A simple freight car kitbash

Awhile back, when leafing through Ted Culotta’s excellent series, Focus on Freight Cars, I had one of those experiences where two entirely independent thoughts suddenly coalesce into something else, and I had an idea for a kitbash. I had recently noticed, as I do from time to time, that I had in my stash a couple of styrene 50-foot Viking roofs (I think from Des Plaines Hobbies), and that recollection surfaced when I looked at a photo in Ted’s Volume 5 (“Steel Automobile Cars”) and I suddenly focused on this image (page 77):  

This car, a 1937-built automobile car, has a Viking roof and sharp-corner Dreadnaught ends. And I have some 50-foot Branchline box car bodies. Let’s see if I have the parts that can go together. Below are the intended parts: a Branchline D&TS body, the Viking roof resting in place, and the Cannonball Car Shops 4/5 sharp-corner ends, parts #31511 (styrene moldings made in the former Red Ball molds originally used for white metal castings). These all fit.

The decorated car body you see above is as it came from the box. My first step was to strip the paint, using an elderly bottle of ScaleCoat stripper that still has enough oomph for a job like this. Otherwise the somewhat thick white lettering can be physically if not visually evident through a coat of good model paint.

Next I added weight to the car, using 5/8-11 steel nuts, attached with canopy glue. These will bring the weight of the model toward the NMRA recommended weight for a 50-ft. car. Note also below that I have installed the underframe and coupler boxes, essential to be in place before attaching the ends.

My next step in a model like this is to attach the doors, which will greatly stiffen the car body. An advantage of doing so at this stage is that additional styrene cement can be applied inside the body to the door contacts with the car body. The doors in this kit happen to be post-war doors, but they at least resemble the pre-war doors on the prototype 1937-built automobile car. The model thus shades toward a stand-in for the CNW prototype.

The stand-in nature of the project is amplified by the side-sheet patterns. The 1937 prototype has four side sheets to the left of the doors, six to the right, called a 4-6 pattern. The Branchline postwar body has the pattern typical of later cars, a 5-8 pattern. But in HO scale, side sheets aren’t very visible, so I chose to let this go. 

Here is the model at this stage, ready for installation of the Viking roof. 

My next steps will be to add the roof and ends. The Cannonball Car Shops ends are the correct sharp-corner “original” Dreadnaught style, but will require some trimming and fitting to line up properly with the roof and underframe. I will illustrate those steps in a future post.

Tony Thompson 

Waybills, Part 120: waybill cycle examples

I was recently reminded of a continuing issue for some layout operating schemes: the cycling of waybills, and whether this is too repetitious. This can be a complex topic. I would like to address several aspects of it, and will begin by providing simple examples of some of my own waybill cycles, to illustrate a few points about which I’m often asked.

(I’ve been writing blog posts on the general topic of waybills for some time, as the series number of the present post indicates. For a guide to the first 100 of these posts, grouped by subject matter, see my post at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/11/waybills-part-100-guide.html .) 

The most fundamental and, I suppose, obvious cycle is the loaded–empty cycle, whether inbound or outbound as the empty. And the most familiar, I imagine, is the inbound load. Once unloaded, in the typical prototype case, the car is returned to the nearest yard which manages empties via a Car Service office. Such a cycle thus requires two bills, one for the load and one for the empty move.

The example below is a load originating on the Milwaukee Road, as can be noted from the waybill header (you can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish). When empty, we imagine that the Shumala agent has filled out an Empty Car bill to return it to Los Angeles (Taylor Yard), where it will join the pool of empty cars awaiting loading elsewhere, or if not needed, it will return via service route to the railroad which originally delivered it to the SP (the UP at Ogden). This assumes a vigorous economy, in which empties are in demand. (If you wish, you can enlarge these images by clicking on them.)

Note also on the inbound waybill that this is a “milling in transit” cargo. When machining is complete, the outbound movement of the material will also move under that category, allowing a lower tariff rate for the entire sequence (see my previous post on the subject of milling in transit, at:  https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/07/waybills-part-71-milling-in-transit.html ). 

Of course there are many kinds of such load cycles. To give just one additional example, here is a load inbound to my fish cannery, Martinelli Bros., in Santa Rosalia on the layout, originally loaded on the Northern Pacific. But in this case, because the box car’s owner, the Northwestern Pacific, has a direct connection to SP, the car is routed directly back to NWP. Additionally, we know that NWP requested from time to time that its cars be sent home directly.

