Turn of the century research start points?

[Talltim]

This photo (caution, large file) of Braddock, Pa in 1911 has been haunting me ever since I saw it a year or so ago. I've been doing some research into the types of cars used back then, but I'm finding it very disjointed. I've managed to identify that there are some PRR GR type wooden gons in the foreground (Annoyingly Westerfield, who made a GRa stopped production earlier this year), but am struggling as to how to start with others.

Similarly, my knowledge of US steam locos is very lacking, I know the 4-4-0s are too early, and the big articulateds are too late, but I can't look at a loco and have a good idea of its period in the same way as I can with UK ones.

So, bearing in mind that the PRR, the B&O and the P&LE served the steel industry in Braddock, can anyone give me some good starting points for building up a feel for the stock used in 1911? Web is great, but I'm willing to buy books if they come with a recommendation that they will teach me stuff.

[HeavyDuty]

I would think a subscription to the Steam Era Freight Cars YahooGroup would be a very good start - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/ . There also used to be a YahooGroup called "EarlyRail" or something similar that might be useful.

 

Good luck - I'm told it's a challenging era to research!

[Talltim]

In the UK its actually pretty easy to get good information from that period, although there are less photos than for example of the 1950s My impression, veiwed from outside it that there is far less information about the early period of US rail. Possibly its because the info is in books rather than on the web, which is the case in the UK too.

Thanks for the pointers

[dave1905]

The Earlyrail Yahoo group would be a good place to start. 1911 was a pivotal year, since in 1910 the railroads were required to have "modern" safety appliances on the cars. Cars before that would commonly have grab irons on the ends or the sides but not both. After 1910 they would have grabirons on both sides and ends. 1911 all interchange cars would have knuckle couplers and air brakes.

 

Many cars would have wood underframes with truss rods. Steel underframe cars were used on virtually all the new cars since 1905 or so. Most of the new coal cars were all steel hoppers. Boxcars were steel underframes with wood superstructures.

 

Unfortunately the best source for cars of your era was Westerfield who was centered around 1920. There are a number of manufacturers of resin and wood truss rod car kits. The Bowser GS gon and GL hopper are appropriate for the period. Funaro & Camerlingo sell Reading and PRR gon kits, plus several other era appropriate cars. Art Griffin sells lots of decals that can be used for pre-WW1 models.

 

I have found Google books to be a very valuable resource, but it may not be available outside the US.

 

The Bachmann 4-4-0, 4-6-0, 2-8-0 can be appropriate. The Roundhouse 4-4-0 and 2-8-0 can be appropriate.

 

The bulk of the mainstream US model manufacturers think railroads were invented sometime around 1925 or 1930 and so don't make any models of equipment before then.

[Adrian Wintle]

If you can find a decently cheap copy:

http://www.amazon.com/American-Railroad-Freight-Car-Wood-Car/dp/0801852366

 

This is probably the bible of pre-steel cars. There is a companion volume on passenger cars.

 

Adrian

[Old Gringo]

Hi Tim,

 

I've also been trying to collect information on U.S. rolling stock and operations in the period 1900-1920 and I've found the following books useful regarding the history of U.S. steam locomotives and their development.

 

1. The Iron Horse, by Henry B. Comstock, Galahad Books, New York, 1971 - subtitle: America's Steam Locomotive a Pictorial History. The 228 page book illustrated by Henry Comstock with line and pencil drawings charts the history of the steam locomotive. I think that this book is a good introduction to how the steam locomotive was developed to cope with the traffic demands of the U.S.A. and who the key figures were.

 

2. The Locomotives that Baldwin Built, by Fred Westing (containing a complete facsimile of the original history of the Baldwin Locomotive Works 1831-1923), Superior Publishing Seattle, 1966. 192 pages with lots of photographs: a book which actually covers the 120 year history of the company between 1831 and 1954, with representative illustrations of many of the locos. built. Again this charts the development of the U.S. locomotive, but from a single company perspective.

 

3. A more recent book, which also has a 'selected' bibliography included is North American Steam Locomotive Builders and their Insignia,by Harold Davies, TLC Publishing, Inc., 2005. 266 glossy pages (and big print) outlining the history of each of the locomotive builders, with good photographs of some of the well known products.

