Non-Revenue Service Cars

[Keith Hayes]

Seems kind of quiet around here lately.

I confess I have not had the modeling bug lately myself. Needing a small distraction, I pulled a Cimarron D&RGW 04013 Kitchen Car out of the modeling cabinet and have started working on it. It is a nicely-done resin kit, and notably shorter than 3000 and 4000- series boxcars. Coincidentally, Bill Meredith mentioned on another channel that he was interested in developing a hybird (wood-styrene-brass-3d print) kit for other outfit cars. I suggested he consider a 2-car or 3-car set of kitchen-bunk-commissary cars to create a water service or bridge and building (B&B) train. Such trains regularly moved around the system keeping the numerous culverts, bridges, water tanks and pumps in working order. (Bill liked the idea of a set, and he may do a set for OM or OY--drop him a note to express your interest).

No offense to those of you who enjoy rotary plows, wedge plows, ditchers, spreaders, pile drivers and derricks. These are without a doubt fascinating pieces of equipment and make excellent contest pieces. On the layout, they tend to collect dust. Flangers are the exception: these were regularly cut into trains after a fresh snow. Outfit cars are another matter. A two car set can spend 3-4 ops sessions being set out at successive sidings and creating headaches for crews as they move around them. I recently operated on an RGS layout where a cinder car was set at one end of a siding and we had to integrate the car into our switching moves and leave it in the same place when we left town.

I don't know much about C&S non-revenue cars, and have seen few photos of them. Darrell Poole lists them in Pictorial VIII. Cars seemed to be numbered in the 022 to 098 series and 0100 to 0209 with some other car numbers thrown in. The disposition of the cars varies considerably and it appears a bunch were gone by the end of WWI. Possible cars that lasted to the 30s include:

-025 which we know as combine 20
-052, an outfit box
-052, a supply car converted from a flat (does this mean a "wheel and tie car," or a house car built on a former flat?)
-068, ex 7376 (evidently a pre-phase I boxcar?)
-078, ex DL&G 24302 used as an idler boom car for the derrick
-080, ex 7548 (evidently a pre-phase I boxcar?)
-084, ex UPD&G  24579 which was a boxcar converted to a truck car
-088. ex UPD&G 3041, a block and tool car again probably assigned to the derrick
-089, ex business care 912 assigned to the water service foreman
-0100-0108 are cinder dump cars made from UPD&G coals. These seem to have been useful cars as they lasted to the end with 0104 left in Leadville.
-0110-0119 are boarding cars, with 0116 and 0119 gone before 1920 and the rest lasting to 1934 at least.
-0200-0209 are side dump hoppers, again useful cars with four assigned to Leadville (0201, 0202, 0204, 0205) and four lasting to the end of service in Denver (0200, 0206, 0207, 0208). These appear to have been modified from Phase II coals.

If you model the Como stack era, a lot more outfit cars were prowling the rails. I leave it to you to study Darrell's roster for the numbers and car types.

For my layout, the cars that make sense to model are the cinder dump cars (0100-0108 made from older coals; Dr. Stears published plans in a recent Gazette. The key to modeling these cars are the stakes and cool straps/latches) and side dump hoppers (0200-0209, easily modified from Phase II coals). For a water service train, I will need 089 (which I have long wanted to model: ugh that passenger car clerestory!) and maybe 1-3 box outfits like 068, 080 (older UPD&G/DL&G boxcars that will stand out) or 0110-0119 (especially 0118 which again was probably an older UPD&G car). I am wrapping up the Phase I coal project so 6-7 non-revenue cars will make a nice project: heck I have more Phase II car sides than I know what to do with, so I might start by modifying one of these into a side dump hopper as a test.

There you go: an internet challenge for the hot days of summer in the northern hemisphere (I am sure Chris will be quick to it too as he sits next to his warm stove downunder). Who can rustle up some photos of these cars? Who makes appropriate lettering in Sn3 (or other scales)? What are the dimensions of the UPD&G house cars? Any kits I might start with?

