Wood sided passenger cars 1930-1960

[mecgp7]

Are there any models or kits out there for wood sided passenger cars from the late 30s to 60s?

[thomasjmdavis]

Did you have a specific railroad/region or car in mind?

I'm going to assume you mean "used" in that period vs "built" (not much in the way of wood construction in class 1 passenger cars after 1920).  But you might look at Geoff Gooderham's kits for CP cars, some of which are early 20th century wood cars.  Or the old Western Railcraft kits (based on 1905 designs).  While I doubt you would see them in original glory in the 40s-50s, some of the wood cars were kept in use on mixed trains and or as trailers with a motorcar.  Possibly in suburban service somewhere.  I know C&EI (and I am sure lots of others) kept some around as "miner's cars." 

And check Shapeways, new stuff pops up there ever week.  We could use a 60' or 70' wood baggage car- some of those lasted until 1960 (L&N comes to mind).

For that matter, there was the tour of the General in the early 1960s towing a 19th century L&N Jim Crow combine.  So if you count exhibitions, you could excuse running something like the Athearn/MDC 50' cars.

And anything goes, of course, in a work train.

[nkalanaga]

Quite a few wood sided passenger cars made it to 1960 on MOW service, but as Thomas said, revenue service cars were scarce.

Or did you maybe mean 1830 to 1860?

[mecgp7]

Yes, I meant used as opposed to built. I am interested in them for both revenue service and MOW. Given the scarcity of these cars in N scale, I will consider any model based on any particular design. I am not a rivet counter so a good stand-in will work. Geoff's cars looks like they'd fit the bill. Thanks for the heads up.

[Iain]

NS had some 80 ft wood passenger cars right up to the end of passenger service in Jan of 1948, though a couple continued as crew cars on the mail trains until 1951.

[jmlaboda - RIP]

I can't help but to wonder just how long it might be before we actually start seeing some fine scale models, especially since it took so long for companies to start to consider heavyweights as a potential product.  I know there was hope that when Model Die Casting had come to N-scale that their line of wood vestibuled cars would possibly be made in addition to the Overton and Overland cars but such was simply not to be.  As far as Shapeways prints go I haven't seen much in the way of shots of the prints that are available so its hard to say whether or not FXD prints are worth pursuing as of yet.

Something else to consider is that there were a lot of cars that were resheathed in steel as they were used on the bigger roads making identifying wood cars a matter of whether or not cars had the trust rods.  But then, there were also smaller numbers of wood cars that had the wood bodies but mounted on steel fishbelly underframes that were added to the mix, with many of these also being rebuilt with steel carbodies.

Some of the best known were those rebuilt by Pullman for Northern Pacific, which retained their gothic windows despite their steel sides.  Some of these cars went on to serve on the Rio Grande and later still on the Napa Valley Wine Train.  But NP's rebuilds were of several types, not just coaches, making for an even more interesting roster than some other roads.

What can we do to encourage manufacturers to produce such cars?  Hard to say.  There is still a huge number of car types heavyweight wise that are needed that have not been released as of yet, either as ready-to-run cars, Shapeways prints, kits or etched metal sides, and we can only hope that as things progress more will be done.  While it may never yield any results maybe we need to lobby Atlas to offer in N-scale some of the same cars that they now offer from the former Branchline Trains line, most of which are not available in N but I don't know if that would help.  While early in Atlas Tool Co.'s history they offered N-scale passenger cars they may have no interest now in offering any in N, which would be a real shame considering what they are doing in HO and O.  All we can do is make our interests known and hope for the best... even while we still await what has already been promised (MT single windows coaches?) and show our support to those companies and individuals, such as Shapeways designers, who do offer such products and to share what we may come up with in an effort to show modelers what yet can be done in N-scale.

Long term I know I have some ideas about rebuilding some heavyweight cars with parts from MDC/Walthers Overland cars to provide some ties to the past so cars in MofW service will help to represent what was but this is behind things that are higher priority (some cars that should result in beautiful business cars for my freelanced roads).  Hopefully others will be willing to share their efforts as I do know a few who have done some wood cars, if nothing else to whet our pallet and encourage use to pursue the same.

