Question : Double Cab Cargo Coal Trolley.

The model you have is a Differenttial Dump car. The company became DIVCO. The prototype was a versital piece of work equipment owned  by many Trolley companies. The model was produced years ago  in White metal if my memory serves me correctly by Miller Models. It is a very nice kit and yours looks like it was put together well. Enjoy it.

Much more likely that your model represents a MOW unit that carried ballast (some trolley lines had stretches of track that were on private right-of-way and thus built like any other railroad.)

---PCJ

Yes, it's a side dump car. They were a handy utility vehicle for a lot of trolley lines, carrying everything from ballast and cobblestones to coal for the trolley company power plant.

http://www.edmonton-radial-rai...b.ca/_images/007.jpg

I built an O scale 2-railer on an Atlas switcher chassis years ago. It was patterned after the Bucks County Electric single-trucker that carried coal; there's pictures in a Jim Richards article in a decades-old NMRA bulletin. I sawed one end off and ran it as a 4-wheeler, and the box sides were high enough to hide the motor.

I have seen a photo of something like that being used to clear snow, with workers walking along side with shovels.  

And here’s a link to a photo of a Differential Car Company double cab side dump in action at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum: Click here: Pittsburgh Railways M551

This car had been owned by Pittsburgh Railways and then by its successor, Port Authority Transit and continues to do the job it was designed to do helping to maintain the 4 plus miles of trackage at the museum.

Bill

Differential Dump Cars were common from the 1920s to the late 1960s and early 1970s particularly on the larger systems like Toronto, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.  After the 1970s trucks were more common.

Nate posted:

The model you have is a Differenttial Dump car. The company became DIVCO. The prototype was a versital piece of work equipment owned  by many Trolley companies. The model was produced years ago  in White metal if my memory serves me correctly by Miller Models. It is a very nice kit and yours looks like it was put together well. Enjoy it.

 

Pretty much nailed it -Differential Dump Car.  There were two different kits of these produced and as I recall Ashland was one of the 2 and I thought the other was Copetown.  I have 1 assembled to be powered and another to build.  You could get these as a single cab or as an unpowered trailer.  Looks like there's a 2-rail Wagner drive under it so the odds are pretty good that it's set up for DC overhead wire operations.

This, however, is a traction coal motor that was scratchbuilt and is now the restoration queue in my shop.  Needs a little TLC (paint), some detail parts, poles, and a drive....

Just for the record, here is Differential Car Company prototype.

mwb posted:

This, however, is a traction coal motor that was scratchbuilt and is now the restoration queue in my shop.  Needs a little TLC (paint), some detail parts, poles, and a drive....

I think in one of Dr. Cox's books on PRT/PTC work cars there is a prototype for this car.

Differential also made a center dump type hopper car. There were used in Boston and maybe other places.  Today there are two in existance, one at Seashore Trolley Museum and the other at Penn. Trolley Museum. 

Bill Robb posted:

mwb posted:

This, however, is a traction coal motor that was scratchbuilt and is now the restoration queue in my shop.  Needs a little TLC (paint), some detail parts, poles, and a drive....

I think in one of Dr. Cox's books on PRT/PTC work cars there is a prototype for this car.

The PRT/PTC cars are similar and I'll be doing one of their ash cars in the future in my column in OST.

This model actually is a near perfect match for Androscoggin & Kennebec Railway 645 as pictured in Bulletin 129 of the Central Electric Railfans’ Association, Not only Passengers: How the Electric Railways Carried Freight, Express and Baggage on page 47. Given what I know about the model's origin, that prototype becomes even more probable.