Liberty Industrial Spur

[Justinmiller171]

I have decided to revert my layout back to the early 70's. The prototype of my NW-2 was upgraded to an NW-2E in the mid 70's, and it is beyond my skill to add the details to my model. My hobby shop does not have much modern-day items for sale, so it would be alot easier for me to model the 70's.

I have been wondering what difference in operations there would be for a container plant in the early 70's, what freight cars would it receive?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

probably not that much different. your freight cars are already pretty close to that time period. All I can is to look it up, lol. Find a real box factory, and see if you can't use a website like historic aerials to go back to that time and investigate.

[FCIN]

I have been wondering what difference in operations there would be for a container plant in the early 70's, what freight cars would it receive?

If we're talking early 70's (prior to 1976) you wouldn't see any RBOX or short line IPD cars and no pressure differential type covered hoppers, but your corn starch might be delivered in Airslide covered hoppers or at least pneumatic discharge type covered hoppers similar to what plastic pellets are transported in. They would just be smaller cars (like the old Athearn Centerflow model). A few of your cars would still have full height ladders and roof walks on them. I certainly remember seeing cars with full height ladders and roof walks well in to the early 70's. Any tank cars you might have would also be of an earlier design than what you see now.

Also, no CSXT, NS, BNSF reporting marks on cars - to name a few that didn't exist in the early 70's.

As for your NW-2E; other than the headlights and the mid-hood mounted number boards and no foot boards on the pilots, I don't see any big modifications that you'd have to make to your model, if you chose to do so. After market headlight parts should be easy to get, along with the number boards and it should be easy to remove the foot boards from the pilots.

As GEC suggests, you might be able to locate a few photos of cars on spot at such a facility or aerial views in the early 70's to give you a better idea, but you might spend a heck of a lot of time hunting.

Personally, I'd set the time period to be the late 70's and not worry so much about the NW-2 having been rebuilt. You'd have a lot more variety in the box cars that you could spot at your facility and modifying the NW-2 could make for a nice rainy afternoon project.

[Justinmiller171]

[
Personally, I'd set the time period to be the late 70's and not worry so much about the NW-2 having been rebuilt. You'd have a lot more variety in the box cars that you could spot at your facility and modifying the NW-2 could make for a nice rainy afternoon project.

Hmm... I might, I mainly want to use some 40' boxcars, I know these began to disappear in the 70's. How much would there be in the late 70's?

[FCIN]

Hmm... I might, I mainly want to use some 40' boxcars, I know these began to disappear in the 70's. How much would there be in the late 70's?

Justin;
There were still plenty of 40ft box cars around in the late 70's to early 80's. Many of the short line railroads fielded 40ft IPD box cars during that time. Louisville New Albany & Corydon (LNAC) and Virginia Central (VC) are two that immediately come to mind. I have a 40ft LNAC box car myself and that fits just fine in to my 1979-80 time frame. Here's a photo of a typical LNAC 40ft box car of that time. Note the narrow 6ft door opening.     You might also find 40ft box cars for many of the large railroads still wondering around too, although they were disappearing as the demand decreased. It would primarily depend on what was being shipped as to whether or not a 40ft box car might be used.

Although designed specifically for the appliance industry, there were some neat looking 40ft and 50ft hi-cube box cars around then too, but I wouldn't over do that. http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default....D=ATH76621

[Justinmiller171]

Thanks Ed, could paper still be shipped in 40' cars in the late 70's ?

[FCIN]

Thanks Ed, could paper still be shipped in 40' cars in the late 70's ?

In all likelihood, your rolls of paper stock would be shipped in 50ft box cars and not 40ft cars. More cubic capacity for such a bulky commodity.

You could of course use a few 40ft box cars for shipping out your scrap paper. But my gut feeling is that all inbound/outbound box cars from a cardboard container plant would be in 50ft box cars in the 70's, even earlier.

You could get away with having a few 40ft box cars of lumber destined to your Lowe's facility, but even that would be rare in the late 70's. We handled lumber for the real Lowe's here in town and a couple of other lumber companies in 40ft box cars in the late 60's to the early 70's, but most lumber started coming in 50ft double door box cars or on bulkhead flats (no center beams then) by the mid 70's.

Unless you already have several 40ft box cars, I'd just forget using any unless you have another commodity that might be shipped in them. You'd probably have to back date your layout in to the late 50's - early 60's to justify handling paper in them.

Are you wanting to use 40ft box cars, just to increase the car capacity of your industry or just because you like the look of them? It looks to me like your single track for the container plant would hold quite a few 50-55ft cars. It all boils down to what would be believable for your industry.

[Justinmiller171]

Thanks again Ed, I only have a few 40' boxcars, however my local hobby store doesn't sell much modern equipment, and I don't want to wait until there is a trainshow to get freight cars.

I could use 40' boxcars for loading scrap paper, I could use the storage track to keep empty cars for scrap paper loading, I think it would add to operation a bit, rather than just re-spotting them from the main dock.

BTW, because my railroad is set in logging country, would a lumber dealer be rail-served? I think it would be easier to just truck it.

[FCIN]

Thanks again Ed, I only have a few 40' boxcars, however my local hobby store doesn't sell much modern equipment, and I don't want to wait until there is a trainshow to get freight cars.

