1960's-70's piggyback trailers & decals

[sirenwerks]

  Vic Roseman mainly did passenger service REA items and
  services,Express Reefers,in a passenger oriented vain.
   both are Great Authors !!

Well, I know Roseman's book on the REA spends significant paper on the company's vehicles and containers.  And that book has a lot of recycled material from his articles in Mainline Modeler (or was it RMJ?).

I miss the passenger train diorama stuff he used to do.  Those features were inspirational to me.

[Spikre]

 
   Jerry,
    only read Mr Roseman's articles in RMC and RMJ, havnt read that book,
   and really should !!
         Spikre
           
   

[nkalanaga]

Randgust:  Those MiniTrix Arnold-copies were worthless.  I have two, and they were both warped straight from the box.

My one Arnold, on the other hand, is still in service.  I replaced the trucks with MT, and body-mounted 1025s, many years ago.  More recently, but still long ago, I repainted it, as it was badly chipped by then, but decided to keep the unprototypical black paint and "GTTX 104" reporting marks, so it looks much the same as when new.  Not a great model, by today's standards, but as far as I know it was the first "modern" TOFC car made in N scale, and still doesn't look too bad in a train.

For those who haven't seen them, the later Con-Cor cars are too long, and don't look as good, which is odd, because they're basically the same car, just stretched.  I finally ground the bolsters down on mine, to lower the car, added offset-shank couplers, and repainted them, which improved the looks a little.

I think those odd center rub rails were supposed to represent the Clejan (?) loading system, and on the original Arnold cars held support frames, which in turn held the trailers.  I took my trailer supports off 40 years ago and made new hitches.  On the Con-Cor cars they just look odd, as they have standard hitches, with the trailer wheels sitting on the deck.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I'm pretty sure Wheel Works only made the 40' trailer and no 45s. The trailer is somewhat based on a Strick prototype first introduced in the late 60's. The front wall should be ribbed, and I think that was the original intention. You can see the tooling has what looks like a plug in it creating the flat surface. I always wondered what the story was behind that.

The Lee Town trailers do weigh a lot. I remember receiving the package and thinking "this can't be right".

Sadly S&R is no more and the trailer kits are no longer available. If I remember correctly there was a loss in the family.

[randgust]

There's a closed auction out on Ebay for the "blue" Santa Fe and the IMEX trailers but not the box that shows the length.

They sure look like the same 40' trailers to me, and the same rib pattern, but its hard to see.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/N-SCALE-LOT-OF-2-WHEEL-WORKS-TRAILER-KITS-/251798787954?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item3aa0609772&nma=true&si=HiOUnTaVxYrbvpr2XRs4zGz3X5Q%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

But....Conrail?  And an uneven rib pattern?   Mystery continues.

If you're painting 40' trailers up like I am for this era they are still a pretty good choice.   I was successful, however, in getting undecorated ones direct from Trainworx for the batch of NYC Flexivans I'm doing for mail service.   I think I see why Trainworx balked a bit on that scheme, because the NYC ones require the "Flexivan Service"/"US MAIL" smooth 36x48" placard on the rear and the "New York Central" herald on the front half on another placard, and a third placard on the front for the NYC herald, and if you glue something over top of the ribs it looks clunky.  I'm taking the ribs off and putting on a chunk of .010 styrene and it's a good look, but that would mean new tooling for them for the sides and front with placards.  Most of the time you can only tell they are NYC mail flexivans in a Super C shot by looking for those placards, so they are a critical feature for a model even when covered in dust and nearly illegible.

Once I get all those done I may take a shot at sacrificing a Con-Cor trailer as a donor material for a waffle-side.  We'll see. 

[daniel_leavitt2000]

All CC trailers are much too wide for the era. I would start with the wheel works trailer with the ribs sanded down. Even the Athearn Z vans will be too wide once you start adding ribs to them.

The XTRA waffle vans would be a great project for N Scale Kits to do.

[Snark45]

FYI:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151619570355?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Ends Saturday...

Harry

[jagged ben]

There's a closed auction out on Ebay for the "blue" Santa Fe and the IMEX trailers but not the box that shows the length.

They sure look like the same 40' trailers to me, and the same rib pattern, but its hard to see.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/N-SCALE-LOT-OF-2-WHEEL-WORKS-TRAILER-KITS-/251798787954?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item3aa0609772&nma=true&si=HiOUnTaVxYrbvpr2XRs4zGz3X5Q%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Yeah, those are the ones I was referring to.  I mean literally.  I won that item.       With my single bid.

And yeah, they are 40 footers.   
I guess the ribs are mostly even, but do you see the extra ribs toward the front?  Just in front of the X on the upper IMEX?
Okay, now I'm looking at your Clipper trailer again, and the extra ribs are there underneath the 'E'.   So it IS the same trailer,  Same as yours.  And they only made one kind.
Nevermind.   


BTW, when I mentioned some 'very close but not quite' prototypes to the wheel works, I had in mind...
http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=48026
http://pfe_coi.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3358886
http://pfe_coi.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3359109
These are  'close enough' for me.

Note the extra ribs at the front but not quite in the same places.
The first one is a Strick.
The second one seems to be something else and very slightly different.

[cfritschle]

I don't have one handy to measure, but as I recall, the Atlas 40-foot trailer was narrower than 96 scale inches.  http://www.atlastrainman.com/NFreight/tmn50flatcar.htm

That one might be a good starting point for the waffle-side trailer.

Carter

[randgust]

BTW, when I mentioned some 'very close but not quite' prototypes to the wheel works, I had in mind...
http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=48026
http://pfe_coi.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3358886
http://pfe_coi.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3359109
These are  'close enough' for me.

Note the extra ribs at the front but not quite in the same places.
The first one is a Strick.
The second one seems to be something else and very slightly different.

You just gave me a whaaaaa???? with those shots.   All three show something I haven't modeled at all and I'm not sure I've ever noticed before.

All three trailers have ACI labels on them.  Prominently.   It's a 70's thing.  I'm really wondering about the timing of putting ACI labels on trailers; yeah, the cars were pretty consistent, but trailers??

[Spikre]

 
   Carter,
    isn't the Atlas 40' trailer just a stretch version of the 25' van ?
   or somehow based on the 25' van ?
   they always looked too narrow.
         Spikre
         

[wcfn100]

I don't have one handy to measure, but as I recall, the Atlas 40-foot trailer was narrower than 96 scale inches. 

The trailer is 96" measured at the bottom but is 3-4" narrower at the top.

Jason

[sirenwerks]

BTW, when I mentioned some 'very close but not quite' prototypes to the wheel works, I had in mind...
http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=48026
http://pfe_coi.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3358886
http://pfe_coi.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3359109
These are  'close enough' for me.

Isn't the ELZ trailer the same as the Atheran ribbed model?

[Spikre]

 
  EL did have a series that matched the Athearn Ribbed trailers by Freuhoff.
  and a similar but not exact series by Trailmobile.
   these were some of the last trailers used/acquired by EL.
  EL also had "Bed BUG" type trailers in Break-Bulk service,close to the N models
  and needed in HO.
     Spikre
     

[daniel_leavitt2000]

   Carter,
    isn't the Atlas 40' trailer just a stretch version of the 25' van ?
   or somehow based on the 25' van ?
   they always looked too narrow.
         Spikre
         

Sort of... the tooling is different. The trailer is taller and features a different rear door pattern than the 25' van.