What is your favorite freight car and why?


When I saw the title for this thread, a specific car popped into mind...

When I was six years old and just barely old enough to handle HO scale, my "favorite" aunt and uncle bought me an Athearn "blue box" 50' double-door box in the NYC Jade Green scheme. Dad had to put it together for me, since I'd yet to develop my "modeling" skills. Its color was so striking compared to everything I had at the time, it immediately became my favorite. And it still sticks in my mind as such.

As for car type... I like almost all of them so well, it's hard to pick one type. But near (if not at the top) of my list is the freight car that Beiland picked, the liquid-gas cyrogenically-cooled tank car. I'm lucky enough to have an HO scale version of the one at the bottom. Paid a pretty penny for it, but I think it was worth it!

Would LOVE to have the skills that Bobby Pitts has to scratchbuild/kitbash all those wonderful tankers he's done. But I also love to see a long string of 40' single-dome tank cars in a freight consist. <sigh>

Regards,
Tom Stockton
 
tomstockton said:
When I was six years old and just barely old enough to handle HO scale, my "favorite" aunt and uncle bought me an Athearn "blue box" 50' double-door box in the NYC Jade Green scheme. Dad had to put it together for me, since I'd yet to develop my "modeling" skills. Its color was so striking compared to everything I had at the time, it immediately became my favorite. And it still sticks in my mind as such.
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That is a great story. Probably why I have an affinity for the 34' covered hoppers. The only car that ran reliably on my childhood layout was a Marx red Portland cement covered hopper.
 
Cryogenic Tank Cars

tomstockton said:
... But near (if not at the top) of my list is the freight car that Beiland picked, the liquid-gas cyrogenically-cooled tank car. I'm lucky enough to have an HO scale version of the one at the bottom. Paid a pretty penny for it, but I think it was worth it!

Would LOVE to have the skills that Bobby Pitts has to scratchbuild/kitbash all those wonderful tankers he's done.

Regards,
Tom Stockton
Click to expand...
Do I assume you have one of those brass cryogenic tank cars that were very expensive?

At one time I was trying to kitbash a few of these out of Athearn 62 tank cars. Then I ran across Bobby Pitts work, and got renewed energy to try and do something similar to his EXCELLENT work.

When I had first ran into these designs, I was new to the hobby, and tried to get Proto 2000 and Atlas and a couple of other companies to make such a model. None of them considered it worthwhile. When finally Broadway Limited step up I got real excited. I think I own at least 10 of their cryogenic cars, and might just acquire a few more in the future.

Cyro tank car, B Pitts, ps800.jpg
...one of Bobby's before painting and decaling

Liquid Air.jpg
...one of the original photos that got me interested
 
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Transfer Cabooses

Another car(s) I fancy are those variety of transfer cabooses. I've got a whole box of 'stuff' set aside to kitbash some of these. And somewhere I have a few files loaded with photos of these little gems.

Can't find mine at the moment, but here are google images...

IMAGES
 
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Beiland,

I've got one of the Overland Models brass ones, just like in the ad you posted. I'm going to have to check out the Broadway Limited cars you spoke of... like I need more rolling stock! :D

Regards,
Tom
 
Even though I have more coal hoppers and gondolas in my roster than any other car type, I would have to say my all-time favorite has always been tank cars. Since I got my first Lionel set at age 5, I became fixated on them whenever I looked thru the Lionel catalog and always begged my parents to get me one. "Some time..." my Mom would always reply.

When I re-entered the hobby in 1988, I wanted a few tank cars of the late '60s era - but all I could find at the time were the MDC kits, and they were an absolute PITA to assemble! A decade later when RTR became the norm, I made up for lost time and gradually accumulated over a dozen of them in different sizes and shapes.
 
Tank Cars,...yes
I've even found one of those 'whale belly' tank car kits partially assembled. Needs a little fixing up once I get my layout up and running.

Also early on I found some 'shortie' whale belly tank cars that were used by the Japanese. They make nice looking kits as well,...think I have 4-6 of these somewhere in my storage trailer.
 
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One thing I love about the Overland Models cyrogenic tank car -- it's brass. I looked at the Broadway Limited ones, and they look teriffic. But I think I'd be "scared to death" to even touch one, due to my ham-handed fingers and my hands with essential tremors -- I just know I'd break one of those fine plastic brake lines or handrails or something. The brass car, while not indestructable, will withstand my careful handling and occasional touching a fine detail part.

Maybe my hands are why I prefer my old Athearn "blue box" and MDC Roundhouse cars. Plus, they harken me back to the happy days of my childhood, when there just wasn't anything better than running my trains on our hardwood floors. Happy times!

Regards,
Tom
 
Beiland,

I've seen those shorter Japanese whale-belly tank cars you speak of, and have thought about acquiring one of two or... and then fitting Kadee couplers and painting them in "American" schemes and lettering. I think they'd be pretty cool!

Regards,
Tom
 
Got some photos of those Japanese tank cars somewhere, but can't remember right now.

