Milwaukee Road Passenger Car Project

[chessie system fan]

I have no clue what Milwaukee had in mind with that particular car.  It's obviously in MOW service.  Who knows when it was modified or why.  But to me it's a neat visual representation of why Milwaukee roofs are kind of flat compared to any other lightweight cars from other railroads.

Think like a designer.  It's 1933, 1934.  You're tasked with developing a new streamlined train, the first lightweight non-articulated train in the nation.  It must be a new, sleek  design, but since you still have lots of heavyweight cars running around it must easily blend in with them, too. You have a blank slate since you're first--there are no other lightweight cars on other railroads yet. What do you do? Well, it's obvious.  You draw a normal heavyweight roof profile in your sketchbook... and then you chop the top high part off and that's your new, sleek passenger car profile.  Kind of like what those MOW shop forces did to that car.

[u18b]

By the way, if you've ever wondered how Milwaukee came up with its unique roof profile, this photograph sort of explains it all.  It's actually pretty logical for 1934, if you think about it.

Some Milwaukee MofW Rolling Stock in St. Paul in June 1964 -- 3 Photos by Marty Bernard, on Flickr

OK.  Sorry.
I see it now.

What we are looking at is a heavyweight car that has been relegated to MOW service.   And as such, the ducts up top have been removed (I see the markings where the ducts were).    And it struck you that this is the same profile as the later cars.

Thanks for the explanation.

[peteski]

If the photo in question was presented to show that part of the older heavyweight MOW car's roof got chopped to approximate the more modern and unique passenger cars, that would have make mores sense to me than the original caption.  I guess it is all in the interpretation of the caption.  TO be honest, I only noticed that there is still clerestory on the unmodified part of the roof after Ron just mentioned it.

[Sokramiketes]

The original Milwaukee shops-built coach was on six-wheel trucks and had a clerestory roof. It was basically a welded side replacement on a standard coach, I would guess.  Look at Milwaukee Road prototype coach #4000.

So yes, I too could see the jump to streamlining the roof after the prototype, but removing the unneeded clerestory.   

Here's an HO brass model for reference. 
https://www.brasstrains.com/classic/Product/Detail/064438/HO-Brass-OMI-3147-Overland-Milwaukee-Road-Hiawatha-Coach-4000-Unpainted

[sd45elect2000]

I must assume this car was wrecked or badly damaged on this end.

They already had the roof and side jigs set up in the car shop so it wasn’t a huge deal to slap a new end on the car

Randy

[peteski]

The original Milwaukee shops-built coach was on six-wheel trucks and had a clerestory roof. It was basically a welded side replacement on a standard coach, I would guess.  Look at Milwaukee Road prototype coach #4000.

So yes, I too could see the jump to streamlining the roof after the prototype, but by removing the unneeded clerestory.   

Here's an HO brass model for reference. 
https://www.brasstrains.com/classic/Product/Detail/064438/HO-Brass-OMI-3147-Overland-Milwaukee-Road-Hiawatha-Coach-4000-Unpainted

That does make sense.  The profile of the roof with the clerestory will result in a rather flat middle section after clerestory removal.

[Lemosteam]

As Aaron put it, think like a designer, but I will use the PRR as the example.  So as i was designing my Lima replacement roofs, when I laid out the roof cross section, it became obvious that the PRR got to their roof design by truncation.  So when they designed there "arch" roofs, they merely filled in or blended a curve on both sides of the clerestory down to the drip edge.  That is why the arch roof is the same height as the clerestory heavyweight- it was easier to just fill in the corner for refrigeration ductwork .etc.

Then as they went to lightweight, it just made sense to go back to the original drip line section radius and blend a flatter curve across them as the clerestory was no longer needed for ventilation.

HOWEVER, it sure looks to me in that image, that a round top caboose was grafted onto the a$$ end of that heavyweight (note the overhang, door and grabs) and the caboose roof was the de-facto profile that they used when the removed the clerestory on the heavyweight end.  Just a guess on my part.

[chessie system fan]

I guess since I've been spending a lot of time studying Milwaukee passenger cars it was more obvious to me. 

So I'm at a point that I could use some assistance.  I'm working on the underframe truck bolster design but I don't have any Fox Valley cars, though I have some trucks.  What size of screw for the trucks do they have?  And can someone post a picture of the underside of a car with the trucks removed? 

[peteski]

Here you go  Aaron.







The screw head diameter: 0.172" (4.38mm)
Kingpin diameter: 0.120" (3.06mm)
Kingpin height (just the part that sits inside the truck bolster): 0.072" (1.83mm)
Top of the truck's bolster over railhead (not including the 2 bumps): 0.195" (4.95mm)
Height of those bumps: 0.020" (0.52mm)
The last 2 dimensions might not be exact.

[chessie system fan]

That's exactly what I needed.  Thanks!

Now to try to find some screws like that somewhere...

[peteski]

I'm not up on my screw-head nomenclature,  but these screws look very similar to the screws Kato used to mount trucks on their early passenger cars (before the made the trucks snap-in).  Or maybe the screws that hold chassis halves together in Kato and Atlas locos.

Outside diameter of the threads is 2.05mm
The length of the threaded part is ~ 4.70mm (but the length in this  application is not critical.

[chessie system fan]

Hmmm.  Good thought.  I've got a few of those.  I've give those a try when I do my test print soon.

[chessie system fan]

After a break working on other projects, I finished a few more 1937 car bodies.  As you can see, they are almost identical.

First are luxury-lounge coaches 400-416:



Next are parlor cars Sahwa and Iagoo:



And finally, Shada and Wawa, parlor cars with a drawing room:



All that is left for the 1937 train is the observation.  That will be the most difficult car in the train to design.

[sd45elect2000]

Can I have some ?

Randy

[chessie system fan]

Of course!  Part of the plan is to offer these for sale to offset the cost of my new printer and research books.  Message me a list of the cars you're interested in and I'll try to finish designing those first.