Early freight cars found at York

[Carey Williams]

Hello O scale world

York yielded some interesting ( depending on your taste) old freight cars....among the sea of standard 'kit" cars...and the tables of tin plate .

I'm a sucker for cast cars ...so two box cars ... found in both the Alexander catalogs for 1934 and 37 .

Two early cabooses ..one all flat stock soldered together and the other cast sides and wood top and bottom...looks like Scale-Craft .

The expression "thick as a brick" .... new meaning for the pair of early boxes cars ...solid block of oak with ribbed sided sheets and a rolled metal roof ... nice truss rods and sprung trucks ( springs on the inside ) .

Any identification on the cabooses or pair of oak box cars ?

Thank you
Cheers Carey

]

[R.K. Maroon]

Great finds, Carey -- I too like cast cars (as most everybody here knows, I suspect). No clue on the wood cars. Lots of home-builds out there; Most are unfortunately a mystery.

Jim

[bob turner]

Keep posting here. Your camera shots look way better with our superior resolution. There was a time when I would have killed for a cast aluminum outside-brace boxcar. Nice cars!

[webenda]

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WoW hand lettering.jpg (185.59 KiB) Viewed 6565 times

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Interesting pre-fab truss rod assembly there...

[ScaleCraft]

Hello O scale world

York yielded some interesting ( depending on your taste) old freight cars....among the sea of standard 'kit" cars...and the tables of tin plate .

I'm a sucker for cast cars ...so two box cars ... found in both the Alexander catalogs for 1934 and 37 .

Two early cabooses ..one all flat stock soldered together and the other cast sides and wood top and bottom...looks like Scale-Craft .

The expression "thick as a brick" .... new meaning for the pair of early boxes cars ...solid block of oak with ribbed sided sheets and a rolled metal roof ... nice truss rods and sprung trucks ( springs on the inside ) .

Any identification on the cabooses or pair of oak box cars ?

Thank you
Cheers Carey

NYC hack is SC. Be careful. I have three now, down from 4 or 5. That's mixing parts....the Zamac crumbles. Ends, cupola, then sides.
See cracking, seal with super glue from the inside to stop or slow the progression.
I have some of those solid wood boxcars.

[Carey Williams]

Thank you for your kind words .... the world of early O scale is a fun place to be . Please no killing for cast cars .... cast applies more then two were made ... just have to find them . The hunt continues ...

Cheers Carey

[bob turner]

Let me see if i can find my Mi-Loco and Mini-Scale tanks:

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A close-up of Mini-Scale. Forgot to enhance these:

Mi Loco.jpg (789.81 KiB) Viewed 6502 times

Note the rivets on the Mini-Scale. The Mi-Loco is aluminum.

[Carey Williams]

Hello funky freight cars fans
The last York car is a Westbrook
Kit .. The brightly colored graphics of the reefers have a strong appeal. One could easily have a reefer madness wall ... But perhaps a Northern or Mountain pulling A long haul of reefers is in the cards ... Anything is possible once you got hooked on "Crazy Crystals"
Cheers Carey

[Carey Williams]

Speaking of reefer walls this photo is from Model Railroader 1940 ... I guess others found the brightly colored reefers perfect eye candy for the wall
Cheers Carey

Westbrook Only offered 50 varieties !

[ScaleCraft]

And several H0 manufacturers had almost as many various cardstock sides. One place I read is you bought a Mantua reefer kit, had no sides, you selected the sides you wanted from the stock at your local hobby shop.

Wait until you find an 0 of Half 0 car (box or reefer, altho anything, I guess) with different road names and numbers on each side. MR used to have sides to cut out and laminate to cardstock or wood...two totally different sides, you had to purchase another issue to get the matching set. Train comes back the other way, all different.
I think I have a couple, but one is a heavyweight passenger, and one is a head-end reefer. Imagine a whole passenger train like that, even the engine, with different road name on the other side. Make sure you don't have a car in backwards, I guess.

[bob turner]

So, question: Is that gorgeous Crystal car embossed with wood planks, or is it just a glued on printed piece of paper? I admit to never having seen a well done Westbrook, although I use their lead underframes.

[stephen neill]

The Westbrook sides are embossed to simulate the wood planking; I have an unused set. The wood planking does not stand out as much as it does on Carey's. And the sides are not as shinny; perhaps his car has a clear coat to protect it. If so, a good product was used; others have yellowed over the years. The car number on mine is 478.

Note that the "real" cars had a medium green where Westbrook used blue; Mainline also used blue.

Steve

[Carey Williams]

Hello Reefer fans

I've attached a few close ups of the Crystal sides ...just printed but brilliant coloring .
Also a few pages for MR 1940 ...covering the Reefers....which is a romantic look at the reefers of the past 1900-1920's ...lamenting that today's trains are only boring brown. The "old Timey" reefers were rolling billboards which private labels were looking for moving adverting. Good article ... interesting that all the kit makers jumped on the band wagon producing 50 + varieties of the different reefers ..to spur on sales ( collecting mentality ) ...Westbrook is pushing to take a kit on your vacation for the "rainy day" ......oh the days before smart phones ,tv , etc..just image life without a screen ...even for a moment . The brightly colored reefers would have been easy sales for wives to buy as gifts ....out selling a black hopper kits no doubt .
Cheers Carey
Oh yes those pesky little gauge guys saw the same opportunity ...monkey see monkey do...

[ScaleCraft]

I have one of those in Half 0 (Crazy Crystals Reefer 313B? Probably the 1962 number ). I also have a slightly later reefer in "Pluto Water", had it since the 50's. Metal sides.
One car I picked up in a pile of stuff...cardstock sides...Mantua? Anyway, GN boxcar, sides cracked, like varnished and shrunk..fixable....cleaned up the trucks, wheels, lubed, did the couplers, set it on the track over my workbench and wondered what was wrong.
Took a minute, realized the builder had put GN boxcar sides on...a reefer.
So, did a full teardown, glass bead, repainted roof, ends, frame, and found a set of reefer sides and finished it as it should have been.