To illustrate inbound empties to be loaded, the Los Angeles Car Distributor received the Ballard agent’s request for an empty reefer, and sent it to the agent for loading (and their office used a rubber stamp to save very repetitious typing). The pink perishable waybill, a color recommended by AAR and followed by SP, shows the outbound cargo and destination, in this case only as far as St. Louis, where the shipper expected to reconsign the load to some other destination.. 

 Tank cars and other privately owned cars were often moved empty on a freight waybill to simplify and speed up movement. Here is an example of a high-pressure car following this pattern. Note that the “shipper” of the empty is the SP agent in town, a common practice for empty movement.

Livestock shipments used a specialized bill, standardized by the AAR, which contained places to note loading time, whether the railroad provided the car’s bedding, and whether the shipper had signed a waiver to permit 36 hours in the car before resting the animals, vs. the standard 28 hours. This is a slightly unusual use by the originating railroad (SP&S) of a foreign-road car, likely reflecting a tight car supply.

All these examples are intended to illustrate prototype procedures. as well as using paperwork reflecting the prototype forms, though considerably simplified for model use. I will return to this topic with additional examples in a future post. 

Tony Thompson 

SP piggyback, Part 7: finishing the flat cars

I am continuing with the project to complete the very nice 3D-printed Southern Pacific piggyback cars made by AJ Chier. In my last post about the flat cars, I showed completion of the body details (grab irons, sill steps, brake wheels), shown at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/02/sp-piggyback-part-5-3d-printed-flat-cars.html . I should repeat that because I model 1953, the first year of this service on the SP, my models reflect the very earliest practices of SP piggyback. 

First I needed to prepare the models for trucks and couplers. I used a bottoming tap to tap the bolster and coupler pocket holes 2-56. 

For lettering, I used the Protocraft set for SP Class F-70-6 and -7 flat cars (Rick Leach artwork). Each set is intended for lettering a single car. I used the set, but was a little disappointed in the low opacity of the white lettering in the smaller sizes. Here is the model as I lettered it with the Protocraft set.

Below is the central part of a builder photo (AC&F) of the last car in Class F-70-7 (they were numbered 140500–142549). You can readily see, in comparison to the above model photo, what I mean about the appearance of the smaller lettering (you can click to enlarge). But in layout operation, no doubt this will go unnoticed.  I did omit the AC&F builder emblem, as these are not visible on any of SP’s piggyback cars.

Next I turned to installation of trucks and couplers. This involved making a styrene sheet cover plate for the coupler pocket, what’s sometimes called a “one-minute job.” Then Kadee No. 158 couplers were added. 

Trucks are an interesting problem. These 70-ton flat cars of course had 70-ton trucks, and most modelers aren’t sensitive to the differences between 50-ton and 70-ton trucks: 5' 8" wheelbase instead of 5' 6", and slightly beefier sideframes; both aspects essentially invisible in HO scale. But several HO scale truck makers do offer 70-ton trucks, and I chose to use those.

The SP prototype cars had Barber S-2 trucks, of the early A0 (A zero) variety. Most commercial Barber S-2 trucks are S-2-B (so marked by the rare truck maker who actually designates such details, such as Kadee). Can we tell? Actually, yes. Below is a view (AC&F photo) of an SP Barber S-2-A0 truck.

 Here you can see the distinctive Barber bolster end, with its friction-wedge corners, and a pair of truck springs outermost (there were five such springs in the spring package). For more on this, for those interested, I would direct you to Bob Karig’s superb truck chapter (Chapter 6) in Coal Cars, University of Scranton Press, 2007.

(For background, on model trucks, I recommend Richard Hendrickson’s HO scale truck document, available on Google Docs at this link: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz_ctrHrDz4wcjJWcENpaDJYbUU/edit?usp=sharing .)

Commercial HO scale trucks, such as the very nice Kadee 70-ton Barber S-2-B, are visibly different, having three outermost springs visible in the spring package, a very noticeable aspect of a truck. I show the Kadee S-2-B below.

I chose the Rapido 70-ton truck (no. 102059), which does have the Barber bolster end and a pair of outermost springs, thus looking like the SP Barber trucks. You could also use the ExactRail 50-ton Barber, which is close to the SP prototype.