[Iain]

I'm currently experimenting with different ways of doing the NS coaches; Shapeways really didn't produce satisfactory results, so now I'm looking at other options.  Currently, I'm waiting on getting my hands on the Wheels of Time horse car roof, as that appears to have the correct profile.

[mcjaco]

Soo Line was using Barney & Smith built wood cars almost until the end of passenger service. 

[jmlaboda - RIP]

I am sure that everyone has seen the beautiful comboose that Andrew Hegstad built, featured in this past weekend's Weekend Update.  It goes to show that there are possibilities available to us when using the MDC/Athearn Overland cars to build some of what we hope for.  One unresolved issue would be building vestibules for such cars, especially since the way the floor plate in the vestibule step-well was set up was different compared to what was on heavyweight cars.  The plate on wood vestibuled cars had to be raised first before the door could be opened where as with heavyweights and lightweights, they had the door being opened before the plate could be raised.  The vestibule being placed under the letterboard makes modeling such a bit more challenging.

I have a number of photos saved on my portable hard drive of early Norfolk & Western open-platform cars that I hope to eventually model as part of the maintenance-of-way cars that my freelanced roads will have in use (links can be found on the N&W pages of the Passenger Car Photo Index) largely because they would be ideal for such an assignment.

While I don't believe many wood cars would survive in revenue service on my freelanced lines (set around 1949) having such in use in MofW service would be naturals, though building the cars from the Overland models will still be a bit challenging since I do not like the way the board treatment is on these models.  I more than likely will see about cutting out most if not all of the planking detail and replacing it with Evergreen scribed styrene sheet so as to achieve a better look to the boards.  Strung together with a mix of steel type cars (unsure of just what will be done in this regard, either, since most Pullmans that were purchased for use on MofW trains by the various roads that acquired such to replace earlier wood cars would be types that do not have AC so having to figure out how to model a ductless roof will be necessary as well) I believe that some of the former head-end cars could still be quite useful, even if they are a bit outdated for revenue service and should not be that difficult to do using the Overland models, though I want to find a way of replacing the wood planking since it is not as well detailed as it should be.  The vestibuled wood cars, like what Iain is working on, on the other hand are a bit more of a challenge.

Has anyone figured out a way to create the vestibule with the proper type of door and rounded top door framing?  If you have I definitely would like to hear about it.  So far only vestibuled cars owned by the Delaware & Hudson have been found to have rectangular door framing, much more like early steel cars so finding a way of replicating the proper framing will be needed.

[Angus Shops]

If I remember correctly, wood passenger cars were limited in their usefulness because they couldn't be interchanged with out her railroads and they couldn't be mixed with steel cars. This pretty much limited them to local services. On the CPR there were many local services that retained wood cars right up to the introduction of RDC's in the 1950's; Vancouver Island springs to mind.

Some wood cars recieved steel under frames and other steel components to allow them to remain in interchange and mainline (mixed with steel cars) services, such as my model of the "steel reinforced" baggage/express car.

The wood combine was mixed train staple. 1950's (and even 1960's) CPR passenger schedules are filled with mixed trains, especially across the Prairies and into BC.

I did the 72 foot coach mostly because it's such a handsome little car. It doesn't really have a home on my "late 50's mainline CPR in the Rockies" theme layout, but it would be great in some form of local (more important than mixed train) service.

All of these cars were also regularly used in MOW service.

Geoff

[jmlaboda - RIP]

http://www.railroadheritage.org/SPT--FullImage.php?ResourceId=1162&FieldName=Screenshot

One of the most interesting of the wood cars I have encountered in my search for passenger car shots is this car of the D&H.  Would love to do a model based on this car, if I could only find a photograph or diagram of it.  If I could find such I am sure I can come up with a plan of action in regards to modeling it as one of the cars my freelanced roads would use on their office car specials.  Unfortunately finding more about these old cars is very hard too do, what with the cars disappearing so quickly as steel cars took over... but who knows, there just might be someone out there that knows something about it.