I have an NYC Mohawk and would like to have the rolling stock it's pulling to be historically accurate. So far I've been conservatively lining up only NYC freight cars behind it but I've seen pictures of NYC locomotives pulling various non-NYC freight cars as well. Wikipedia doesn't seem to have this information (as far as I can see). Does anyone know of a resource on the web that lists what freight car companies were affiliated with certain railway companies? I'm also looking for this sort of information on Union Pacific locomotives during the war years too.
Choosing historically accurate rolling stock to match a locomotive
- Thread starter Blue12
- Start date
nephthyr
Member
I remember stumbling onto a resource but unfortunately I dont remember the name or URL, I know I was researching Richmond Tank Cars and came across a very useful resource that listed manufacturers, the cars they made and the years. Perhaps someone else here on the forums know about it.
Blue, I think the site you want is http://www.steamfreightcars.com/index.html. NYC trains during the steam era would mostly consist of non-NYC cars unless it was an unusual unit movement, like an automobile train. If we assume your year is 1943, you could have anything from 50 foot all steel automobile cars to single sheathed wood box cars. Unless you have a reason to have an exact year depicted, almost any car that's 50 feet or less and is a fallen flag like the NYC or Pennsy would be about right for the steam era. For the UP, the cut-off would be yellow freight cars. Those were exclusively diesel era. All the boxcar red cars were either steam or very early diesel era and would look fine behind UP steam power.
TrainMaster1
Alco Owner and N Scaler
Not sure how much detail or searching you want to do but an RER (Railroad Equipment Register) for your time frame would list every car every railroad had at that time and also includes a handy list of interchanges points. The interchange gives you an idea of what neighbor roads shared connections with your railroad of choice and at what locations. Good to know if you are modeling a specific area. The books do come available at "paper" railroad shows. Hope this helps.
Thank you everybody for your information. The “steamfreightcars.com” site is an excellent resource and the “Railroad Equipment Register” for my year, 1944, would be the ultimate reference to acquire. I’m still a little lost though. Forgive me if I sound dumb as a plug asking this but would it be fair to say that any freight car of any company that existed in 1944 could have been pulled by any locomotive that existed in 1944? Could an NYC locomotive have pulled a Santa Fe boxcar or would that have been impossible due to the fact that the two companies were based so far from each other? I am viewing this all wrong?
Blue, it was (and is) common for freight cars to be interchanged with railroads all over the country. Some cars don't see their home roads for months. In 1944, at the height of the war rush, you'd see freight cars from every railroad and almost every era back to the 1890's in service as the country's railroads strained to handle all the traffic. There's a good book on American railroads in WW!! at http://www.motorbooks.com/ProductDetails_6932.ncm that will give you some pictures of typical freight trains. So, yes, having any NYC engine pulling a Santa Fe boxcar would not only be correct but common.
Thank you so much for that explanation UP2CSX. Can't tell you how long I've been researching to get the verdict on that. It leads me to one small follow-up question: Would a caboose's company name always match its locomotive or were cabooses interchanged as much as freight cars?
TrainMaster1
Alco Owner and N Scaler
In our area though the 1970's, you could frequently find the caboose of a connecting railroad at the end of the another company's train. While not a common practice, sometimes a company's own caboose may not be available or the caboose needed to be returned to another yard so off it went. I remember seeing Reading trains with LV, WM and once a PRR caboose. Cars travel all over the country. Even in the seventies there were many cars in assigned service to a specific shipper. The factory near us had cars from the B&O, UP, SP, NKP, L&N, PRR and more assigned to it for outbound loads.
Nick
Nick
Nick is right about the waning years of caboose usage but, in 1944, it would be very rare to find a foreign road caboose on a home road train. Cabooses were generally assigned to specific conductors and crews and they were a home away from home, complete with custom touches like linoleum floors, featherbeds (thus, the term "featherbedding" was born), and custom desks for the conductor. Many conductors decorated their caboose cupolas with different colored brooms and staffs so they could be picked out of a crowded caboose yard. It wasn't unusual for a yard switcher to spend an hour or more pciking a caboose out of a lineup so the train had the caboose assigned to the caboose's conductor. As you might imagine, this was an expensive procedure but it was considered one of the perks of train crews in the 40's.