The completed flat car is shown below, loaded with a pair of the Pacific Motor Trucking trailers, which I described in the previous post (available at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/sp-piggyback-part-6-trailers.html ).

I look forward to seeing this car in a mainline train during a layout operating session, a single car being appropriate in the earliest days of SP piggyback. And thanks, one more time, to AJ Chier for making these very nice 3D printed models.

Tony Thompson 

More on crates as open-top car loads

I have posted several times about using both commercial and scratch-built crates as open-top car loads, which have the virtue of being easily handled and not delicate. This series of posts began back in 2012, near the beginning of this blog, with this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/03/open-car-loads-crates-and-machinery.html .

Years later, I added a couple of posts about crates I built myself, and included the kinds of shipper graphics I put onto these crates: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/05/open-car-loads-crates-part-2.html . That was Part 2. In Part 3, I showed more examples of ways to label these crates: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/06/open-car-loads-crates-part-3.html .

Most recently, I presented still another way of making one’s own crates for loads, this time using wood blocks, again with labels when completed: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/12/more-crate-and-box-loads-part-2.html . But it’s occurred to me, after browsing among prototype photos of loads, that many crates loaded to open-top cars don’t have shipper graphics on them. This of course means that they can be used in layout operation for a variety of shippers.

A familiar name among makers of commercial crate loads, at least in HO scale, is Chooch. They have long offered a series of large and small crates, apparently resin moldings and painted to be ready-to-use.  A variety of sizes and shapes have been produced, including heavily braced crates or pairs of crates. I’ve shown some of my efforts to label a few of these crates in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/06/open-car-loads-crates-part-4.html . 

Shown below are two of these Chooch sets. These are often available in hobby shops, and are also stocked by Walthers and a variety of on-line hobby sellers. Note the variety of sizes, shapes, and crate bracing, among these sets. Sometimes the color is not to my liking, and usually I repaint using Tamiya “Wooden Deck Tan,” XF-78.

 

In my own case, I add some blocking to suggest how the individual crate is restrained, as in the photo below with the crate on the right.

I have also added labels to some of the crates, while reserving most to be used in a plain condition. The plain ones can serve as shipments themselves, identified as to content only by consulting the waybill, or as “accompanying” crates of spare parts or parts not installed before shipment. For an example of the latter use, here is my Euclid scraper load (described in an earlier post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/05/vehicle-loading-on-flat-cars.html ), with such a plain crate included.

For the other case , the unlabeled crate load, such as shown below on my layout being switched by 0-6-0 SP 1284, the content of the crates on CNW flat car 42453 can only be discovered by looking at the waybill.

The waybill for the load illustrated above is shown below, incidentally conforming to the Car Service Rules.

Of course any of these Chooch crates can equally well be given a label to identify its owner or shipper. Below is one of these, photographed in a passing mainline train on my layout. It happens to be loaded into a General Service or drop-bottom gondola, illustrating the versatility of such cars. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

I continue to use commercial products when they fit my need, though I have constructed a number of scratch-built crates also, as described in some of the posts linked in the first three paragraphs of the present post. Both are welcome in operation and continue to be useful.

Tony Thompson 

More thoughts on realistic operation

Back in January I presented a clinic at the 2025 renewal of the annual Prototype Rails meeting in Cocoa Beach, Florida. My topic: what constitutes realistic operation of a layout, even a small one, and how to achieve it. As I usually do, I provided an on-line handout for the talk, which remains available at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/01/handout-for-realistic-operation-clinic.html .  

The primary purpose of this handout was to provide citations of every magazine article, book, and on-line resource mentioned in the clinic. This is helpful for anyone wanting to delve further into the topics I discussed. But partly for space reasons, I didn’t provide a summary of what was in the talk. Although not a summary, I have posted three background blogs on the topics of the clinic. These are listed below.

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/11/realistic-layout-operation.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/12/realistic-layout-operation-part-2.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/01/realistic-layout-operation-part-3.html

In spite of this extensive background material, I have received suggestions that a broader summary or commentary would be welcome. That is the purpose of the present post. I will try to avoid repetition from the posts just linked, but some overlap is inevitable.   

So what’s the core idea? For me, as I’ve stated several times, the core of realistic operation is following the prototype. Okay, what does that mean? I divide it into three parts: the first is in some ways the most obvious to observe, and yet the least important of the three, and I’ll explain why. This first point is realistic appearance. 