 

In the chapter on "The Railroad Companies - In-house building" Davies says that there is extensive literature available on the Pennsylvania Railroad and gives three titles as represenative of the products of the "standard railroad"; Locomotives of the Pennsylvania Railroad, by Paul T. Warner; The Pennsylvania Railroad, by Edwin P. Alexander; and Pennsy Power, by Alvin F. Staufer, 1962.

 

The "Pennsy" is not a road that I'm too familiar with, but if any of these three books is up to the standard of "Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail" by E. D. Worley, SRHS, 1965 (which is the definitive history of the steam locomotives of the ATSF), then they will be packed full of useful information.

 

Perhaps, one of our U.S. RMweb contributors would like to comment on how any of the above selection is rated in the U.S.A. ?

 

Hope this helps,

 

All the best, John.

[dave1905]

 

The "Pennsy" is not a road that I'm too familiar with,

 

 

Wow. The Pennsylvannia Railroad was the largest US road in terms of cars and tonnage hauled well into the 1950's.

 

They had more of their standard day coach , the P70, than the ATSF had of all types of passenger cars. While we are picking on the ATSF, in the 1940's the Santa Fe had 68,000 freight cars. In the 1940's the PRR had over 40,000 of one class of hopper car, the H21 quad hopper.

 

 

Perhaps, one of our U.S. RMweb contributors would like to comment on how any of the above selection is rated in the U.S.A. ?

 

 

The only one I'm familiar with is Pennsy Power, which is a good engine reference. There is also a B&O Power book that would be useful. I would check out the PRR Technical and Historical Society, and the B&O Historical Society we sites. they have pdf versionds of their magazines on line, They are great resources.

 

Tiechmoeller wrote book on Pennsy steel hopper cars and Karig wrote a book on coal cars which is a phenomenal resource. A great study of reefers is teh "Great Yellow Fleet".

[Talltim]

Thanks all for the book pointers. Its good to have some recommendations, I'm always scared of blind buying a book and finding that its full of pretty pics and no information.

I've applied to join the yahoo groups suggested and had a look at the RR specialist society pages.

Would I be right in saying that in the Pittburgh steelworks areas, most stock would be local company owned (i.e. steel gons, coal/coke hoppers and ore hoppers)?

I think out found out details for pretty much all appropriate PRR rolling stock that has been available in model form over the years, the B&O seems a bit more elusive. With regards to locos, I've always been a bit wary of the models of older stuff as they seem to be available in so many company's colours, while I know that there were standard designs built by the commercial builders such as Baldwin I don't currently know enough to be able to say which company's loco a model is really based on. There also seems to be less available in kit form for locos than rolling stock. Perhaps its a case of them being in RTR brass rather than kits?

[signalmaintainer]

 

Wow. The Pennsylvannia Railroad was the largest US road in terms of cars and tonnage hauled well into the 1950's.

 

 

Not to belabor the point Dave is making, Gringo, but the Pennsylvania RR here was akin to the Great Western Railway there. To borrow something the late John Armstrong wrote in his book "Creative Layout Design" regarding this relationship, no one dared question the practices of either company. (Well, perhaps the New York Central did viz. the Pennsy, but I'd wager never very loudly.)

[Adrian Wintle]

Would I be right in saying that in the Pittburgh steelworks areas, most stock would be local company owned (i.e. steel gons, coal/coke hoppers and ore hoppers)?

 

A huge quantity of the hoppers and gons would be railway owned - the Pennsy in particular had huge fleets.

 

There also seems to be less available in kit form for locos than rolling stock. Perhaps its a case of them being in RTR brass rather than kits?

 

That would be the case. Kit-building of locos never really caught on in North America the way it did in the UK.

 

For history of the Pennsy (and B&O) and its construction (not really the stock), the Triumph series is the definitve set of works:

http://www.barnardroberts.com/

 

This is the hopper cars book mentioned above. I think the quoted prices are excessive, but it is a good reference.

http://www.amazon.co...r/dp/0965536548

 

I'll have a look at my library and give you some recommendations (I model the Pennsy in the '50s in N-scale).

 

Adrian

[Talltim]

 

A huge quantity of the hoppers and gons would be railway owned - the Pennsy in particular had huge fleets.

 

Sorry, yes that what I meant (as opposed to from other roads, in the way that boxcars, for example, roam the nation) I'm aware that at that period private owning was more limited to specialised vehicles.

