Throwback Thursday - My Best Guess

This possible scratch-building project was photographed on February 03/91 in the CN yard at Brantford, Ontario.

By Peter Mumby.  

This interesting trackside structure was photographed in the CN Brantford yard in early 1991.  I don’t recall ever being informed of its specific use;  my best guess is it was used to hold heating oil for caboose furnaces.  There are no signs of an electrical connection, so it must dispense the fuel by gravity.  The roadway access is probably used by tank trucks employed to fill the high-mounted tank.

Wordless Wednesday No. 615

 

    

Snapshot - Feb 2025

Another missed opportunity...just a few minutes late arriving town to catch an eastbound freight in Chatham, NY.

This months snapshot is from another stop I made on my way to Springfield on Jan. 23 2025. I decided to see if I could catch a train through Chatham NY at the station and the town block with the tower and clock. I have been here a number of times with Don Janes and we never caught a peek of a train through town. We did arrive once passing a train on the freeway just before we turned into town., but that was the closest we have been to seeing a train.

Well this time was no different. As I arrived in town the tail end of a eastbound was passing the station...so what the heck, lets get a shot of the tail end passing the station. I planned to hang around town for a bit so I headed over to the coffee shop on the main street in town. As I was ordering I could hear the rumble of a westbound train whistling a crossing, another chance missed. What I did not know till I followed the tracks east in town was there is a siding and control point just east of were I was. It appears there was a train waiting for the EB to pass before departing. Next time I will be checking arriving in town. I hung around for maybe 45 minutes hoping something else would pass. No luck it was off to Palmer, Mass. next...George Dutka  

Magor Corporation

by Keith MacCauley. 

Many years ago the Oakville, Ont. RIP track had a thriving business with several foreign car owners as customers. Incredibly, over the years a number of cars built by Magor were repaired, owned by Dupont and Norfolk Southern.

The following information was gleaned from the Edward S. Kaminski book 'THE MAGOR CAR CORPORATION' (published 2000). A fabulous documentary. 

Among smaller niche freight car builders was Magor Corporation, located in Clifton New Jersey. Dating from 1899, Magor initially focused on export railcar production. With its Eastern Seaboard location Magor took advantage of New York port facilities to serve the overseas market. Prior to World War I domestic production was added and the builder would be included in the United States Railroad Administration supply control plan. Continuing their export activities Magor would supply freight cars for military use in World War II, the Korean conflict and later for use in Europe under the Marshall plan.

Among the more entrepreneurial of builders, Magor was a pioneer in adopting aluminum as a construction material. Following construction of their first conventional covered hopper car in 1952, the builder would introduce an aluminum version in 1959. Promoting the aluminum material benefits of reduced weight, corrosion resistance and absence of paint, Magor employed the combination of steel underframe, aluminum carbody on some five thousand follow up freight cars. Key to the success of combining the two materials was the use of an insulating compound where the two are joined, so as to avoid galvanic corrosion. Aluminum covered hopper construction would continue until 1970.

In 1964 Magor would be acquired by transport trailer maker Fruehauf Corporation. Despite a couple of late thousand car orders for gondolas and boxcars, declining sales through the 1960’s and 1970’s led to Magor being shuttered in early 1973. As a testament to the talent of the builder, most of the aluminum covered hoppers served owners to their forty year AAR life limit. Perhaps some even qualified for Extended Service Status (so called ‘EXS’) and made it to the half century.

DUPX 38370 was built in 1970.  Car series DUPX 38306 – 38375; the last aluminum covered hopper cars to be built by Magor.

SOU 8759 was 5325 cu. ft. covered hopper car built in 1965. Car series was SOU 7925 - 7999 and SOU 8575 - 8999. Note the faded 'Big John' graphic.

Back Alley Scene Completed!

A CN switcher passes the back alley block. The engine is a Rapido offering that I purchased partly weathered...I added my own touches.

I finally finished the ITLA test kit build of an upcoming back alley scene using five structures plus an add-on. All the signs and details are included in the kit. I did not use anything extra during construction and detailing of the scene. More views coming up shortly...George Dutka  

A cab is parked out front of City Taxi. Taxi companies use whatever location gives them a good deal and is a central location. Normally back alley scene such as this are near the center of town.  

The structures can be staggered with the option to cut them down in size. Two had their depth reduced.

 Although most of the structures are brick there are two block structures that one can see in this view.

There are a nice amount of fire escapes included in the kit so each level can have one added. I did not use them all in the scene. 3-D printed garbage cans, bags and barrels are also included. A two piece skid which looks very realistic is also found in the kit.

CV/B&M Pool Train

 

CV 4927 leads three B&M geep's at Brattleboro, Vt. during April 1979. Photo by Bruce Nelson, Courtesy of Bruce Nelson   

Do you Remember these Kits?