Now wonderful appearance is only one dimension of this topic. I would go a bit further on this point and mention that any experienced operator who has visited multiple layouts knows full well that most layouts, even some of the great ones, have some incompletely scenicked areas, sometimes areas not even begun. And in a few cases, as I can attest myself, a layout with no scenery can offer an excellently realistic operating experience.

To me that means that scenery and overall appearance, stunning as it may be, is not the core of realistic operation, great an assistant as it may be. By this I don’t mean that you don’t need to bother with appearance, just that you shouldn’t stop there. We all put a lot into this aspect, but don’t believe it’s all you have to do.

My second point for realistic operation is realistic paperwork. Now I know well that many modelers feel faint at the mention of paperwork, and on the scale of the prototype, which before computers employed armies of clerks to manage all the paper, it is indeed a sobering and really rather off-putting topic. Still, there is a lot we can easily do to capture the essence of it.

My first recommendation is a timetable. I often suggest that people just beginning operation start with a simple line-up that indicates nothing more than the sequence of trains. But once operations have been conducted that way, one can readily refine details and create a prototypical-looking timetable. It is easy to copy the familiar look of a prototype employee timetable, as in this example from Rich Remiarz’ Great Northern layout;

And I would extend these comments to all the paperwork that may be used in an operating session. As many readers know, one of my own enthusiasms is prototypical waybills, and I have been happy with using paperwork that mimics prototype appearance. Here is a typical pair of load/empty bills.

But important as the preceding points may be, I think the most important part of realistic operation is my third point, procedures. By procedure I mean how things are done on the layout: how trains are run, how switching is conducted, and so on. Here, following the prototype brings us into the details of everyday railroading, often not very well known by us as modelers. Still, we can, and I believe, should aspire to learn more about how railroads actually work, or did work back in the day we have chosen to model.

Just as a single example, below is a well-known photo of an SP dispatcher at work, with the classic tools: train sheet, standard clock, microphone and speaker, even his bag lunch on the shelf (Philip R. Hastings photo, CSRM).

That most of us have only a limited knowledge of day-to-day railroading of course suggests that this is the area where you have the opportunity to learn more. The clinic handout, linked in the first paragraph, above, contains numerous examples of sources of prototype operating information.

I think that we should try to include as much realistic complexity, in the form of specific tasks, such as changing locomotives and cabooses at division points, as can reasonably fit into a layout operating scheme. Each of those added tasks can make operation more realistic. So yes, you have to learn prototype operations, and in particular, you need to learn the operations of the specific prototype you model or have free-lanced from— if, that is, you wish to operate realistically.

So, one more time: follow the prototype, in layout appearance, paperwork, and procedures. I believe this is at the heart of any realistically operating layout. 

Tony Thompson

WOOPS 2025

As perhaps only Westerner model railroaders know, “WOOPS” stands for “Western Oregon Ops,” an event held in alternate years. This year it took place during June 6–8. Though literally only in the northwestern corner of Oregon, there are a number of fine layouts, and a fair crowd shows up every time. Below is their emblem, including iconic Mt. Hood, a visual presence throughout the region. 

I reported on a WOOPS event once before, in a blog post, and if interested you can view it at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/06/woops-2019.html .

I was only able to attend for two days this year, but enjoyed two really nice, large, and interesting layouts. The first was Charlie Comstock’s Bear Creek and South Jackson, with a challenging operating scheme. I worked at Bear Creek Yard, and was kept moderately busy all day. 

I was especially intrigued to see the ground throws that Charlie uses: they are the Caboose Industries N-scale throws, though the layout is HO scale. This works because his hand-laid switches have a near-prototype spacing of point and stock rails, so the smaller throw distance of the N-scale device is sufficient. It’s quite visible here at an unpainted switch.

The layout is scenicked nicely in a number of areas, while not yet done in other areas. The completed ones were quite well handled, such as this scene at Junction City, Oregon. It’s very sharp depot model, and some good industrial buildings (the one at right is a computer-printed paper). Notice at left he is experimenting with photographs for the streets that head straight into the wall. And every station has a schematic map on the fascia to help orient crews.  