 

John Teichmoeller is a member the yahoo Rail Marine Ops group and seems very knowledgeable

[Adrian Wintle]

 

Sorry, yes that what I meant (as opposed to from other roads, in the way that boxcars, for example, roam the nation) I'm aware that at that period private owning was more limited to specialised vehicles.

 

It really depends on what the mill uses and where the product gets shipped. A Pennsy-served mill that needed large quantities of anthracite would probably see a fair proportion of hoppers from the anthracite roads - Reading, Lehigh Valley, etc (Pennsy was only peripherally and anthracite road). Similarly, the mix of gons would depend on the final destination of the goods and which railways they got interchanged with - e.g. steel that was going to the shipyards in Norfolk might see a fair few N&W gons carrying it.

 

Adrian

[HEATH STATION]

Hello Tim,

as a Chesterfield lad in exile in the West mids, I sympathise with your plight as I went down a similar road in the mid 1970's - the B&O. My advice to you might be don't go there because if you are like me you will spend more and more time and money researching than ever modelling. I dread to think what it adds up to -best not go there!

 

That said - the best printed sources of information on US freight cars of that era are the Car Builders Cyclopedia's -massive tomes and scarce as anything these days. In the 70's a publisher called Newton Gregg published extracts from various volumes as soft cover books and some of these might still be about over here. They sold under the name 'Train Shed Cyclopedia' if I remember rightly - might be worth a check on ABE and the other book sites. They also did a complete 1906 Locomotive Dictionary and 1906 Car Builder Dictionary too. Other good sources are the Keystone ( Pennsy Historical society magazine) and the Sentinel (B&O Historical Society magazine). again they may be had over here. I still have my collection of Sentinels in the loft and might be able to answer/reference any specific B&O queries in time. The respective Historical Societies will also produce freight car data - e.g. B&O HS sell Equipment Registers, Freight car diagrams and caboose info.

 

Models is a complete additional minefield - for a lot of years Athearn and Model Die Casting (MDC) was the only game in town and many of their products were sold in many guises often far from the prototype. Prototype modelers grew more vocal and many Historical societies now work with manufacturers to get more accurate material. Al Westerfield was one of the early manufacturers in HO to meet this demand and as you say - his departure is a big loss. Limited production because of lower volumes of sale.

 

well I hope this helps a little -please ask if there is anything B&O I might be able to offer help with and I'll look at what limited resources I still have. Me - I've left the B&O in HO and O via On30 Bachmann and gone back to the ex GC and trying to develop a OO scale of Heath station and exchange sidings - near where I lived as a boy.

best regards

 

Dave

[dave1905]

Similarly, the mix of gons would depend on the final destination of the goods and which railways they got interchanged with - e.g. steel that was going to the shipyards in Norfolk might see a fair few N&W gons carrying it. Adrian

 

I would rather think it would be the opposite, that if a shipyard on the N&W used steel from a mill on the PRR the shipyard would see a lot of PRR gons. The originating carrier has the responsibility to provide the car for the load. The only way a PRR served steel mill would get a lot of N&W gons is if the N&W shipped a lot of stuff in gons to areas near the steel mill. The N&W would not have given the PRR a bunch of empty gons to load and the PRR would not want a bunch of empty N&W gons (the PRR owns 10's of thousands of gons, why would it want to pay per diem on N&W gons?)

[Adrian Wintle]

 

I would rather think it would be the opposite, that if a shipyard on the N&W used steel from a mill on the PRR the shipyard would see a lot of PRR gons. The originating carrier has the responsibility to provide the car for the load. The only way a PRR served steel mill would get a lot of N&W gons is if the N&W shipped a lot of stuff in gons to areas near the steel mill. The N&W would not have given the PRR a bunch of empty gons to load and the PRR would not want a bunch of empty N&W gons (the PRR owns 10's of thousands of gons, why would it want to pay per diem on N&W gons?)

 

Not necessarily the best example, I know. However, there would almost certainly be a return traffic of scrap for re-smelting, so there would likely be some of each.

 

Adrian

[dave1905]

I would agree about the scrap in the 1950's but I wouldn't be as sure for the 1911 era. I would think there was very little scrap metal at that time. Pretty much all the big metal things would be virtually brand new and all the old metal things would be fairly small in size. Most of the scrap would be iron and steel would have been relatively rare. There would have been more pig iron put in the furnaces than scrap at that time. Since there are obviously blast furnaces in the picture, the plant made its own pig iron, and put it molten in the Bessemer convertor or open hearth furnace.

