GEC's Layout Progress

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Well, not to much more progress.

Trailvan Progress

I have managed to acquire more trains in this area. In particular, I have a whole flood of Conrail Trailvan 40' trailers, and even more UPS "drop" parcel trailers, most with a characteristic "red" border on the ends. These I can be fairly confident are "accurate" for my train, and tend to be highly visible in trains. I also picked up a set of ICG trailers and "SHOWA" smooth sided containers, which should arrive soon.

I also acquired a pair of Athearn 85' flatcars (which included some of the previously mentioned UPS trailers). That brings me up to 9 cars, still short of the 12 car minimum I'd like, but close.

The current challenge I have now is picking up the appropriate trailers and containers. In particular, some of the containers are VERY hard to identify.

I was able to easily spot most of the Walthers Smooth-sided "70s" containers on trains and ships (Athearn seems to make similar ones, but Out of Production), as well as the 18"/24" "ribbed" side containers (produced by A-Line, and Wheels of Time).

However, the really tricky containers look very similar to the modern corrugated containers. The devil is apparently in the details. These containers are also considered "ribbed", but might be more accurately described as having square corrugations, as opposed to "beveled" corrugations. Many of these "earlier" steel containers also had a flat "logo panel". I'll probably head to a hobby shop to get a closer look at the walthers ones to see if they fit.



Tropicana Orange Juice Train Progress

I'm now up to 5 Tropicana reefers, which is a little short for a unit train, but a start. In particular, I have 4 of the "1977" style and 1 "1979" style. If i'm interpretting this correctly, there will actually be a second run of 6 road numbers due out soon.

Here of course is one of the tricky parts of the hobby. I know a guy who can sell me the remaining "1979" style Tropicana numbers that I don't have, and shave off about a third of the price per car. The catch is that I have to buy them all in one sitting. These Red Caboose cars aren't break the bank expensive individually, but they add up! Go for it or not?

I will have to figure out what the remaining "1977" care numbers are that I don't have. Intermountain no longer lists these old numbers on their website. The only good thing, is that if I managed to collect these cars, I'll have a respectable 24 car unit train by the time all is said and done. This would be a roughly 15' train, which is a good size for my club's layout. In the mean time, "empty" Tropicana cars have been known to be tacked onto southbound Trailvan trains to Potomac yard, so a handful of those on the back of my TOFC train would look nice.

The prototype was 65 cars long, but this would be a 42' long HO scale train, minus the locomotives and caboose! (imagine how many HO locomotives you'd need to pull that train!) Thats easily more than double the longest storage track on our club layout, so I think I'll let my rivet counting half ignore this aspect

Chris,

Have you looked at the Accurail 89' piggyback flats? Also Walthers Scenemaster has some 40' trailers that will fit your era..
This scan may be of interest to you, it was on the back of the instruction for the Accurail 89' flats.

Bruce

Thank You for Posting this! (been so busy that I haven't been checking back here as much)

This sheet is actually pretty interesting! That definitely helps when it comes to selecting the proper flatcars, namely eliminating any reporting marks assoicated with the 45' trailers, which "don't exist yet".

I've definitely been scooping up the "1970s era" containers, but so far most of the trailers I've acquired are Athearn. Some of the walthers Containers look close, but I'm not sure. Its been difficult identifying company names from photographs, and its been equally hard trying to spot existing models in the backgrounds of prototype photos.