Help Needed Identifying Rolling Stock


Basically all of the cars here are older and mostly generic cars. Not sure that any really match what they're meant to represent.
 
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First of 3 tank cars. Don't know how much more detailing can be done on this one.
 
ACL-CSX said:
I'm also curious about the livery it should wear. This will be part of my freelance road, but I still want accuracy. By that I mean would these cars wear the colors of the road? I've seen cars that have the manufacturers logo on them, the Tropicana Juice train for example. We're those cars owned by the company? Or the railroad and leased to Tropicana for sole use by them?
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Look at the initials in front of the car number. These are the "Reporting Marks" that indicate the car's ownership. Each company has their own unique initials/reporting marks.

Non-railroad companies (such as leasing companies and private shippers owning their own cars) marks end in "X". Regular railroad marks will not. (This is why CSX's reporting marks are actually CSXT not CSX.)
 
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I have several of these. These will probably take a very central part of the layout.
 
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This is the only one of these I have. Looks to me to be way too new for the era I want, but I have no idea.
 
Cool. That's perfect. That's the era I need.
cv_acr said:
This is the first one that's actually based on a clear prototype. Athearn model of a Pullman-Standard 4740 cubic foot hopper. These were built in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
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ACL-CSX said:
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This is the only one of these I have. Looks to me to be way too new for the era I want, but I have no idea.
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This one is a "sorta" model of an American Car & Foundry (ACF) 5250 cubic foot car. Also built in the late 1960s. It has a weird combination of details with pneumatic discharge gates (commonly used on plastic pellet service cars) and oddball long hatches, when pneumatic hoppers usually have small round hatches.
 
ACL-CSX said:
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This one is different than all the rest. I was thinking that it might be an insulated box or a reefer? Since the doors on this one are sealed, I'm going to focus on exterior detailing and weathering.
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I'm not sure the base model actually accurately represents anything, but in this paint scheme it's a stand in for these real LV cars which were outside-post cars built in the mid 1960s by Penn Central. Just the specific details are a bit different, but the general style of the model pegs it as an early to mid 1960s car.

Note that new box cars were only built with running boards ("roof walks") up to 1966. Cars after 1966 were built without running boards and with low ladders and brake wheels.
 
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ACL-CSX said:
I have one other stock car, but it's similar to this one.
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This one is easier. The prototype was is the Union Pacific class S-40-12. I believe they were built in the company shops around 1950 and used through the end of livestock transport (1982 or so). Notice that it is a double deck so it would not be handling cattle or horses, but rather sheep or more likely hogs. It should have two separate doors. One for each level.
 
ACL-CSX said:
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Rotary-dump "bathtub" coal service gondola. In real life, the coloured end would have had a rotary coupler that would allow the car to be turned upside down in a rotary dumping apparatus while still coupled to its neighbours to dump out its load. (The car has a solid bottom and is NOT a hopper car.)

The model represents a car built in the late 1970s (you can see the 1979 "NEW" date on your car) by Berwick Forge & Fabricating, although yours seems to be lettered as a Youngstown Steel Door demonstrator. I believe that YSD did in fact build at least a small number of "bathtub" gons, although I don't know how similar to the Berwick ones they were or if Berwick took over their designs.

ACF also built similar cars, although they were a bit shorter I believe (Atlas has a model of the ACF "CoalVeyor" bathtub gon). Similar cars built in Canada by National Steel Car, Hawker-Siddeley and/or Marine Industries for Canadian Pacific were very similar to the Berwick cars but slightly longer with an extra side rib and different ladder arrangements (your car has been damaged or lost its ladders).

These cars were designed to be used in unit-train service, where the entire train would consist of these rotary dump coal cars between mine and power plant. Later in life, many of these older cars would be pushed out of coal service by newer cars and many are now used to haul steel scrap under new reporting marks. I don't think that [scrap service] fits the era you're talking about though.
 
cv_acr said:
Rotary-dump "bathtub" coal service gondola. In real life, the coloured end would have had a rotary coupler that would allow the car to be turned upside down in a rotary dumping apparatus while still coupled to its neighbours to dump out its load. (The car has a solid bottom and is NOT a hopper car.)

The model represents a car built in the late 1970s (you can see the 1979 "NEW" date on your car) by Berwick Forge & Fabricating, although yours seems to be lettered as a Youngstown Steel Door demonstrator. I believe that YSD did in fact build at least a small number of "bathtub" gons, although I don't know how similar to the Berwick ones they were or if Berwick took over their designs.

ACF also built similar cars, although they were a bit shorter I believe (Atlas has a model of the ACF "CoalVeyor" bathtub gon). Similar cars built in Canada by National Steel Car, Hawker-Siddeley and/or Marine Industries for Canadian Pacific were very similar to the Berwick cars but slightly longer with an extra side rib and different ladder arrangements (your car has been damaged or lost its ladders).

These cars were designed to be used in unit-train service, where the entire train would consist of these rotary dump coal cars between mine and power plant. Later in life, many of these older cars would be pushed out of coal service by newer cars and many are now used to haul steel scrap under new reporting marks. I don't think that [scrap service] fits the era you're talking about though.
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Sounds good. Thanks. I don't know if I'll be doing a lot of coal, so I may have to save these for a later layout period or swap them for something that fits. I have some other coal cars as well, but they are different. I don't remember if they are hoppers or gons with coal load inserts. Will post pics soon. I have one gon that would make a great scrap hauler. Thinking of adding a few more to the fleet. I like the idea of a scrap yard. Goes well with an idea I had for my N scale layout and hiding a certain white over red Plymouth on it.
 
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