Richford Branch Extra - Coming and Going - and notes on a side trip to Maine

 

This pair of Stan Bolton images, that I am sharing courtesy of Stan's good friend George Corey, show a pair of Central Vermont Consolidations (#s 465 and 466) working the daily local through Sheldon Junction, Vt., on an obviously "chilly" February 23, 1957. 

A few of the cars are fairly easy to identify (Click on the images to enlarge). 

I'll go first - the lead car in the second image is a Central Vermont 40,000-series boxcar. Typically one of these cars was used to handle LCL on the Richford job. 

A side note:

Almost exactly two years to the day before this image was taken, no. 466 and her sister no. 471 were both sent to the Grand Trunk (NEL). No. 466 made exactly one trip - actually less than one trip - when she experienced mechanical problems on an Island Pond to Portland, ME extra and was promptly returned to the CV.  

No 471 faired much better than her sister on her assignment to Maine. She remained on the GT (NEL) through the end of August 1955 where she made 24 mainline trips, primarily on wayfreights. She even made a half dozen or so trips hauling passenger train no. 16, and spent 36 days as the Lewiston branch engine. 

Obviously the St. Albans shop crew fixed whatever ailed no. 466 and she's steaming pretty well in these shots.  

Mystery Solved?

While "Standard Gauge" really means that a freight car from anywhere in North America can show up anyplace on the continent, there's still some unusual findings lurking if you study a particular railroad long enough. 
Take my pet prototype. I'd never bet on seeing an L&N drop-bottom gondola hauling coal in a Connecticut, or not one, but two 50-foot SFRD reefers in a train in Massachusetts. But I have. 
In a previous blog post I mentioned a boxcar that showed up in a photo of an otherwise nondescript CV freight. I've explored several seemingly plausible identities for this car, only to be foiled by one detail or another. 
Ted Culotta recently posted his thoughts on this car on his blog:

http://prototopics.blogspot.com/2019/12/marty-mcguirks-mystery-box-car.html

I'm curious to see if anyone comes up with any evidence disputing his findings. And if he's correct, as I think he is, this is not only an unusual car, it's a one-of-a-kind. Just my luck. 
Now to figure out how to model it. 

Central Vermont 41,000-series boxcars - notes

Considering their relatively small numbers, these cars seem to come up on the Steam Era Freight Car List with surprising regularity. They reared their heads again a month or so ago on that list. My response with a couple of tidbits about modeling these cars may prevent you having to dig through the archives at groups.io and help with your models of these cars. 
These cars were in service for a very long time – through the late 1960s, but they really didn’t change in appearance all that much over the decades.
For perhaps more detail than anyone wants on these cars, I’d refer you to the following:

• Ed Beaudette did an article in MR (August 2001 I recall) that included prototype drawings of the CV/GTW 1-1/2 door as built cars (CV's 41000-series).
• There were a set of drawings in Mainline Modeler sometime in the late 1980s – in that case they were shown as listed as GTW cars, with no mention of the Central Vermont.
• The best reference for these cars is Steve Horsley’s article (which is part of an outstanding ongoing series on CV freight cars) in Volume 24, Issue #4 f the CVRHS “Ambassador.” I’d highly recommend checking that issue out.

Over the years I’ve built a dozen or so more of the Steam Shack/Funaro resin kits. A couple of things to note on the F&C kit include:  

• The end door casting kind of just hangs above the roofline and doesn’t really capture the beefy look of the prototype on the B end of the car. See this photo of the door end, and compare with the F&C model to see what I mean:

• My F&C kits (like me, they’re old!) came with regular ladders – some of the newer F&C kits come with Tichy “Canadian” ladders – neither of these are correct. The CV cars had an integrated sill step (basically the “stirrup” is welded to the ladder stiles, not the car side), but the shape of the step on the Tichy ladder isn’t correct.
• Compare the side ladder and stirrup in this photo of a 44000 series car with the Tichy part to see what I mean:

• The cars had wood running boards through most of their service lives. It’s possible a few of them may have received steel running boards, but I’ve never seen any photo evidence of such. I have seen some of these cars with steel brake platforms.