[Talltim]

From what I have read about the Bessemer process, it could only use a small percentage of scrap, which one of the reasons for its replacement by other methods.

[CraigZ]

John Teichmoeller is the Pennsylvania RR hopper car guru. He literally wrote the book on them. The Yahoo STFMC group is full of freight car specialists, including those who know their way around the early 20th century. In the 1920s the PRR started buying their X29 box car; the total roster was over 25,000 of them. The second most populous car was the New York Central's steel cars that were descendents of the USRA steel design (never built by the USRA by the way)...around 22,000 of those. I think we all forget just how dominant in terms of volume those two railroads were before 1950.

X29 models - Red Caboose/Intermountain cars are the way to go nowadays.

NYC car - not in plastic yet; Westerfield made them in resin. I put a coat of flat finish on one today and will post photos. The kits are in their 2900/3000 series as seen here https://id18538.securedata.net/westerfieldmodels.com/merchantmanager/index.php?cPath=28 . Sadly Westerfield has retired...you're stuck with ebay now. But...Broadway Limited has been promising those cars in plastic for delivery this year. Hopefully!

 

Steam era modeling has a siren song and it's not just the locomotives...it's the freight cars and the amazing variety they had.

[Old Gringo]

“The "Pennsy" was not a road that I'm too familiar with”, however, I quite understand that the PRR was a very big company, with over 10,000 route miles and that it had a particular way of doing things. Thanks too, to Signalmaintainer for pointing out comparisons between the PRR and the GWR. – some of the similarities are surprising.

 

Now after a little page turning I see that the PRR was one of the few U.S. roads which had extensive “in-house” workshops capable of mass-producing its own locomotives and that the new plant (Juniata Works) built in 1891 to the east of Altoona, was designed to construct heavier locomotives with a build capacity of up to 150 units per year. Harold Davies says that previously the old Altoona workshops had often shared orders for locomotives with Baldwin and Grant and also that the workshops at Fort Wayne, Indiana, took care of the Lines West operations.

 

In Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers (1978 / 2003) John Marshall says, “Axel S. Vogt prepared many of the standard designs from 1886 onwards and served with distinction until 1919. Vogt experimented with oil fuel on a locomotive in the Pittsburgh division in 1887. He had a Webb 3-cylinder compound (No. 1320, Pennsylvania), from Beyer Peacock for trials in 1888 and later a De Glehn compound from SACM, Belfort, which was thoroughly tested on the new locomotive testing plant installed at Altoona in 1904. Vogt adopted the Belpaire firebox, which was to become standard on the PRR and was the driving force behind the successful range of “Pennsy power” beginning with the H5, 2-8-0s and E1, 4-4-2s. The H6b of 1905 was the first PRR type to have Walschaerts valve gear, which thereafter became standard. And the success of an experimental 4-6-2 obtained from ALCO in 1906 led to the design at Fort Wayne of the K2 class in 1910”. Marshall gives as his source for this information; Locomotives of the Pennsylvania Railroad 1834-1924, Paul T. Warner, 1959

 

Davies adds that in 1903, Alfred W. Gibbs became Superintendant of Lines East motive power and by 1911 was in charge of mechanical matters for the entire system. Besides introducing the first electric locomotives on the PRR, Gibbs looked towards producing improved standard steam locomotives (based on Vogt’s work). The shift to bigger engines, equipped with large Belpaire fireboxes (and superheaters from 1913) is apparent in the few photographs of PRR locomotives that I have to hand of the period 1900 to 1920.

 

Whether or not Paul Warner’s book on the PRR is as good as Worley’s on the ATSF, I cannot say, but, from the page of information Marshall provided (precis quoted above), I might suggest that it hopefully provides much of the details required to understand what locomotives were current on the PRR tracks in 1911. With the recommendation for Pennsy Power by Staufer from Dave1905 as a good engine reference, you could be set up with plenty of PRR locomotive modelling information.

 

Perhaps Tim, you could try e-mailing the PRR Historical Society for their view on which of the “Pennsy” books to buy?

 

All the best, John.

