Anybody Model the Clinchfield RR?

K-Line did a metal (heavy!) 2-bay hopper lettered for CRR. I bought a couple at about the time of K-Line's demise. Have never found any others.

Thanks Rex!

I'm going to do some research to see what kind of hoppers they had. I'm sure Weaver has one that will fit the bill, just need to find/make some decals to go with it.

I'll revisit my Mainline Modeler issues to see if they had any articles on CRR hoppers.

I could probably go with a C&O hopper, but I'd rather go CRR, I expect the coal business with SAL was more so than that between SAL and C&O.

I believe Railroad Model Craftsman or possible Model Railroader ran Clinchfield articles about 10 years ago. Neat scenery - especially like their 4-6-6-4 challengers. I think Sunset 3rd Rail offered them in 2 and 3 rail versions.

Ed Rappe

Bob,

One one of my Norfolk and Western DVD programs shows several loaded two-bay offset side coal hoppers lettered for the Clinchfield Railroad. They did not have peaked ends. Looks like Lionel made one radial end car, item 6-27061, in a two-pack set.



Hope this helps.

CC&O may have had some radial end offset side hoppers as well. THe CC&O historicl society commissined a special run of these cars with Atlas HO.

Hey guys,

I started looking thru my Mainline Modeler copies and found an article in the January 1989 issue (page 47) on the CCO (CRR) FH6 Hoppers, by Mont Switzer.

They had 3000 of this design with build dates back to the 1940s, NKP also had 825 cars of this design.

Switzer took a Athearn HO model and added a seam down the center of the sides, riveted in place. The ends had a "notch" in them, instead of rounded from side to side.

They were painted black with white lettering.

The Weaver 2-bay Offset-Side Hopper looks to be a good candidate:

WEAVER HOPPER

but I need to take a closer look before I buy, at least the notched end looks right!

More later!

Here's a photo I found on E-Bay:

CRR HOPPER

try it now!

Atlas made a 3-Bay Clinchfield Hopper in the Trainman line:

TRAINMAN CRR 3-BAY HOPPER

I am hoping to see MTH do a clinchfield autorack!

http://images.cloud.worthpoint...3add05f838624bf0.jpg

quote:

The ends had a "notch" in them, instead of rounded from side to side.

The MTH 20-97573 might be worth a look.

I finally got the photo of the 2-Bay car:



The Weaver car seems closest to it, of the 3 they show on their site (listed under 2-Bay Offset Side Hopper), only 1 (Montour) shows it has the notched, radial end. The undecorated and PRR cars are showing flat, straight across ends.

The main thing that would have to be done is to apply the center overlap seam, paint/letter.

I looked for the Trainman 3-Bay car and couldn't find any online dealers with it in stock.

If the Weaver car is like their other cars, it should come with a coupler box pad so Kadees could be mounted, not sure about the MTH car.

Bob - some issues to consider about the Weaver offset side twin hopper.

The Weaver offset side 2 bay hopper is a very poor model of a 33' 50T offset side prototype for 2 reasons

The body is too long
The offset on the side is too shallow


To minimize cost 25 years ago, Bob Weaver had the tooling for the offset side twin hopper done by starting with the basic tooling for his correct to scale PS1 twin hopper. The trouble with this approach for prototype oriented modelers was that the PS1 and AAR 50T offset side hoppers have little in common other than the number of hopper doors. Bob fully understood the compromises being made in producing his offset side hopper, but believed there was a market for an inexpensive alternative to brass imports (Initially Weaver's plastic cars and locomotives were made only for the 2 rail market).

The price of USAH/Max Gray brass hoppers has dropped into the $60 range after peaking around $125 when Weaver first produced his $19.95 plastic hoppers. One of the older brass twins might be an attractive alternative for a Clinchfield hopper project as they were offered with and without peaked ends.

Ed Rappe

quote:

Originally posted by Keystoned Ed:


The offset on the side is too shallow


Ed Rappe

The MTH cars have this same problem. Lionel's offset side hopper is very nice but it will require extra work to install Kadee couplers on them.

