O Scale Freight Car Guide

Ted,

 

I want to thank you again for doing this   The Admins really need to make these topics "stickies" so they won't be lost.

I second the Thanks to Ted, and the "Stickies" by the Admins!  Great Information in these threads. I am learning a lot!

I agree with Bob and rtr12. Thanks for doing this, Ted!

These threads are awesome!

 

But I don't know if "stickies" for each thread are a good idea - you might eventually end up with a first page, or even several pages, full of nothing but "stickies," especially as the number of threads gets closer to the 200 number mentioned above.  Maybe each section of the forum, where appropriate, should have a single locked "stickie" thread containing descriptions and links to appropriate threads of this type in that section of the forum.  That way you only have one "stickie" and through it, you can find the threads you are looking for.

 

Andy

I'll add my name to the growing list of those who appreciate these compilations. As one who was totally out of the hobby for about 6 years, they have been a great way to catch up on some of the things I missed, as well as seeing all the different manufacturers offerings in one place.

 

I agree that this topic should be somehow placed on the forum where it can be easily found, and should serve as sort of a "table of contents" with the links to each of the car type "chapters".

 

Great work Ted! Tank cars next?

Thanks Ted,  great info...

This is good. Now we need threads for:

40ft boxcars

50ft boxcars

60ft boxcars

Tank cars

and open hoppers

Hey everyone

 

I'm glad that so many of you are enjoying these threads.  There does seem to be need for those of us in the O scale market to have a quick point of reference for contemporary products.  I started looking up information on freight cars a few years ago and was amazed to find how many different models are out there.

 

This is good. Now we need threads for:

40ft boxcars

50ft boxcars

60ft boxcars

Tank cars

and open hoppers

 

 

Flash

 

What about

Reefers

Flat cars

and MOW equipment?

 

 

I am planning to do a new thread on a specific car type every month or so.  Some freight car types have so many models available there will be broken down into two or more threads.  By next year we should have a good handle on what O Scale Freight Car models are available.

 

 

Ted,

 

Thanks for all your time & hard work on this project. I also would like to see this in a table of contents form.

 

 

Joe B.

The Freight Car Guides might end up becoming a topic with their own sub-Forum.

 

Andrew

The three rail world is so muddied and muddled by fantasy cars, that some sort of list

of "scale models", vs. "fantasy toys" ought to be published annually in hard copy.

Thanks Ted. Much needed approach and very appreciative of your time. 

Ted, I would like to know more about the box car markings with internal lading devices.

Could you provide us with a list of acronyms?

 

SE

 L = Spartan Easy Loader

 

LRD = Load Restraining Device

 

SL= Spartan Loader or Stines?

 

DF = Damage Free

 

DF2 =

 

And so on….

 

Thanks

 

 

A movable stanchion for bracing freight in a transporting vehicle such as a railroad car or the like. The stanchion is supported for movement along the length of the cargo area of the car by an overhead track. A locking device carried by the stanchion cooperates with the overhead track and a floor mounted track to lock the stanchion in preselected bracing positions. The stanchion has a bracing face that extends transversely to its direction of movement and which is substantially less in the transverse direction than one-half of the width of the cargo area. The stanchion also has a device which cooperates with the floor mounted track so as to prevent pivotal movement in a transverse direction. Belts are also used to secure the shipment.

A great idea Ted, can I suggest when you post a new thread you edit the first post of this one to add a link?  That way we can find all of them easily.

 

My MTH Book on Premier Rolling Stock Vol I details all MTH Premier Cars from 1996 to 2013 vol I, it covers Multi-car sets, cabooses, boxcars, reefers and stock cars. The book includes nearly all pictures along with the catalog it first appeard in, the road numbers, curves required and dimensions. It can be purchased from our web site www.thetrainshop.com

 

Volume II which covers the remainder of the premier freight cars will be out by the end of August

This will be great info to have.  Maybe instead of multiple stickies, sticky one thread with links to all the others.  Just a thought.  Maybe title it scale freight car guide or something of the like.

Hey guys

 

I will add links to future threads here so we have one central place to check in.  If the admins would like to make this a sticky it would be fine with me.

 

Richard

 

Thanks for the link to your book.  I don't have it but I will be getting it.  As a TCA member I think that the last 20 year of O scale train production is fascinating with so much new tooling and the vast number of road names and road numbers produced.  So far it has not been thoroughly documented like the post-war era.

 

I have yet to find a reference that documents when detail upgrades, truck changes and underframe changes for Kadee mounting took place on Premier line freight cars.  Does your book have that information?

 

If people are interested in another reference to MTH Premier line trains I recommend the ebook by Steve Glynn available from MTH as item 60-1272.  It lists all the Premier line items produced by type and item number with a brief description, when they were cataloged and a general description of rarity.

 

http://www.mthtrains.com/content/60-1272

 

Ted, I would like to know more about the box car markings with internal lading devices.

Could you provide us with a list of acronyms?