[Keith Hayes]

Jim Courtney already provided an image in another thread:

I do like the two cars. Anyone got one of those Leadville Shops kits they want to part with? Or is there a better side view of these two cars?

[Ken Martin]

Keith,
Information on C&S M/W cars is hard to find.
According to the ORER in Jan. 1930 there were 45 M/W cars on the roster.

Photos
070 Box Outfit     24’ ex-7251 NG Pict 8
075 Box Outfit     30' ex-7664 Hi Line Memory P146
Derrell Poole did an article on building a bunk car in I believe the May 1996 Model Railroader

Ken Martin

A blurry photo from Park County Archives of 052?
http://www.parkcoarchives.org/photos/photos5/photos_railroad.html

[Jim Courtney]

Here are a couple of MOW cars from my files:




C&S 051, c1912-15: The other boxcar, with larger block monogram may be a 24 foot "block car", dunno for sure.





C&S 070, McClure photo c.1908-1912, with Litchfield flat car, 086.

Both cars evidently in "B&B" service, though looking at the contents on the work flat and the two being spotted at Crossons tank, suggest that they are specifically assigned to maintain water tanks.



C&S 1082 , a 1902 coal car, still carries a revenue freight car number, but this would make a great 1930s model of late MOW equipment.


In the files section are a few high-res scans of Folio-27 plans for C&S MOW cars:









All three of the box outfit cars in the plans appear to be 27 foot UP boxcars, like those produced by Cimarron Works as resin kits.
The two work flats are 30 foot cars, could be Peninsular 30 foot cars from the mid 1880s or rebuild from 1897 or 1898 coal cars.

EDIT:
Keith's info, quoting Derrell Pool, suggests the 084 was rebuilt from a 30' boxcar; the body height above the rails suggests it was originally a Peninsular boxcar. However, the folio sheet says it was converted from 4826, which would be a Peninsular 30' coal car.

Block and tool car 088 is noted on the folio sheet to have been converted from flat car 1070. The flat cars in the series 1063 -1077 were in turn converted in 1919 from surplus St Charles coal cars of 1897 and 1898.


I'll look for more photos in my book collection, will give me an excuse to scan them into my computer.

[tonyk375]

Haven't built any C&S outfit cars, just a bunch of D&RGW.  The 099 in HOn3 was a fun build though.

[Doug Heitkamp]

Here's an odd-duck...

[Doug Heitkamp]

Here's another oldie....

[Jim Courtney]

Here are a few more:



Kindig Collection, in Grandt's Narrow Gauge Pictorial VIII


Another view of 051, this time at the wreck of C&S 62 on the Leavick branch in the 19teens.



A.A. Anderson collection, in the Klingers' C&S High Line Memories . . .


Derrell Poole states that there was no C&S 075 in written records of MOW cars, but here it is at Dickey with a rotary train in the mid-1920's (judging from the lack of button herald on caboose 1005 -- or is it 1008?). A good example of late lettering conventions of MOW / outfit cars.



Courtney collection from eBay.


Finally a pair of outfit cars spotted on the house track at Alma in the late 1920's, early 1930's.  Numbers aren't legible, but they seem to be lettered like 075.  The steps suggest a permanence, like they've been there a while . . .

[Jim Courtney]

Hey Ken,

Per Derrell Poole's MOW roster, in Narrwo Gauge Pictorial VIII, outfit cars 051-058 first showed up on the C&S roster in 1909. The first 5 cars in this series were converted from boxcars, previous numbers unknown.

The swing beam trucks and the high body mount above the rails suggest Peninsular 30' boxcars as the original cars, IMHO.

Do you have any info on the prior numbers of 051 and 052??

[Jim Courtney]

You didn't include the outfit car's buddy!



From Grandt's Narrow Gauge Pictorial VIII


Both are Litchfield 26 foot cars, portrait taken at Morrison.

[Chris Walker]

(judging from the lack of button herald on caboose 1005 -- or is it 1008?).


Correct Jim, 1005 it is.

note the full wrap grabirons on top of the Cupola, 1008 had separate corner grabs.