Ed,

I noticed the shallow offset, but thought it was the angle of the photo

Any good recommendations for a C&O hopper to cover 1945-1965?

I'll look around for the Max Gray version. The Tidewater NMRA show is coming up on the 17-18 of this month, hopefully there'll be some O scale stuff on the tables. It certainly won't bother me to hack on an existing car to get what I want

Bob

I'm told by a C&O friend that the AtlasO Trainman tripple is a good model of a C&O prototype delivered in the 1951/2 time frame. C&O also had a number of war emergency twin hoppers as modelled by AtlasO and Weaver.

If you put out a standing search(with email notification) for Max Gray or US Hobbies hoppers on eBay you're likely to get quite a few hits.

Ed Rappe

C&O used lots of different hoper car designs so there are lots of choices.

The Atlas O Trainman car is a few feet too long to match the C&O prototype; I consider it a poor choice for a C&O hopper. We measured the Trainmaan car and compared it to drawings when it was released. Atlas O made that car from a M&STL prototype. A better option is the MTH 70-ton 3-bay hopper with the rounded ends. MTH built that model to actual C&O plans. Or you can use the Atlas O fishbelly hopper or the Lionel offset side hopper.


MTH car

Thanks guys, I'll keep looking for the ones ya'll mentioned. 1 or 2 would do the job. I've noticed a couple of articles in Mainline Modeler on C&O hoppers and will look at them too.

The curious thing to me is, Seaboard had some open hoppers, but without any coal mines on the line, what did they use they for or how? Could they have gone offline, received coal, then returned?

quote:

Originally posted by Bob Delbridge:
T
The curious thing to me is, Seaboard had some open hoppers, but without any coal mines on the line, what did they use they for or how? Could they have gone offline, received coal, then returned?

There are coal mines in Alabama. Didn't Seaboard go there? I believe that's where the road used its 2-10-2s.

I know they went into B'ham, but according to all the books, no mines on the SAL road itself. Still they got it from somewhere and I doubt Clinchfield or C&O were the only suppliers.

More digging is required

quote:

Originally posted by Bob Delbridge:
I know they went into B'ham, but according to all the books, no mines on the SAL road itself. Still they got it from somewhere and I doubt Clinchfield or C&O were the only suppliers.

More digging is required

Seaboard Air Line expanded west from Atlanta to Birmingham in part for traffic generated by northern Alabama coal mines. See the book at the link below.

http://books.google.com/books?...al%20alabama&f=false

I have Prince's book so I'll read up on that part. The book I have by Robert Wayne Johnson is the book that says Seaboard had no coal mines on it's mainline. It mentions the Clinchfield, C&O, and Virginian in the pages that mention coal.

After searching books, magazines, internet and coming up empty I decided to back up a bit and re-focus on what I was looking for.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so I pulled out my 3 main books on the Seaboard and started looking for photos of freight trains with coal cars in them.

I found 3-4 (out of 4 books) and the one that stood out was a shot of a train leaving Portsmouth (my hometown) and heading to Richmond, according to the caption. In the photo I can make out 3 Virginian 2-Bay hoppers with 7 vertical ribs on the side. One of the books mentioned Seaboard received coal from the Virginian at the interchange in Alberta. The book was "All Lines North of Raleigh" by Bill Griffin Jr, page 103.

Looking in the small book I have on the Virginian it appears these cars could be their class H-6, H-12, H-12-B, H-13-C, or H-15.

Certainly I can find a Virginian hopper that will work, or possibly repaint/letter one into a Virginian hopper.

I'll speculate that most of the Alabama coal was used in either Birmingham or Atlanta, with most going to the Birmingham steel mills. I recall reading that Alabama coal was a lower quality coal than Pocahontas region coal so it would not have a broad market appeal.

If you are not modeling the Atlanta=Birmingham line it may be wise to leave out the Seaboard hoppers unless they are carrying ballast.

I hadn't thought about the Bama steel mills, that makes sense.

Every time I open this thread up I scroll past that C&O 3-Bay Hopper you posted photos of, it's starting to have an effect on me, might have to look into those Good crisp picture by the way!

quote:

Originally posted by ChessieMan:
C&O used lots of different hoper car designs so there are lots of choices.