Well the quick cure for that is to order your cars from an on-line dealer. If your LHS is like the ones around here - they don't discount much, if anything, on what they sell. It costs me far less in the long run to order cars, track, etc., on-line and get them in 2 or 3 days, then to drive the 60 miles to the only well stocked hobby shop around and buy items off the shelf for retail price; the cost of gasoline and the required stop for lunch at McDonald's.

BTW, because my railroad is set in logging country, would a lumber dealer be rail-served? I think it would be easier to just truck it.

If there were mills nearby, then yes, they'd truck in the lumber rather than ship it by rail, unless your dealer was getting his lumber from Canada or the southeast U.S. (Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana). You might need to relocate your line back to some other location if you feel the lumber dealer isn't a good choice for an industry.

Right off hand, I can't think of many industries in the late 70's that would be shipping/receiving a lot of 40ft box cars so finding a believable industry for your 40ft box cars will be a bit of a challenge. A small feed or fertilizer dealer might get a 40ft box car now and then, but again, in the late 70's you'd be far more likely to see 50ft box cars and/or covered hoppers at such a facility.

[Mr Fixit]

It is my understanding that even in the late 70's to early 80's, 40 foot boxcars were still being used in grain service [notably in Canada] where the branchlines had rail that was too light and or the sub-roadbed was too weak to handle the weight of firstly 100 ton covered hoppers then later the cylindrical 110 ton covered hoppers.

Remember not all rail is equal and there can still well be spurs, bridges and branchines that are still in service but not able to bear the weight of 286,000 lb railcars or big modern heavy or extra heavy locomotives.

You could well argue that the industry you are serving has track which is lightweight and while the business is happy to continue to use rail, they cannot afford to upgrade the privately owned rails. Or else someone high up in management refuses to be convinced as to why the rails need to be replaced, when in actual fact it is he who needs replacing. "We've always used 40 foot boxcars ,cause thats what we've always used". Sound familiar?

If in doubt spend a little time viewing railfan videos and you will still see the very occasional 40 foot boxcar.

Hope this opinion helps.

Mark

[Brakie]

Mark: Remember not all rail is equal and there can still well be spurs, bridges and branchines that are still in service but not able to bear the weight of 286,000 lb railcars or big modern heavy or extra heavy locomotives.
---------------------------------------------------------
This is a problem faced by some light rail or restrictive bridge load short lines that has shippers that request 100 and 110 ton grain cars in 100 car unit trains-the short line can't deliver the needed cars to the shipper(s)..
Some times the short line gets a State or Federal grant to upgrade their infrastructure but,this money usually falls short of a major track and bridge upgrade needed for those 100 and 110 ton grain cars..

[Justinmiller171]

Some history for the railroad:

1950's: Southern Pacific begins removing track at the wye in Liberty, due to the lack of trains needing to be turned there, in addition to maintenance costs. All that remains is the industrial track into Liberty and the track leading the the lumber mill nearby.

1964: Southern Pacific plans to abandon the industrial track in Liberty, local industries in Liberty buy the track in Liberty and create the Liberty Industrial Railway(LIRY), a small GE switcher is used for switching, a number of 40' boxcars are bought from various railroads to be used by Consolidated Container for transporting scrap paper.

1971: LIRY buys SP NW-2 1330 to replace it's aging GE switcher

1978(Present Day): The LIRY has 3 industries; Consolidated Container, a team track, and a steel pipe distributor.

1998: After SP's merger with UP, the rest of the Liberty branchline is set to be abandoned, the lumber mill helps fund LIRY in buying the branchline.

2001: LIRY renames itself Liberty and Eastern Oregon(LEO)

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't 40' Hi-cube boxcars meant to carry paper products?

and why are we using all 40' cars again? I missed this part.

If you want to use short cars though, something like a Bakery, or a cement place would work. The former has short tank cars and short airslide hoppers, and the latter would use the two-bay covered hoppers. Nothing wrong with mixing in a few 50' cars.

[Justinmiller171]

and why are we using all 40' cars again? I missed this part.

I don't really need 40' boxcars, it's just that that is all that my LHS has, and I would much rather buy from them than an online retailer.

I'm thinking that before my railroad was created, SP kept a small fleet of 40' boxcars on the storage track to be used to carry scrap paper, I'm thinking that once my railroad was created they bought some 40' boxcars from other railroads, I don't know how realistic this would be, but this is one of the up-sides of having a fictional railroads, anything I do could be prototypical .

[FCIN]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't 40' Hi-cube boxcars meant to carry paper products?

Actually they were developed for the appliance industry for transporting large bulky items like refrigerators and stoves. I remember seeing a few of them from various roads in the late 50's on the Southern RY that were assigned to GE's Appliance Park in Louisville, KY. Of course the 40ft hi-cube was rapidly replaced by the 50ft hi-cube for the same service in the 60's.

I don't really need 40' boxcars, it's just that that is all that my LHS has, and I would much rather buy from them than an online retailer.

Justin;
If you're determined to use 40ft box cars just because that's all your LHS has in stock, then you might as well back date your layout to the late 50's or early 60's. It could still be an independent short line that connects with the SP in your area and even leases SP power.