Now we get to the issue with these kits that comes up whenever we discuss them – the trucks.
The cars rode on cast steel ARA U-section trucks with spring planks and Barber lateral motion bolsters equipped with six springs per side frame--a style called "increased spring capacity trucks" by several manufacturers.
The MR article reference above states the ECW 9074 70-ton "Bettendorf" trucks are closest. That’s a typo – it should be 9064 (I started editing the article, but had left the MR staff before it was published and a couple of minor, but annoying errors, such as this one, crept into the copy.) 
I got the reference to those trucks after extensive back and forth with Richard Hendrickson – and though those ECW trucks might look the closest, I’ve never bothered using them, or even trying to find a set since the operating qualities of ECW trucks are marginal at best.  
For many years I used good-ole' Kadee "Bettendorf" trucks under these cars. Starting several years ago I substituted Tahoe Model Works 50-ton Dalman 2-Level trucks. While certainly not an exact match they roll well, and at least have a large number of visible springs when viewed from the side.  
As a side note, my first item published in a “real” model railroad magazine was a review of this kit (marketed by Steam Shack but produced by Steve Funaro). Just for fun, here’s a photo of that model – warts and all - including its completely incorrect Kadee "Bettendorf" trucks! - on Paul Dolkos’ former B&M White Mountain Division: 

Time to call in Columbo?

Date (approx.) 1945-1950, Photographer unknown. Courtesy Bob's Photos

The lead photo in this post is one of a series of shots showing a single Central Vermont freight. To date, I've managed to identify all the cars in this train, and have completed or started models of all of them with one exception. 
The pedigree of the car to the far right of the photo above has proven remarkably stubborn to uncover (it's shown in a cropped shot below). 
I'd love to be able to identify this particular car. At one point thought I had. At this point I'm open to any and all suggestions and thoughts as to what it might be. 

Here's what I do know:

• Based on the other cars, and some clues on the locomotives (there are two the road engine and the helper shown above cut in to the train) we know this photo was taken just after WWII (sometime between 1946-1950 or so). The end is certainly a flat plate end on the car in question - with what looks like a roof recessed slightly from the end. 
• The reporting marks look like they start with an "L."
• Lettering is clearly serif (ie., "Railroad Roman")
• Car number appears to be 5 digits - first number has a strong vertical element - perhaps a "1", "4", or even a "7".
• I thought at first the reporting marks were "L & N", but couldn't locate any L&N cars that matched the other spotting features shown. 

I thought at one point it may be an Louisiana & Arkansas 1932 ARA car, since the ends certainly look like they would be a match to those cars. I was thrilled to learn Atlas even did a factory-decorated L&A 1932 ARA boxcar and was equally thrilled when I managed to locate one for sale at a hobby shop in Wisconsin. The car was shortly winging its way to the Old Dominion. I should have know things were going too well as not much time elapsed before Ted Culotta rained on my parade when he pointed out the car in the photo doesn't have a tabbed side sill like the L&A prototypes. Ted continued "I have this photo, too, and tried my best to determine the provenance of the car, but came up empty looking at my L&A and KCS freight car photos. I am stumped, but I'll keep digging..."
Perhaps the first initial isn't an "L" at all - but Ted and I have both done high-res enlargements of this photo and it certainly looks like an "L" with a space and another single letter. 
I fully admit it's some sort of obsessive behavior to be trying to identify an otherwise nondescript boxcar from more than a half century ago. But that's prototype modeling....
Thought I'd throw it out on the table here and see what the collective believes this car might be. 
Two questions: 
1. Anyone want an Atlas L&A 1932 ARA boxcar?  I apparently have one I don't need...

2. Is it time to call in this guy?

The cars of Central Vermont XTRA 471

Know I haven't posted in a while but my hobby time has been completely consumed by structures and scenery. I'm going to start getting back into freight car modeling in a big way this coming modeling season!

Here's a start - most of this post is cross-posted from my CV blog. 

This post is something of a work in progress. A few years ago I purchased a set of photos (no photographer identified) showing a Central Vermont freight crossing a rather nondescript plate girder bridge somewhere on the railroad's Southern Division. These photos inspired my "Williams Creek" bridge scene. 
The head end of the train is shown in the lead photo above - with CV 2-8-0 471 in the lead. It's been something of an ongoing project to identify each of the cars in this train with the idea of modeling them.
I've managed to ID most of them - but believe I may have misidentified the boxcar in the second photo partially obscured by the bush. 
At first glance I saw the Roman style "L &" (all that's clearly readable in the photo, though there is clearly another single letter after the "&") and figured this might be an Louisville & Nashville car, perhaps one of the L&N's rebuilt cars with "reverse" Murphy ends. This seemed entirely logical. L&N didn't have a huge boxcar fleet, but it was a fairly substantial one, and entirely likely to show up in a wayfreight in south-central New England.