National Car Cast a company from Waterloo in the 1970's offering resin gondola sides and ends to make a CN model. They suggest some parts to use and also cardboard for finishing the kit. There are no decal included or suggested.

Peter recently gave me a few model kits conversion from the early 1970's. It is interesting to see what one got back then when ordering a kit. It appears that National Car Cast maybe had three kits out at the time Peter purchased his kits in the mid 1970's...he never got around to building them...will see what I can do with them...George Dutka

This kit is for a PC gondola which you need to pickup  decals and parts supplies. Kits from this era were simplistic...for instance this kit's instructions  tells one to use Bristol board for the flooring. Reading through the instructions are very crude compared to todays standards. I would think using an Athearn blue box gondola would move the process along much more quickly. No decal are mentioned in this kit also.

Look at the price of postage in the early 1970's...8 cents. 

This would be a year or two later...note the increase for his second kit...an additional 6 cents although it is noted to be first class. Looking at the address Peter had moved to London by then from Brampton.  

Throwback Thursday - Diesel Fuel Tank

This photo was taken near the Chatham St roundhouse on August 01, 1990.  Demolition of the roundhouse would begin in 1992.

By Peter Mumby.

The diesel fuel tank at the Chatham St service area in Hamilton was photographed in the summer of 1990, some three and a half years after the TH&B had been fully merged into the Canadian Pacific system.  The TH&B logo still looks good on the tank.  Note the fuel nozzle in the lower right foreground of the photo.  

Wordless Wednesday No. 614

 

     

February 2025 - This and That

Don Janes is now running some more modern models around his Green Mountain Division. On the lead are two new Rapido offering. Don Janes photo.

Some photos that I grouped together for you to see this month...George Dutka  

A post card view of the station which once stood in Dutton, Ontario. My son lives there now and no tracks run through town now.

I came across a BC Rail unit on Feb 8 2025 here in London, Ont. This view is on track 24 along Pine St.

The engine came into town on train 509 from Sarnia. It is in the process of adding a multi level on a cut of cars.

City Taxi which is located in the back alley has the brick wall painted at one time green then white washed white some years later, What I wanted to show you are the two bottles on the loading dock which is now blocked in. When I was cleaning the 3-D dumpster from its mold all these little plastic pieces broke off the sprue which looked like milk and pop bottles. So I decided to use them on the structures. There are a lot of them attached to the sprue.

The back alley scene is getting near complete. 4 of the 5 buildings are now done.

An early morning view of a EB Amtrak departing Amsterdam, NY on Jan 23, 2025.

EB Amtrak passed the old freight house in Amsterdam, NY on Jan 23, 2025

The stone freight house is a very long structure with 19 freight doors on the roadside wall.

Some Extra Information!

Here is a bit of a follow-up on Peter's Throwback Thursday last week. This photo is from my son's Peter collection of PBLX 20145.  

This is a 4650 cu. ft. covered hopper car built by MIL 5/1979. Note that this is 100 cu. ft. larger than the similar appearing Canadian Wheat Board car. I have read that in order to entice US customers Canadian freight cars builders increased the volume of their designs. MIL made the car body longer, while NSC added a bump out section at the ends. Note how the trucks are also painted blue...Keith MacCauley. 

There was some questions regarding the roof arrangement on Keith's last post of UNPX 121700 series cars. Here is the drawings that were asked for...George

Custom Painted Models - Perkins Road Depot

This year at Springfield I did not buy much and nothing that required construction. I have so many kits at home that probably will never get built in my lifetime. I always stop by David Barlow's table of custom painted or built rolling stock (Perkins Road Depot) which look really good. The prices are high but the work looks really nice. I decided to purchase two of his cars this year...I could build these myself but with so many kits already, I really never will, so acquiring the cars was a good option.

The first is a MEC pulpwood car which has a realistic looking load. There is a styrene backing added to the car before painting to help hold the load. The car is not really a show stopper...an older model with molded on grabs, but the load, paint, decaling and weathering is what makes it realistic. This model shows one you don't actually need all your cars to be top of the line kits.

The second car is a model of one of the three CV woodchip cars. I had seen his visions of these in the past using Tichy and Accurail cars. This one was done using a new Rapido model. There is no decals available for CV hoppers, David had the decals made for him by Highball Graphics. These woodchip cars were converted in 1969 and were in use till 1972 and 1976, so for only a short time. On my layout the lifespan will be a lot longer...George Dutka

This car was used by the Cascade Paper Company in Berlin NH. That is a five foot extension added to the hopper.