The other layout was Bill Decker’s Cascade Division of the SP, set in the early 1970s at the moment (he plans to backdate in the near future). The layout is HO scale, and models from Eugene, Oregon and environs, then up the long climb to cross the Cascades at Cascade Summit. Again, I managed to snag a yard job in the big and rather busy Eugene Yard, and had a lot of fun doing it, busy most of the day.  This photo looks railroad west along the yard. 

In addition to mainline trains climbing or descending the grade, there are several busy locals. Below you see Steve Menker (left) and Jim Radkey (right) working the Springfield Local. 

As has happened every time I’ve attended, it was a fun weekend with really enjoyable layouts. If you get a chance to attend a future WOOPS, don’t miss it!

Tony Thompson 

Southern Pacific’s railroad in Mexico

Recently I received an email question that I thought was interesting enough to merit discussion here. The question was, what were the freight cars of the SP railroad in Mexico, did cars go back and forth over the border with the U.S., and when did that all stop?

The background is covered in a number of books, perhaps best in the one authored by John Signor and John Kirchner, The Southern Pacific of Mexico (Golden West Books, San Marino, CA, 1987). The story began in 1882 with the completion of the Ferrocarril de Sonora  in the Mexican state of Sonora, from the U.S. border at Nogales, Arizona to the port of Guaymas on the Gulf of California. This was built under the auspices of the Santa Fe, which operated it until 1898.

In 1898, the SP’s little-used line from Mojave to Needles, California was traded to the Santa Fe (to forestall further Santa Fe construction westward) in return for the Sonora Railway. SP soon acquired also the railroad properties of the Cananea, Rio Yaqui and Pacific, and in 1905 began to build southward past Mazatlan, eventually to reach Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco. The name given to the combined railroads (FdeS, CRYyP, and the new construction) was the Sud Pacifico de Mexico or SPdeM. 

Much of the new railroad’s rolling stock was handed down from the SP in U.S. or leased. In the 1930s, to cite an example, SPdeM owned only 29 of its 112 locomotives and 657 of its 1251 freight cars. The SPdeM, as emphasized in the Signor and Kirchner book, was remarkably like the parent SP, not only with its hand-me-down rolling stock and locomotives, but in use of the SP rule book, timetable and train order operation (with telegraph communication only),  and many familiar features of SP practice. 

Photographs of yards and trains in the 1940s and up to the sale of SPdeM to the Mexican government in 1951 show that most freight cars, certainly all the modern ones, had SP initials, interchanged into Mexico. In principle, SP cars made empty in Mexico were not permitted to be reloaded to further destinations in Mexico, only back to the U.S., but this regulation was not stringently enforced. The same applied to PFE cars. Moreover, significant numbers of empty SP and PFE cars were interchanged into Mexico for SPdeM use.

One consequence of these cross-border movements of cars has to do with waybills and how they were handled. I have described earlier the basics of the situation (see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/10/waybills-part-75-non-us-freight-cars.html ), and followed that discussion with several further examples of both Canadian- and Mexican-origin shipments (in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/10/waybills-part-76-more-on-cross-border.html ).  

Let’s look at some rolling stock. Below is a photo (Library of Congress) taken during the Mexican Revolution of 1911, showing insurrectionists atop a train. The caboose is an SP design, Class CA, and the box car (number not readable) is one of the early Harriman-standard double-sheathed box cars, likely Class B-50-5 or -6.

 To show one of the few cars built new for the SPdeM, below is a builder photo (AC&F, Al Westerfield collection) of a member of Class B-50-6. 

Another example of these cars in service is this view (Southern Pacific) of the Redo Sugar Co. mill at El Dorado, Sinaloa, with several box cars in sight. These too appear to be Harriman Class B-50-6 cars. 

After the sale of the SPdeM to the Mexican government in 1951, the railroad was renamed Ferrocarril del Pacifico (Pacific Railroad), initially with reporting marks FdelP, but soon changed to FCP. I have described the changes of the former SP rolling stock to the FCP ownership in an earlier post (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/08/ferrocarril-del-pacifico.html ). Since I model 1953, I need to focus on the FdelP, not the SPdeM.

On the modeling front, I have shown my creation of one of the re-lettered former SP cars in a post a few years ago (here’s a link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/09/resin-box-car-build-part-3.html ). A photo of my completed model, a former SP Class B-50-14 from a Sunshine kit, is below, including the “patched” change of reporting marks. 

So that’s an overview of “SP’s railroad in Mexico,” and a few of the aspects that can be part of model railroading.

Tony Thompson