Just couldn't afford, nor justify price of brass cryogenic cars,...and thought it would be a challenge to kit-bash some. Fabricating the reinforcement rings around the tube body was giving my fits when I began. Tried wrapping Evergreen plastic strips at first. Gave up on that. Then began to think of laser cut circles as those technics (laser cutting) was really starting to emerge.

Then discovered B Pitts work. WOW, was really inspired with his work

I wonder how MANY of those Atlas tank cars I collected, thinking of making a lit to convert them. And Bobby had the solutions to the walkway hand rails etc

Yes, the Broadway cars are going to require some delicate handling, but then a lot of our 'modern detailed plasic models' require that.
 
tomstockton said:
One thing I love about the Overland Models cyrogenic tank car -- it's brass. I looked at the Broadway Limited ones, and they look teriffic. But I think I'd be "scared to death" to even touch one, due to my ham-handed fingers and my hands with essential tremors -- I just know I'd break one of those fine plastic brake lines or handrails or something. The brass car, while not indestructable, will withstand my careful handling and occasional touching a fine detail part.

Maybe my hands are why I prefer my old Athearn "blue box" and MDC Roundhouse cars. Plus, they harken me back to the happy days of my childhood, when there just wasn't anything better than running my trains on our hardwood floors. Happy times!

Regards,
Tom
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I thought the same thing. My N scale BLMA crude oil tankers were so fragile, I broke piping on a couple just taking them out of the jewel cases when I bought them new. The piping is like sewing thread. Now that I switched to HO, the ScaleTrains crude oil tankers are as detailed, but much more forgiving, and sturdy....LOL
 
I also like tank cars, but modeling a rural area, oil distributors are the only reason I can have them show up. Have a distributor in every town. Makes for more switching.
 
I have both Chemical and fuel tank cars on my layout. I have assumed that both the fuel and chemical depots are off layout so I don't have to model these locations. The fuel oil is used to power my diesel and oil burning steam engines, so filled fuel tank cars come to the Locomotive facility and are emptied into a storage tank there and shipped back to the fuel depot, empty. The chemical tank cars bring meat processing chemicals to my packing plant and haul animal by-products from the packing plant to off layout businesses that use them. Possibly I'm misinformed about how all this works; but, feel it's plausible, so I don't really care. Operations are not very high on my list of fun things to do, anyway! However, they do make things plausible!
 
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One of the reasons that I like Box Cars so much is they where used to haul so many different types of lading back in the day. You can park a box car at almost any type of business and the fact that it is sitting there makes sense. Right next to my roundhouse is a short track only long enough for a 40 foot car. I use this to park a 40 foot box car loaded with "Parts" for the locomotives and rail cars on the layout. I have three freight houses on the layout and they mostly get box cars. The team track can get box cars. Box cars where so universal back in the early 1950s and along the Northern Pacific back in the late 50s, 60s and 70s, the N.P. ran trains almost entirely made up of box cars. So, I'm attempting to emulate the Northern Pacific, so I need many, many box cars; even though, in reality the Butte Shortline, which I model, was really only a passenger line!
 
I give the 34 ft hopper the favorite as used to grind the coal out of the eastern mountains on the N&W, car after car. grunging, gritty, get the job done. maybe my alternative are these huge articulate heavy load flatcars.
 
PFE R-40-23. In 1973, I was working for PFE in the Auditor's (financial stuff) office. One of my tasks for several months was to compute the final per diem and mileage charges due as an offset to the book balance for ice cars as PFE retired the last of the ice cars and wrote of any remaining book value. The cars being retired had been used mostly for vent, heater or top ice service for the last year as protective service bunker icing had been discontinued. The R-40-23's were the most common car being retired.

After the cars were written off so was I being laid off in the summer of 1973. By that time I had been able to complete the coursework to have the equivalent of a BA in accounting at UC extension at night. (I already had a BA and MA in History) so finding another accounting job was fairly easy.
 
Wagontop Caboose

There is another favorite of mine,...the wagontop caboose,...most notable the infamous B&O ones. These were build extra duty of steel so a pusher engine could push directly against them.

Several years ago an outfit up in MD decided to build some plastic versions in lieu of all the expensive brass ones out there. they did a SUPERB job. Spring Mills Depot I-12 caboose. I must own at least 6 of these various schemes.

Here is a video documenting a few.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp5r3zuqmY0



A little history of the 'wagontop cars' (there were others)...
https://www.american-rails.com/wagontops.html
 
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Very nice looking cabooses; however, the video makes me seasick!
 
I like the open type of cars, gondola, flat, depressed center, coal, the best. Also covered hoppers, tank cars, and box cars..........hmm I think i like em all lol

some photos:DSCN1380.JPG

DSCN1384.JPG

DSCN1114.JPG

DSCN1171.JPG

DSCN1166.JPG

Greg
 
Have to go with the Box Cars as a first choice and Tank Cars as a second pick. Box Cars because of their diversity and they are historic in a way and Tank Cars because I see a lot of them go past on a daily basis.
 
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