 

SE

 L = Spartan Easy Loader

 

LRD = Load Restraining Device

 

SL= Spartan Loader or Stines?

 

DF = Damage Free

 

DF2 =

 

And so on….

 

Thanks

 

 

SIRT

 

To that fine list I can add

 

DF2 = Evans Damage Free 2nd version and

 

CarPac = Lading loader by Pacific Car & Foundry.

 

Maybe when we get to modern box cars we can add a final Jeopardy question like "describe the characteristics of an XMLI vs. an RBL." 

 

New for September:  Tank Cars

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...-car-guide-tank-cars

 

Ted, add my name to the list of appreciative readers who look forward to your posts. Great job on this series, and extremely helpful!

I glad your taking the time to do this too, this has been helping me a lot. it took me a long time to discover that the Williams box cars were based on a late 20s or early 30s prototype. The same with Crown. Trying to figure out K line scale cars is an issue I would like to see addressed. I always joked with a friend of mine that someone should publish a book titled O scale for Dummies 

Hey guys

 

It is always nice to hear from more people who are following the series and finding it helpful.  I started really looking into recent O scale freight car production a few years ago with Atlas simply trying to answer the question "what the heck have they made?"  I was astonished by not just the number of road names and paint schemes but the shear number of scale freight car models that have been introduced to the market since the 1990s.  There are more than 200 differently tooled scale freight cars that have been used in the last 20 years.  Just the number of box cars is over 40!

 

Szukovich

 

K-Line can be an enigma.  On the one hand they helped create the three rail scale market, especially in their later years with so many spectacular passenger cars, scale freight cars and even some models with factory Kadee compatible couplers.  On the other hand the best way to sum up the K-Line "scale" box cars is to simply note that they are not scale models.

 

October is just around the corner.  Stay tuned for the next installment of the O scale freight car guide.  This one will be a little different and ask for even more audience participation before we return to our regular format for November, December and beyond.

The 761 series K-Line "scale" boxcars were a transitional item, when K-Line was just starting to get its feet wet in the scale market. Same thing for the 762 series reefers - scale size but certainly not scale models. Look at the later 742 series reefers and they are almost up to Atlas standards - actually superior in some ways, i.e. the interiors. If K-Line had survived, we might have seen a new mold for a 741 series boxcar that would have been a genuine scale car. 

 

K-Line made a lot of mistakes getting into scale freight cars. Look at the well cars - as I understand it, they are pretty good scale models of 40' container cars, but they are lettered for 48' containers. And both the well cars and the spine cars were shipped out with Bettendorf trucks in place of the roller bearing trucks that should have been there. Things got better as K-Line gained experience building scale models. The last generation of steam locos were superlative. 

 

Allow me to add my thanks for posting this series. My personal interest is much more steam era than the more modern items, but I am still learning a lot of useful information from these threads. 

What a great idea!  Thanks so much for taking the time to put together this resource!

 

---Greg

Southwest Hi

 

Thanks for the comments on K-Line.  I just updated the entry on the K-Line extruded aluminum tanks cars.  They made more variations than I was originally aware of.

 

Look at the later 742 series reefers and they are almost up to Atlas standards - actually superior in some ways, i.e. the interiors.

 

According to Jim Policastro the K-Line 742 series reefers are from the Intermountain/Red Caboose tooling.  Check out this thread.

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...tain-railway-company

 

 

 

 

The 742 series are woodside cars; the Intermountain cars are steelside. K-Line did build their very first scale reefer cars from Intermountain kits. These were steelside cars numbered in the series K-76xx. I have a couple of them. There were maybe ten or a dozen, including GTW, N&W, NKP, ATSF, and a very cool "Pig's Eye Beer" that was done for a TCA convention. These were very, very fragile and I suspect that had something to do with K-Line's decision to make their own mold and build the 762 series cars, which were less detailed but more rugged. The 742 series of woodside cars, which were worthy competitors to Atlas for quality, were original to K-Line and were produced after Atlas had bought the Intermountain 0 gauge line. If you look carefully at Jim P's post about the K-Line/Intermountain cars, he refers to "their line of refrigerator cars" and does not mention the 742 series cars as such. 

 

Although they are not scale models, I like the 761 boxcars and 762 reefers to run at open houses at our museum because they are scale size and rugged enough to take repeated handling.  The 742 cars are less fragile than Atlas, but still require extreme care in handling. I have about 20 of the 742 cars. 

 

Here's a comparison photo of Atlas and K-Line woodside reefers side by side. Atlas on the left, K-Line on the right. You can see distinct differences in paint colors. The Atlas Oppenheimer car is a 36-footer, which is prototypically correct. K-Line only made a 40-foot car. 

Here's one of the K-Line/Intermountain reefers. It has a broken hatch latch, not unusual on these very fragile cars.

 

And here's another K-Line/Intermountain car, also with minor damage to details.

 Seems like the right place to ask,

I'm trying to build an intermodal train and I like the MTH trailers the best. Are all the Railking trailers O27? Are they full sized?

