What I did this week

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Well, i built a box car. It wasn't quite shake the box, but more like full sized!

Down at the Pemberton Historic Trust railroad museum, they just bought a new, very clean former Rock Island PS-1 50' boxcar. All the pieces arrived this past Monday, and we did prep work then. My girlfriend and I went down and gave them a hand, clearing snow and moving over an old PRR N5C to make room for the new box car. we initially tried pushing it with a tractor, but there was to much snow. Once we dug the snow and ice out, it was easy enough to push the caboose over.

I took this picture of her single handedly pushing the caboose after i got it rolling with a car mover (not sure what the name of the tool is, but is like a lever that you push the wheels with).



We both learned to use the break wheel, and how to pry open really old brakes!




The trucks arrived later that day, followed by the boxcar itself around 6 PM.





the next morning, on the 22nd, we put it all together. fork lifts helped us put the trucks on the rails, and then we rolled them to the correct distances.



After this stage, the ground got muddy and we had to wait for the rigging crew to bring in steel plates to run on. While this was going on, a few interesting things flew by.

A Bald Eagle apparently was curious about the commotion and soared overhead for quite a while.



A flight of A10s also streaked across the sky. This one made a tight bank right just after the photo was taken.



after the steel plates were placed, the boxcar was set up on blocks and the large forklift lifted the load up onto the trucks.



this guy was a little brave going under the car...



In the end though, we got it all together! We put the couplers on a little while later.

[Gary S]

Woah, how cool is that, and I'm not talking about the snow! Great photos, and also the bonus of the eagle and the A-10.

I'm somewhat surprised that the fork lift was strong enoough and heavy enough to lift the trucks and the body. I guess they are not as heavy as I imagined.

Any particular paint scheme will go on it?

[Tom]

Too cool, I half expected the car body to show up in a VERY big blue carboard box with a certain blue and yellow logo on it. Did the bottom of the draft gear boxes say "Kadee" on them? What sized phillips head screws did you use and did you cut the trip pins off the bottom of the couplers?

Congratulations on a job VERY well done. I always find it highly encouraging when young folks take tools in hand to help preserve our railroad heritage like this, you two keep up the great work. We need all the enthusiastic help we can get.

Tom Carter
Director/Webmaster/Chief S@%T Disturber and trouble maker
Feather River Rail Society
Western Pacific Railroad Museum
(Where the WP Lives!)
Portola, CA
<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wplives.org">www.wplives.org</a><!-- w -->

[tetters]

That's pretty awesome.

[Charlie B]

Wow, what I could have done with that fork lift....Great
Charlie

[Ralph]

That is so cool!!!! You do excellent modeling on 1:1 scale!!!
Ralph
PS. Stay on that girl's good side. Anyone who can push a caboose is not to be messed with. Isn't the physics of moving a car amazing? Once you get it rolling you can push it that way?! You're a lucky guy to have a girlfriend as interested in Trains as you are!

[Sumpter250]

Unless I am totally confused, the "empty weight" of a 40' PS-1 box car was about 22 tons (43300 lbs)........hefty fork lift!

[Russ Bellinis]

Unless I am totally confused, the "empty weight" of a 40' PS-1 box car was about 22 tons (43300 lbs)........hefty fork lift!

Did the empty weight include the weight of the trucks? Also he did not give a us a really good pic of the fork lift used to lift the box car onto its trucks. When I worked in the harbor, our top handlers and side handlers were pretty heavy duty. The main difference between them and fork lifts were that they had hardware installed to pick up containers from the pockets in the corner posts rather than using traditional fork lift blades.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Any particular paint scheme will go on it?

While it was an old Rock Island (CRI&P) boxcar, i was told it will probably get a big Pennsy Keystone and reporting marks, since the museum is on PRR territory. In some shots, you can still see some of the Rock Island blue on the brake fittings.

Too cool, I half expected the car body to show up in a VERY big blue carboard box with a certain blue and yellow logo on it. Did the bottom of the draft gear boxes say "Kadee" on them? What sized phillips head screws did you use and did you cut the trip pins off the bottom of the couplers?

That would be terrifying! those "Kadees" had to weigh several tons. the swinging portion of the knuckle alone was 150 Pounds.

That is so cool!!!! You do excellent modeling on 1:1 scale!!!
Ralph
PS. Stay on that girl's good side. Anyone who can push a caboose is not to be messed with. Isn't the physics of moving a car amazing? Once you get it rolling you can push it that way?! You're a lucky guy to have a girlfriend as interested in Trains as you are!

LOL! we're pretty evenly matched, but you are right, I'm pretty lucky. She isn't quite as much of a train fanatic as me, but she'll certainly jump in. she likes to hear history and things such as that, and it doesn't really matter what we're working on, lol.

Unless I am totally confused, the "empty weight" of a 40' PS-1 box car was about 22 tons (43300 lbs)........hefty fork lift!

The kicker is that the boxcar isn't even empty. It has a complete workshop inside of it, changing areas (for the train crew of the previous owner), all sorts of stuff.

the forklift was already a heavy duty one, and they added several tons to it just prior to lifting the boxcar.

here is a photo-

[Sumpter250]

Unless I am totally confused, the "empty weight" of a 40' PS-1 box car was about 22 tons (43300 lbs)........hefty fork lift!

Did the empty weight include the weight of the trucks? Also he did not give a us a really good pic of the fork lift used to lift the box car onto its trucks.

All I could find is, the LT WT, is the empty weight of the car. The car is re-weighed after repairs, and the LT WT is re-stenciled. The guesstimate of empty weight I used is based on the LT WT stencil on an HO model PS-1 box car, from Intermountain.
Because trucks, and/or wheel sets are frequently replaced/swapped out, I would logically conclude that truck weight is not part of car weight.
Looks like the same fork lift used to lift the trucks onto the track, was used to lift the car body.

[doctorwayne]

I think that the LT.WT. also includes the weight of the trucks, as they're on the car when it's weighed and the total weight does affect the amount of cargo which can be carried. A typical truck for that car would probably weigh 5 - 5 1/2 tons.
For a fifty ton car such as the one below, the sum of the LT.WT. and the LD.LMT. must total 169,000, so, in order to determine the figure for the LD.LMT., the actual weight of the empty car (LT.WT.), in this case 41,100, is deducted from the 169,000 figure, giving the LD.LMT. of 127,900 - in other words, this particular "50 ton boxcar" can carry up to almost 64 tons.


This fifty ton hopper, however, with a LT.WT. of 40,500 is capable of carrying 128,500lbs. or just over 64 tons.


There were set figures for 40, 50, 55, and 70 ton cars similar to that arbitrary 169,000 figure for 50 ton cars which helped to determine the maximum carrying capacity of a car, based on the car's LT.WT., but there were also some special case situations where the total of the two figures would not agree with the arbitrary number for a particular car.

Wayne

[Sumpter250]

Found it!
I googled AAR LT WT and found with this:

"Usually under the car number in freight car reporting marks, there are three weight references in pounds:
CAPY The nominal weight capacity for quick reference.
LD LMT The maximum weight the car can safely handle.
LT WT The total empty car or tare weight for weighing purposes including the wheel assemblies. "

So, Wayne is right LT WT does include the "wheel Assemblies"/trucks, and is, therefore, weight on the rails.
........and no, I don't mind proving myself wrong, correct information is more important....................................and egos heal.