Model Train Journal

That's just not my preferwnce, I like the variety of boxcars and different cars. As I watch vidos I certainly don't mind unit trains.

Not a penny.......

I'm a sucker for prewar Lionel tank cars, so I suspect if I dug them all out, I could make a decent sized unit train. Not something done consciously, however.

Years ago, some forty or so Atlas/Roco ore cars. Most have now been sold off. Now it is HOOKER tankers.

What constitutes a unit train is selective compression?

I have a string of Lionel pre and post war metal tanks, probably 10-12, a string of 12-14 ore cars, Lord only knows how many 6464 boxcars.

I suppose those are unit trains?

I like running at least 3 of the same cars so I guess that’s a unit. I do have a string of DM&IR ore cars.

A tinplate "unit" train, staged a few years back:



A time when the layout wasn't the shambles it is today (but we're working on it).

I guess I would be guilty of that. Somehow or other, I got hold of an interesting statistic for Weirton Steel. In 1947, they output 93,766 cars loaded with product. Noted steel mill modeler Dean Freytag promoted the idea that the ratio of input to output was 7:1. By applying that proportion, we could conclude that 656,352 cars of raw materials entered Weirton Steel in that year.

My father was 10 years old in 1926. He told me about seeing triple-headed 100 car ore trains (these would have been half-filled gondolas in that era) at Weirton Steel. My guess (he didn't recall the locomotive type) is that these would have been I1s decapods (2-10-0s). That would have been a pretty amazing sight.

So, here's the breakdown.

In-bound:

• Coal in hoppers - mostly PRR H21a's
• Iron ore - mostly in ore jennies, wide variety of roadnames

Out-bound:

• Wrapped sheets of tinplate - in boxcars of various roadnames
• Coils (unwrapped) - in open top gondolas (this is prior to coil covers)

And yeah, those are all unit trains.

George

I put together one unit train intentionally, some fifty NYC Pacemaker boxcars. I was able to run it once on the club layout headed by a pair of Lionel Mohawks. Over the years I have acquired enough traditional size tank cars to make up a train, mostly post war Sunoco two and single dome cars with a few three dome cars added in.

Pete