The Atlas O Trainman car is a few feet too long to match the C&O prototype; I consider it a poor choice for a C&O hopper. We measured the Trainmaan car and compared it to drawings when it was released. Atlas O made that car from a M&STL prototype. A better option is the MTH 70-ton 3-bay hopper with the rounded ends. MTH built that model to actual C&O plans. Or you can use the Atlas O fishbelly hopper or the Lionel offset side hopper.


MTH car

The C&O 3-bay 70-ton hopper has been included in the new 2012 MTH catalog.

I know that the Seaboard interchanged with the Clinchfield at Bostic,NC. So most of the Coal traffic would head down the Seaboard Charlotte Sub to the Monroe Sub and on to Hamlet. I know that the Seaboard R-1's where used as regular power for those coal trains.

Thanks Sean, I knew Bostic was a major player in getting coal to the SAL.

I've also seen photos of hoppers loaded with coal up in Richmond, but can't make out the name of the RR on the sides.

Bob-Curious, which part of SAL are you modelling?

Bill,

I "wanted" to have a Virginia flavor to my layout, particularly the Portsmouth Sub-Division, but it's a stretch at this point.

The more I looked into how things were back between 1951 and 1967 the less I found. The one area I knew anything about (Portsmouth) was practically all serviced by Norfolk/Portsmouth Belt Line, from what I've gathered Seaboard came into the Yards in Portsmouth and NPBL took it from there.

Suffolk and Franklin, Weldon, and Roanoke Rapids had plenty of traffic: peanuts, cotton, lumber, pulp, etc. But I found it hard to model a single, more or less straight line that went from Portsmouth to Norlina, in a 11x12 foot room.

When I found myself getting caught up in the logistics of it all I realized I couldn't do all I wanted so I backed off to a more friendly approach, modeling sidings that were easy to model with what was commercially available.

I'd still like to model some of the things along the Sub-Division, but the longer I wait the harder it'll be to find the data. The one thing I don't like is the fact that the Sub-division was "dark", no signals, just schedules and train orders, I've always wanted to have some nice scale signals along the line.

Oh well. If the trackwork doesn't duplicate what really was, at least I've got enough Seaboard engines and rolling stock to make believe there's a small portion of the old SAL still running.

I'd love to see what you've done some time. My last layout was a generic representation of the ACL, N&W and Southern through Suffolk.

If you are not tied to stricly to prototype, what about N&W for coal? The Atlas fishbelly is a fairly common N&W hopper, and there is no reason the Portsmouth sub couldn't pick some up from the NPBL interchange.

Bill,

Generic describes my layout perfectly. In my mind it "looks" just like the Seaboard tracks in the area, but that's about as accurate as it gets (in my mind that is LOL).

I would be better off to model the NPBL. Not only would my round-the-room layout suit it better, I could limit my engines to 2 or 3 types.

I'd have to go look but I think there were 6-7 RRs that NPBL interchanged with: ACL, SAL, N&W, PRR, Southern, A&D/NF&D, and maybe a couple of others (need to check my NPBL book).

I did get a C&O hopper, but a N&W hopper would also look good.

Does anyone have info on the various hopper car types used by CRR in the days of the Challengers(no later than 1952 or  so?).The discussions above seem to cover a wider variety of timeframe than my interest.

Answered part of my own question. From my copies of the 1946 and 1956 Railway Equipment Register, in 1946 CCR had four number-classes of hoppers:

Numbers	Inside length	Capacity, lb	Design
43750-45499	30’6”	100000	USRA 2-bay
47000-47599	33’0”	100000	AAR Offset side, 2-bay
48000-48499	33’0”	100000	Composite
49000-50999	35’0”	100000	TBD, must be 2-bay

 

In 1956 CCR had added one number-class of hopper

52000-52499

33’0”

100000

TBD, must be 2-bay

Conclusion: You can model CCR in the steam era (and early diesel) with just 2-bay hoppers. Pending figuring out my TBD’s, three of the number-classes are commercially available models-just need to come up with decals.

Cool.