames with InterMountain wheelsets. I then used my ordinary process of weathering, based on washes of acrylic tube paints (descriptions and illustrative example in the “Reference pages” linked at the top right of this post).  Last, I added a few chalk marks and route cards. 

This was an interesting if somewhat circuitous project, with the false start on a C&NW car; but in the end I created a car I wanted to have on the layout. That is tops among my criteria for freight car projects.

Tony Thompson