 Are all the premier trailers full sized for that matter?

 

thanks Ted. Moved the question there.

Southwest Hi

 

Thanks for the continuing info in K-Line!

 

Joe

 

I think the guys on the Intermodal Primer can best answer that for you.  They helped to inspire the start of the Freight Car Guide project, in part of cover all the conventional car types they were not discussing.  Since we have such a great resource in the intermodal primer I haven't been planning to to a guide to intermodal equipment.  I would suggest asking about piggy back trailers there.

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...ermodal-pics?page=33

 

These have been really good articles. I have to agree with a few that it would be great to have some way to specify whether items are fantasy or mostly scale.

 

What I think would be very useful is to have threads dedicated to individual railroads and determining what scale rolling stock and engines are available and the era listed as well. I can find my way fine on N&W appropriate items and era but doing the research for every railroad would be an enormous task. In this way knowledgeable people would post under their favorite railroad and others like me could benefit from their knowledge by checking into the individual railroad threads. Likewise, I could help out with the N&W items. This would also take some of the burden off of Ted, although he is doing great work with this now. I don't know, just an idea. I find I'm more lost than not when I get outside of what is available on the N&W. Determining between fantasy and scale is most important to me.

Christopher

 

With over 200 O scale freight cars we have months and months worth of material ahead just trying to cover models one type at a time.  I plan to continue covering O scale freight cars by type with one exception for now.  And that exception is the October installment of the O Scale Freight Car Guide.

 

Building on last month's coverage of O scale tank cars, a discussion sparked by RJL and my own personal interest in and knowledge of Hooker freight cars I decided to focus on that colorful shipper and private car owner for this month.

 

Take a look.  And please furnish information on car numbers and commodities to help us create a comprehensive reference to O scale Hooker freight cars.

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...-hooker-freight-cars

 

 

 

 

New for November:  50 and 55 ton Two Bay Open Hoppers

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...-55-ton-open-hoppers

 

New for the New Year:  70 and 100 ton open hoppers.

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...100-ton-open-hoppers

 

Don't forget about the drop-end gondolas, the ones that the ends drop down on for easy loading of heavy equipment by rail. Also there are gondolas for rolls of coil and have coil covers, main use by steel industry.

 

What about auto loaders, single and double size? 

You can see these at auto loading facilities.

 

Lee Fritz

Since so many of these cars have been offered in both 3 rail and scale, I wonder if there is a different place to put these discussions, so that all O scalers will know about and use them...

 

Mark in Oregon

Great stuff Ted!  Thanks so much for all your hard work to compile and share this information with everyone!

 

--Greg

Don't forget about the drop-end gondolas, the ones that the ends drop down on for easy loading of heavy equipment by rail.

 

Lee

 

You should check out the O Scale Freight Car Guide to Gondolas.  You can read about the two O scale gondola models that are available with working drop ends. 

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...t-car-guide-gondolas

 

Since so many of these cars have been offered in both 3 rail and scale, I wonder if there is a different place to put these discussions, so that all O scalers will know about and use them...

 

Mark

 

Do you mean 3 rail O scale and 2 rail O scale?  Remember, O scale isn't dependent on the number of rails!

 

I have put this thread on the main forum so that the largest number of users will find it and can then follow the links to the threads on each car type.  I placed the individual threads on the 3 Rail Scale forum because it seamed appropriate and I hope it will bring some new readers to all the other threads in the 3RS section.  Feel free to post a link to this thread if you like.  If, as some readers have suggested,  our moderators would like to place links to all the individual threads in a sticky at the top of the 3RS page I'd be all for it.

 

Great stuff Ted!  Thanks so much for all your hard work to compile and share this information with everyone!

 

Greg

 

Thanks, that is always encouraging to hear.  We have covered dozens of models in several car types so far but there are plenty of models left to cover in future installments of the O Scale Freight Car Guide.

 

Thanks for the information

Brent

Hi Ted,

 

I know I'm coming way late to the party, but I really like what you're doing with the freight car guides.

 

I've added a few comments on some of the individual threads based on what I can remember from my time managing the freight car category at Lionel.

 

Regards,

Todd

Todd

 

Thank you very much for contributing to the O Scale Freight Car Guide threads.  And thank you for helping to bring us so many of the excellent O scale models we have been enjoying in recent years.

 

A few years ago you posted on a thread about Lionel PS-1 box cars.  I thought your post was such an important view into the behind the scenes story of Lionel's Standard O product Line that I printed it out and have it in one of my home made reference booklets.  That thread and your post helped to start me going on the research that laid the ground work for this series of threads.

 

For anyone interested in the Lionel Standard O PS-1 box cars I highly recommend reading this thread and Todd's comments on the PS-1 development process.

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...updated-11811?page=1

Ted,

 

No problem, and I'm glad to help out.

 

I'm particularly proud of what we were able to accomplish with the freight car category in the early 2000's. And even though a large portion of them were created more than a decade ago, I think they're still relevant today.

 

Regards,

Todd