Midwest Freight Car

by Keith MacCauley  

With only three major freight car builders (National Steel Car, Trinity and Greenbrier) currently in operation today, it’s easy to forget that well into the 1970’s there were more than a dozen railway rolling stock makers. While some of the defunct manufacturers were large and well known, such as Pullman Standard, there were a number of cottage industry type firms that contributed freight cars to the north American fleet; Magor Corporation, Greenville Steel Car and Berwick Forge come to mind. Among the more obscure, was Midwest Freight Car (MFC) located in Clinton IL. MFC was a niche builder that focused on short-run specialty cars, including flats, well cars, gondolas, hoppers, and covered hoppers. MFC was acquired by Portec in the late 1970s’s which in turn was sold to Thrall circa 1983/1984. Thrall was acquired by Trinity Industries in 2001.

In 1977 Procor was in need of a specific geometry 3,000 cu. ft. covered hopper car and turned to Midwest. The LO (AAR Class) covered hoppers were to be used to haul phosphate rock from Florida, presumably to a CIL facility in Canada for the purpose of fertilizer manufacture. CIL also had a large interest in sulfuric acid production (another fertilizer building block). A maximum height of 12’ – 6” was specified, most likely related to some type of origin loading apparatus geometry. The result was a rather low, lanky appearing car, and sixty-five were constructed in 1978; UNPX 121700 – 121764. Delivery was somewhat delayed by ongoing facility expansion taking place in parallel at the Clinton location. Purchase by a Canadian entity of a US company (Union Tank Car) was noteworthy at the time as this was long before the days of Free Trade and there would have been taxes and duties to be paid. Following service with CIL, the UNPX cars scattered to other lease customers, mostly hauling sand, roofing granules and other similar density commodities. The relatively small LO’s proved to be very durable with most serving some four decades before being retired/dismantled, or in some case sold off. While a number of sold/remarked cars carry on with their new owners, only one car from the original build is still in service with Procor. The ex UNPX cars are easy to spot as most still sport the large “PROCOR’ wordmark. A company condition of sale, rarely practiced or enforced, requires removal of the former identity. Textbook examples of prior identity are the small, former MFC built blue B&M covered hoppers with AEQX reporting marks which boldly display ‘BOSTON & MAINE’ between their exterior reinforcing ribs.

The UNPX 121700 series subject sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole and I dug out the construction file from our archives. It's a fascinating tale. We actually sent an inspector from Oakville to Clinton to keep an eye on things during production. Amazing to see how cheap travel expenses were back in 1978!

ITLA Back Alley - 20' 2 Floor Building

The 20' two story building is completed other than the roof details and trim.

I began the third structure in the ITLA back alley block. I thought I would show you how the brick and block work is painted and weathered...George Dutka 

Home Hardware red oxide primer is first applied.

Roberts brick mortar is applied unevenly.

I accented some of the bricks using a Micron 05 black pen. I normally just dab on black paint with a fine brush but I found this a bit easier and quicker to do.

The block wall is brush painted Ceramcoat rain grey using a brush.

I then highlighted some blocks using Ceramcoat Bridgeport grey. These two tones are very close to the same color so one could flip which one was the base coat.

A wash of AK rust steaks is coated on the blocks which darken the grout lines and stains the blocks a bit. To finish it off I will apply PanPastel raw umber shade over the entire surface, but lightly.

Throwback Thursday - History Illustrated

SOO 111389 was caught at CP Quebec St in London, Ontario on August 20, 1995.

By Peter Mumby.  

As modellers, many of us appreciate a car that has its history clearly illustrated on its car body.  SOO 111389 is definitely one such car - the logo provides the identity of the previous operator and its faded nature implies an existence of twenty years or so without refinishing.  Little things like the attached ACI label also point to its longevity.  This photo dates to the mid-1990s which proved to be the calm before the graffiti storm which really picked up momentum in the late 1990s and eventually affected the majority of the covered hoppers on North American rails. 

Wordless Wednesday No. 613

 

  

Railfanning Springfield, Mass.

Power shuffled around the west end of the yard on January 24, 2025

Prior to the train show beginning...I was at the show to drop off my stuff on Thursday and again on Friday to check out how the layouts were going together. One enters through gate 1 which was a very short drive to a street which ends at the west end entrance of CSXT and an open view of that area. This is the West end of the yard and all is in full view. There was a number of railfans there on each stop I made...George Dutka  

Looking east from the roadway layover power is seen on the right while a WB train road power is getting ready to head over to its train.

A couple of the railfans that gather there on a regular basis.

A local switcher arrives on the scene. One could see more power down around the middle of the yard.

Lined up for a moment one could get a group shot.

A WB train was leaving as I arrived at the west end of the yard. This photo and the one below are from that train.

At the east end of the yard a short train of maybe 10 cars heads east just as I was heading to my hotel room. There is a bit of a pull off along the river where I tucked my car into.

Crossing the Connecticut River.