[Pat Student]

Not all D&RGW 4000 series box cars were the same size unlike the 3000 series.  4000 - 4099 had an outside length of over sills of 27'6", 4100 - 4999 had an outside length of 30'.  Sub group 4500 - 4549 were shorter than the rest by 2" inside height, 5'9" versus 5'11".  Also the 4500's lacked A-end doors.

[Ken Martin]

Jim,

No, I don't have any information on what 51 & 52 were converted from.

Ken

[Todd A Ferguson]

Rio Grande models offers kits for Rio Grande 4000 series work and box cars in Sn3.

I always thought the western union work train that Bill Scobie has on his layout was pretty neat.  I have never seen any prototype photos or information on it though...

[Chris Walker]

You really had me digging in the back 40 of my mind for just where I'd seen this one Mate:

052 and pal for Keith.

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll21/id/3661/rec/56

[Jim Courtney]

Now that is a great photo -- I've never seen that version of "The Colorado Road" lettering scheme before, with the abbreviated "Colo. & Sou."

And number 6898 doesn't ring a bell as a car number of any of the inherited boxcars. Since the side sheathing seems horizontal ('cept the door), perhaps this car was rebuilt from a flat car or coal car??



Any chance that these two cars are early, small standard gauge cars, re-purposed for narrow gauge use??


Where do you find these photos, Chris??

[Chris Walker]

Ha.   Jim.

In Buckwalter: Scenes of a Pioneer Photojournalist, Pruett Pub which I got way back in 1990.  That photo was consigned to memory, like a lot of others, when this thread started, the gears began to grind and it was only today that the cogs meshed on my mental rolodex.

Rick Steele did expose the Colo. & So. in his Lettering The Colorado Lines, part 2 NG&SL Gazette Mar/Apr 1984  Rick did mention that it was applied to SG cars in haste.  

If you look closely at the shadow of old lettering  O. R.R. appears above on the newish patched 052.  That to me fits with the Denver and New Orleans Railroad, a predecessor road of the UP,D&G SG lines.

The cars are on a temporary spur laid parallel to the Golden line at Arvada during a conflict with the abuilding Denver & North-Western.
Just what gauge they laid that spur to, I can't answer.

[Jim Courtney]

Interesting . . .





I had taken the 051 and 052 to be former Peninsular 30 foot boxcars, like C&S 7681 c.1903.





But 052 has different details: A two layer upper fascia board on sides and ends, a corner iron mid way up the corner of the car, and different door hangers from the UP built boxcars of the 1880's. The board ladder to the left of the side door is consistent with the one on C&S 070, up-thread, from about the same time period.  

Derrell Poole's MOW roster shows a gap in C&S narrow gauge outfit car numbers between 034 and 055. He notes 051 to 055 first listed as narrow gauge outfit cars in 1909. Narrow gauge outfit cars 055-058 are listed as having original numbers of 02501-02504.

Perhaps cars 051-058 were small standard gauge outfit cars, converted at different times in the first decade to narrow gauge outfit cars.
If 052 was originally a small standard gauge D&NO boxcar, that would explain the differences.

Anyone knowledgeable about early D&NO / UPD&G standard gauge freight cars??

[Ken Martin]

I have that print but totally missed the 052 in it.
Above the "So." you can see a faded "N O R R" so it could have been D&NO.

The 1900 ORER lists SG cars as UPD&G no's.

The 6898 is listed in the 1903 ORER as I. L. 27' 6" and I.W. of 7.7'
It is gone by 1905.

The coach on the flat to the right is ex CC 1 or 2.

Ken Martin

[Ken Martin]

Jim,
I just re-located an 1899 renumber sheet I copied.
Regarding the gap between 034 and 055, the cars 036 to 041 are Standard gauge Cinder cars.
The cars 048 to 054 are listed as Standard gauge Outfit cars, so it appears that your idea of  them being standard gauge outfit cars being converted to narrow gauge is correct.

Ken Martin