Freight Cars in Service - USRA DS Boxcars

greenspun.com : LUSENET : ACL and SAL Railroads Historical Society : One Thread

Greetings all,

I’m currently developing a series of freight car books in conjunction with Signature Press similar to the popular Squadron "In Action" series of aircraft, armor, and ships with a tentative working series title of “Freight Cars in Service.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Squadron books, they are landscape format books, typically 48-64 pages long and focus on a particular type/model/class of aircraft, armor, and ship from initial development throughout their service life, covering different variants and paint schemes. Additionally, Squadron publishes a similar “Detail and Scale” series that are longer books (96-128 pages) which contain extra information of interest for the modeler, including scale drawings and multi-scale kit reviews.

The focus for the first book(s) will be the USRA double-sheathed boxcar. Cars will be presented by road in the following format:

Original as-built cars Rebuilt boxcars "Clones"

Each road's cars will be presented with representative photos tracing the life of the cars from USRA allocation through rebuilding (as applicable) to retirement. We’re looking for information for cars from all roads – specific ACL and C&WC car series are:

ACL 46000-46949, 950 cars, Class O-14. 932 cars rebuilt to steel in 1937, Class O-14A, retaining the same number series. 50 cars, ACL 1850-1899 rebuilt to express ventilated boxcars in 1942-1943.

ACL also had a series of USRA clone ventilated boxcars (major difference being 7/8 Murphy ends and ventilators) which survived into the late 1950s, but I don’t have any specific information or photographs. Westerfield has kits of these cars in his 7000 series.

C&WC 8000-8299, 300 cars, Class O-14. 142 cars rebuilt to steel in 1940-1942. C&WC also rebuilt a total of 344 automobile/furniture cars in series 9000-9146 (146 cars, Class O-14B) and 9500-9696 (197 cars, Class O-16B/C).

A modeling section will be included at the end of the book that will cover available kits in all scales.

A secret to the success of the Squadron "In Action" and “Detail and Scale” series is the participation of the scale modeler community - they get many photo submissions from modelers and historians to enhance the photo coverage of their books. Color photos would be nice but are not required. For the modeling section, we'll need volunteers to write kit reviews for all scales, as well as photos of completed models. Completed models must match major details and have the appropriate lettering and number series for the modeled prototype.

Thanks in advance!

Ben Hom

-- Benjamin Hom (bhom3@home.com), April 02, 2001

Answers

Ben...I'm scratchbuilding an ACL / USRA boxcar in O Scale. I received my photo resources from Larry Goolsby. I also build 1:48 aircraft (German- Battle of Britain) so I'm real familiar with the Squadron approach. Anyway, please let me know if I can help.

Buck Dean Membership Director ACL&SAL HS

-- Buck Dean (bdean@jngray.com), April 04, 2001.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