[Ozexpatriate]

I've also been trying to collect information on U.S. rolling stock and operations in the period 1900-1920 ... <snip>

 

Perhaps, one of our U.S. RMweb contributors would like to comment on how any of the above selection is rated in the U.S.A. ?

It is indeed a challenging period to model, and alas, not one where I can offer an informed opinion. Nevertheless, the period is an interesting choice.

 

Braddock too is an interesting choice. It is (more or less) where of a column of British troops commanded by Major General Edward Braddock was routed by Indian and French forces in 1755. A young Virginia miltia officer gained some renown by organizing an ordered retreat under heavy fire. His name was George Washington. Today while basically a suburb of Pittsburgh, after the decline of the steel industry, Braddock is one of the towns worst afflicted by industrial blight in the US.

 

There's lots of period buildings (such as they are now) here. And googling "Braddock, PA; railroad station postcard" found multiple postcards on eBay of both the B&O and PRR stations. (I tried to link to them but the direct links don't seem to resolve all the time.)

 

When searching you might also try "Mon Valley". This seems to be a local term for the Monongahela Valley.

[Ozexpatriate]

This photo (caution, large file) of Braddock, Pa in 1911

Your link did not originally work for me. Now it does - go figure! I searched the "shorpy" site and found this one called "Factory town 1908". Some of the steelworks look very similar to a more modern picture.

 

The comments on this page are interesting. The location of this picture of the Edgar Thomson Steelworks (named for J Edgar Thomson, President of the PRR) is clearly here.

 

There's lots of interesting details. Towards the right side of the image you can see a street car (tram) on Braddock Avenue. One of the postcards I saw showed Braddock Avenue (downtown) with the same street car tracks.

[CraigZ]

 

Perhaps, one of our U.S. RMweb contributors would like to comment on how any of the above selection is rated in the U.S.A. ?

 

In a word, the selection is thin. Westerfield made a nice selection of very nice resin kits for early steel-era cars and late wood-era cars, but the owners have retired and ceased production of the kits. Now prices of their kits are climbing on Ebay. Mantua made some of those cars many years ago; Model Die Casting as well. The latter is sort of being carried on by Athearn under the Model Die Casting name as well. But the comment about time starting in the 1920s is accurate...

[Adrian Wintle]

One book I found in my library that has photos going back into the time you are interested in is:

Pennsy Steam and Semaphores by Fred Westing

 

Adrian

[dave1905]

“The "Pennsy" was not a road that I'm too familiar withâ€, however, I quite understand that the PRR was a very big company, with over 10,000 route miles and that it had a particular way of doing things. Thanks too, to Signalmaintainer for pointing out comparisons between the PRR and the GWR. – some of the similarities are surprising.

 

The Pennsy is often referred to as the "Standard Railroad of the World". That isn't true in the sense that pretty much all of the PRR's equipment designs were unique to the PRR. Very little if any engines or cars were industry standard designs, close, but always one off. The X29 boxcar was really close to the USRA steel boxcar, but there were definite differences in design. On the other hand they were standard in the sense that when they decided on a design, they built a gazillion of them.

 

The PRR had so many cars and was involved with so many shipments that it has been said that if you model any railroad in N America between 1900 and 1968, then you are by default a Pennsy modeler.

 

Now after a little page turning I see that the PRR was one of the few U.S. roads which had extensive “in-house†workshops capable of mass-producing its own locomotives and that the new plant (Juniata Works) built in 1891 to the east of Altoona, was designed to construct heavier locomotives with a build capacity of up to 150 units per year. Harold Davies says that previously the old Altoona workshops had often shared orders for locomotives with Baldwin and Grant and also that the workshops at Fort Wayne, Indiana, took care of the Lines West operations.

 

Many of the major US roads had shops that built their own engines and many more had shops that rebuilt (kitbashed if you will) their own engines. But there was a window from the late 1800's to the early 1900's where that was feasible. Most of the US railroad shops didn't have the capacity to build large numbers of engines from the ground up, so the railroads turned to the locomotive builders because they could build engines cheaper due to economies of scale.

 

The 1911 period would be a challenging one to model because the all wood cars are being phased out and the steel ones are coming in. A post WW1 era would be much easier since you woul pick up a lot more engines and cars that have commercially produced models or could be made from commercially produced models.

[Talltim]

Dave, I've just noticed your sig. What are you modelling?