ATSF 70' baggage using the new MT 'Erie' car

[arbomambo]

the doors are removed from the fret and CA'd into place...care must be taken to align the doors so that the holes for the grab rails are superimposed over each other...I tacked one side in place, then used accelerator-then took my time apply a thin CA film around the other sides of the doors.



both sides are shown here, with the doors in place.



you can better see the holes for the grab rails in this pic



the sides are posed in place on the carbody; although 'similar' in style to the prototype Erie car that Micro Trains chose for their heavyweight baggage, the Santa Fe heavyweight (steel on wood frame) cars looked different in a number of ways.



another pic of the basic side, with doors attached, posed on the MT core car.



before gluing the sides onto the core car, I have to add some very nice interior detail supplied with the fret, then  solve the riddle of what I'm going to use to replicate the distinctive channel sill.
Thanks for looking,
~Bruce

[Cajonpassfan]

Bruce, Special Shapes Co. makes brass 1/32 x 1/16 C channel that would seem just about perfect for this. Stock#05015. Or you can always use styrene channel, although the brass seems a bit crisper. i dont have access to a proto car at the moment, but plans scale off at about 10". Happy hunting...
Otto

[Santa Fe Guy]

Looking very smart.
Rod.

[arbomambo]

a little progress...received another undec baggage in the post so decided to add it to the queue...(I have 7 more of these to do!!!!!)

attached the doors to all three, cut out the new openings in the core cars, and temporarily attached the as yet un-modified underframes to help me figure the best way to attach the channel sills (from whatever material I settle 'on') to the 70' baggage-express cars, and the fishbelly sill (included in the M&R Sides fret) to the 70' fishbelly baggage-express.

Here are three pics of the progress so far...next comes sanding the sides of the donor cars completely flat, and adding the bars to the inside of the baggage door windows,
Thanks for looking,
~Bruce

[pjm20]

Man those look beautiful, I wish I had a reason to run them on the PRR!

[thomasjmdavis]

Given that B60s and X29 express cars found their way onto the ATSF Fast Mail with some frequency, I would be willing to bet that it worked the other way around as well, and that ATSF baggage and box express cars found their way onto PRR trains.

[pjm20]

You would think so, but I have never heard of anything of the sort or seen any pictures or documentation, and this is after years of research. The only foreign express cars on the PRR were mainly NH (outside the NE Corrider and the NY-South trains), but I have found a picture of a GN car in Chicago. Now run through sleepers is a whole differen discussion.

[thomasjmdavis]

I don't want to distract from Bruce's build article.  You are correct that not a lot of ATSF cars ended up on the PRR (apparently most express business from ATSF going east of Chicago went via NYC), but there were some.  See this discussion:
http://prrthsdiscussionweb30239.yuku.com/topic/444/t/PRR-passenger-consists.html#.VZ7FszhX-No  But while that might be an excuse to build one if you want to, I am surprised myself that they are not as common on PRR as I had thought they would be.

OK, now back to the regularly scheduled program.  I have a HW baggage in progress upstairs and need to get the doors on the second side.  And need to measure out the side sill from the drawings in the Baggage and Head End book.

[Upstate Gator]

Tom,
One more comment in the hijacking.

Nice find about the PRR consists. I raised the question on the REA Modeling list today about the extent of pooling of other road refrigerator, boxcar, and baggage cars.

There's a note at http://www.northeast.railfan.net/rea.html that indicates that the Santa Fe Express Refrigerator cars were too big for the NYC tunnels and were restricted east of Harrisburg. (In http://abpr.railfan.net/abprphoto.cgi?march00/03-06-00/REa-ExpressCar-4037-atChicago-Oct67.jpg, the Santa Fe car does appear to be taller than the adjacent car.)

That may explain why some Santa Fe cars wouldn't be seen on PRR trains, but I don't know about the baggage-express car clearances.
Ben W.

[thomasjmdavis]

Also the FE-24 and later classes of express-box cars that sometimes had the clearance issue - drawings (Head End Cars book, p 138) show them as 15'0 tall.  Baggage cars (AFAIK) are the same 14' and a fraction as a Pullman sleeper. With that, I am going to go over to the prototype section, and start a new thread.  Apologies to Bruce.

[arbomambo]

no apologies necessary...good thread drift...I can't find much in the way of foreign road head end cars on the PRR either, but the opposite sure occurred, and it does seem as if it could have ...Bill Denton forwarded some nice pics of the Santa Fe semi lightweight smoothside 'economy' cars on the CNW and Milwaukee Road trains (something I didn't realize occurred and one of the motivations of his producing them in his Skytop Models line of cars).
The baggage cars certainly didn't represent a height problem and express boxes shouldn't have either, but....
~Bruce

[thomasjmdavis]

Hi Bruce,

THanks for being so gracious.  I've started a new thread in hopes of sparking some interest in the ATSF baggage cars, so that Roberto will have to do another run and I can get a few more. Noting your comment on Milwaukee Road, I've also seen pics of Milwaukee baggage or express cars in C&EI and GTW trains- gave me an excuse to buy a couple FVM cars.  Quite enjoying your series here.  I found some very small Plastruct channel over the weekend that I think is going to be my solution to the channel sill quandary.  The only difference in what I'm doing so far was that I took bigger chunks out so that I could take out the entire doors in hopes of using them in future bashing projects.