But scanning the print at a higher resolution and sharpening the image in Photoshop reveals a little more about the car. It has a flat end and a pronounced seam at the top of the end creating the appearance of a triangle on the top of the end. I couldn't identify a class of L&N boxcars that looked like the rest of the car with that style end. One group of cars with this end were the 1932 ARA boxcars. But which of those would have "L &" as the reporting marks.
The true freight car experts already have the answer of course. And, after doing a little more digging this weekend I'm now of the opinion this is a much more rare (considering sheer numbers) Louisiana & Arkansas 1932 ARA boxcar. As built these cars had a block, almost Gothic style lettering with the roadname spelled out above the reporting marks.
This one doesn't have the roadname and the lettering is clearly Roman. Which means this is the second scheme these cars wore, with the "L&A" and car number to the left of the door and a Kansas City Southern herald to the right of the door. 
I know Atlas makes a 1932 ARA boxcar - and even made one in this scheme. 
Guess who can't find one of those anywhere??

Central Vermont 40,000-series Howe Truss Boxcars

By Marty McGuirk

The Strasburg Railroad in Lancaster, PA, is home to a number of nicely restored steam era freight cars, including a Central Vermont 40,000-series car (the Pennsylvania State Railroad Museum directly across the street also has an impressive collection and is well worth a visit).

When I was up there in mid-November of 2012 the car wasn’t in the best place for photography, but I managed to get a couple of pictures in the late-afternoon light that show off the details of the car.

 History

The Central Vermont received 200 of these single-sheathed 40-foot boxcars from American Car & Foundry in late 1924. These cars, numbered 40000-40199, represent some of the earliest examples of what are commonly referred to as “alternate” standard ARA boxcars. Although never proposed as a standard by the ARA’s Committee on Car Construction, more cars were constructed to this Howe truss design with two diagonals on either side of the door, than were built to the ARA standard single sheath design. 

The underframe was wood, with six stringers in place of the typical single pair of steel, Z-section stringers.

Closeup of the end of the restored car shows the ladders,
the top end plate, and the Carmer uncoupling lever. 

 The CV’s cars were delivered with wood six-foot doors, Andrews trucks, and Hutchins roofs. They had an inside height of 8 feet, 6 inches. As built, they were equipped with vertical brake staffs, but all would eventually be retrofitted with geared handbrakes and Ajax brakewheels. they also came equipped with Carmer uncoupling levers. The sides had seven grab irons, while the ends were equipped with six rung ladders with the stiles mounted far enough from the end to clear the diagonal brace on the end. 

AC&F Builder's Photo shows the vertical brake
and end components. 

The ends of these cars were perhaps their most unusual feature. They were composite ends (wood with two vertical and two diagonal braces). Spanning these braces across the top was a pressed steel component referred to as a top end plate. The Car Builder’s Cyclopedia, defines an End Plate as:

 “A member across the end and connecting the tops of the end posts of a car body and fastened at the ends to the two side plates. It is usually made of the proper form to serve as an end carline.”*

Other single sheathed cars with composite ends used end plates of course, but what seems to make the ones of the CV’s 40000-series cars somewhat unusual is the fact that it was a pressed steel component, not fabricated from standard structural steel components.

The cars remained in service, pretty much as built, through the late 1950s and early 1960s when many of them were retired or placed in some form of company service.

 Approximately 25 of these cars were modified with the addition of grain hatches to the roof and hopper bottoms for grain service.

 Painting and Lettering

As delivered the cars featured the CV’s then-standard Roman lettering, with “Central Vermont” spelled out across all three “panels” to the left of the doors, and no "CV" initials, with the car numbers centered underneath.

During the Second World War (January 1942), the CV changed to the stacked Gothic lettering, with the road name spelled out in two lines, with the addition of "CV" reporting marks above the car number, like that shown on the restored car at Strasburg, and on this car: 

Initially, there was a white line above the “CV and below the car numbers. In later repaintings through the 1950s these lines tended to be removed, like in this view of 40050:

 The final paint scheme on these cars was in the early 1960s with the addition of the intertwined CV logo on the door.

Models

A “layout quality” representation of these cars can be made using the old Train Miniature single-sheathed (incorrectly called by modelers “outside braced”) cars. John Nehrich described such a conversion in an old issue of Mainline Modeler, later reprinted in a book by Hundman Publications. Both are long out of print, but you can find old issues of Mainline Modeler at swap meets or on eBay.

About 15-20 years ago Steam Shack produced a series of resin freight car models for a number of CV boxcars, including the 40000-series cars. These models were made for Steam Shack by Funaro & Camerlengo, who still offers these as their Kit 7060 (as built cars) or Kit 7061 (cars equipped with roof hatches and hopper bottoms).

There are some issues with the F&C kit - the sides are rendered as heavily weathered - which some feel is a little on the heavy side (I tend to agree), making the model look like the prototype did late in life and not as these cars would have looked in service. There's also some issues with the ends - primarily the height of the end sill - on the resin cars it's much taller than on the prototype. But the Steam Shack/F&C kits do represent a good starting place for an accurate model. 

*Thanks to Dennis Storzek for his help in determining the most accurate description for the components of these cars.