New Accurail Car

Bob,

I have been unable to locate a Frisco prototype match for the Accurail gondola.

The Accurail car is a 41' 6' inside length steel side with 11 side panel design. Their art work indicates a coonskin herald without the black background. Please see http://accurail.com/accurail/CATALOG/2010_March.pdf.

The Frisco's gondolas that I have seen that were a similar length with steel sides had 9 side panels. Photographs indicate coonskin heralds with the black background. This would be more characteristic of the paint diagrams and practices for the time these 41' cars were in service.

Photographs of similar Frisco cars have been published in the book Trackside Around St Louis 1952-1959 with Jim Ozment, by James Sandrin, Morning Sun Books, Inc., 2000, page 48. These same photographs dated 12/30/1957 at St. Louis Material and Supply in Pacific, MO are on the Western Rail Images web site. SLM&S was a sand and gravel supply company. Please see the following:

SL-SF 78041
http://www.westernrailimages.com/Trains/Rail-Photos/7251410_3kj8z#477042957_XHhtR-A-LB

SL-SF 77157
http://www.westernrailimages.com/Trains/Rail-Photos/7251410_3kj8z#477047005_75bx5-A-LB

The Frisco had similar 9 panel cars with wood sides. Many of these cars were rebuilt with steel sides. The company diagram books from the former Frisco Museum indicate a series of GB class gondolas built 1925 - 1930, shopped at Yale in 1953. These included 500 cars numbered SL-SF 77000 - 77499 and 77500 - 78029. These cars were rebuilt from various cars from the former SL-SF 50000 - 54149 series.

Hopefully others can contribute their knowledge, diagrams, photographs and other information to help our collective research.

Hope this helps.

Thanks!

Mark

 

Bob,

The Accurail gondola cars in the 3 number set are SL-SF 55075, 55087 and 55093. I could not determine from their web site as of 2/18/10 the single car number.

Reviewing my copies of the Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) indicates the Frisco had a series of 200 GB gondolas in the series SL-SF 55000 - 55199.

The specifications of these cars includes:

Inside - 41' 6" length, 9' width, 4" 8" height

Outside - 42' 11" length, 10" 3" width at eves or top of sides or platform, 10' 4" extreme width, 8' 2" height from rail.

Capacity - 1,841 cubic feet level full, 100,000 pounds (50 tons).

This series of cars appeared in at least the January 1953 (200 cars), July 1959 (199 cars), April 1969 (181 cars) and October 1971 (23 cars) editions of the ORER. This series of cars does not appear in the January 1943 or July 1972 editions in my collection.

By the 10/71 ORER the number series had been narrowed to SL-SF 55012 - 55181. By this date Note X indicates "Individual numbers of cars in series.....differing in pounds capacity from other cars in the same series" included 55012, 55023, 55027, 55041, 55045, 55060, 55067, 55128, 55158 and 55179.

Hope this helps.

Thanks!

Mark

 

Karl,

Thank you for posting the car plan.

Hopefully someone out there can come up with prototype photographs and other documentation.

Thanks!

Mark

 

This is fairly typical of Accurail - very nicely done cars, very well decorated, very reasonable price, not totally accurate to the prototype - but close. There are several examples they have already done in Frisco colors. They keep doing Frisco cars because they keep selling them!

I don't claim to have a complete set of Frisco gondola diagrams (wish I did!), but I see several examples of similar cars with 9 side panels and 12 side panels, but not with 11 side panels.

I'll bet the coonskin logo is easily changed to one with a black background. The recent Proto 1000 USRA gon had the same problem.

Ken

ps - I have this same Accurail car in PRR and NYC colors. It's a very nice kit as long as you are willing to "bend prototype detail" a bit!

 

I just bought a two-pack of the MoP 41' gondolas 24xxx series - they're decent looking models and they sure reduce the amount of peanut butter I have to eat due to their respectable price.

According to Accurail's announcement, the single car Frisco pack will be a randomly selected number from the three-number set; either 55075, 55087 or 55093 ("Random from above").


5/30/2010 - Due to the quality of the kit for the price, I bought four more of the MoP gons and ordered Accurails renumbering decal set. These gons will deliver coal to Marquette Cement on my layout.

 

Accurail Frisco gondola

Has anyone seen or received the new Accurail Frisco gondola yet? The kit is Accurail #3729.

This is a nice kit - I have built the PRR and NYC versions and they are well worth the price. Trouble is ..... this is not a legit Frisco gon as the number of side panels is wrong - the Frisco had no eleven side panel gons. SLSF 55093 was a twelve side panel gon, part of the SLSF 55000 class, built 1951.

I also wish Accurail would have done the coonskin herald with the black background, but I don't know which is correct for the 55000's as built. Does anybody know?

I might get one just for the heck of it. If need be, the herald can be changed, and, who counts side panels anyway?

Ken

 

I see from Mark's earlier posting (February) above that the coonskin herald likely was one with th eblack background when built.

That will likely be an easy fix on the Accurail model - layover a black coonskin decal of the correct size.

Ken