The Intermountain Kit was used to build this Reading class HTj USRA Twin. The factory lettering was the basis for this model with additional lettering coming from the Microscale #48-496 Reading Twin Hopper set.
The Reading replaced the as delievered brake ratchet with a power hand brake by the late thirties. Parts from an Intermountain Boxcar were used to make the changes. The Kit was built to represent a car that had been upgraded to AB Brakes.
This model is riding on Athern Andrews trucks with Intermountain wheelsets. While this does make an nice rolling truck it will be changed out to the San Juan 50 ton Andrews like it had when it was a Proto48 model.
Here is a nice photograph of PRR 721 switching in Camden, NJ in 1953. The Campbell Soup Building is in the background with it’s signature soup can water towers.
Also in the background is a PRR H21a, just a normal run-of-the-mill H21a, only it’s not. If you look closely you can see that the car has been spot re-painted. This was one of the cars that were leased to the N&W and now has returned to the PRR.
This Photo was also published in the Morning Sun Book – Pennsy Steam Years 1
As I was leaving the National, I went to visit Pat Mitchel’s layout. While only in the beginning bench work stage, it still out-did many layouts I’ve seen and left me questioning things that I had decided against for my own railroad.
Pat designed his layout using a 3D PlanIt (a model railroad based CAD program). He had the sub-roadbed cut by a local business on a CNC machine using the drawing he made with 3D PlanIt. Chris Smith had spoken about this approach the day before as he had his sub-roadbed cut the same way.
The layout is influenced by John Armstrong, but is not nearly as crowded as most of his design followers. Only a small portion of the railroad had track laid. Pat did operate a locomotive through the room for us. Including using his “elevator” to raise an entire length of train from one level to the another.
There are no feeder wires attached to his rails as there is no power going through them. His locomotives carry their own power in battery pack and receive their commands through the air using the Airwire system. I have to admit to reading everything I could find in the weeks after the National about Airwire. I was very impressed, and when the batteries get a little smaller I think it will become the standard for Command Control.
Pat was a great host answering questions and talking about what he had done so far. This was one of the layouts I wanted to see and I was very impressed even in its beginning stages.
Some of the Benchwork
The benchwork that caused me to re-think the number of levels that are possible with O scale.
Pat discussing the layout with Matt
One of Pat’s models equipped with an AirWire system
One of Pat’s models showing the installation of a new motor and sound system.
The electronics in the tender. The white thing is the battery.
One of Pat’s beautiful Proto48 turnouts.
Close up of the points.
Everywhere you looked there were nicely built solutions to common problems.
On the second night of the National, we went to visit Chris Smith’s layout. While only a small portion of the layout had scenery, you could see the passion Chris has for building scenery. The layout is based on a John Armstrong design. It winds and twists it way up through three levels of railroad, moving a lot of open hoppers up and down the railroad.
While we were there we saw a beautiful pair of Kohs Y6b’s pulling a nice open hopper train filled with a bunch of Rich Yoder’s hoppers. Turns out an MTH locomotive had to be put into service later that night when the Kohs engine had some trouble. The MTH locomotive was impressive in it performance. Overall the layout was nicely built and ran very well. Based on the scenery in place and how well the railroad operated, this is going to be a must see layout for the region.
Chris was a great host answering question well past the end time for the open house. This was one of the layouts I wanted to see and I was even more impressed than I thought I might be.
Chris Smith
A Kohs Y6b waiting in front of the tunnel portal
Chris’ rather nice brackets
Using one of two Atlas bridges for a duckunder
The upper yard with Chris in the background
Chris’ art
You can tell what he has a passion for
You have to like a nice string of open hoppers.
Another nice brass piece sitting in the upper yard.
another nice model
The before part of the corner
continuing down the outside wall
The entrance into the upper yard with sceanery started
Looking across at the lower level yard with the two upper levels going over the top.
On the first night of the National, we had an invite to visit Dave Vaughn’s layout before it was open to the public and the crowds. I wish to thank Dave for the invite and the early look at the layout.
The layout is going through some changes. Dave has begun to incorporate parts of John Armstrong’s layout into his layout. And in John’s style, the layout winds and twists up through three levels of railroad. Some of the older portions of the railroad have not changed and reflect what was there in sceanery and structures.
Dave was a great host answering questions and telling stories about the influence of John Armstrong on himself and other local railroaders.
Dave Vaughn
Some very nice scenes in the older section of the layout
Dave had some very nice equipment parked on the sidings
A wartime NKP caboose that Dave brught in as a brass model.
More nice cabooses in Dave’s NKP yard
A veiw looking back towars the NKP yard
A view looking back at the NKP yard which clearly shows the second level.
A couple of gondolas on the second level.
A view of the upper level support through the telephone pole.
another nice NKP model
One of John Armstrong’s locomotives
A view of the “new” expansion
This is the entrance to the lower level reverse loops.
Dave is working parts of John Armstrong’s layout into his.
I just returned from the 2009 BOSS O Scale National. It was by far one of the best Nationals I had ever attended. The Baltimore group did a great job putting on the show.
The vending tables had a wide variety of stuff for all budgets. It was hard not to spend money everywhere. I’ll try to hit on what were a few of my highlights.
Weaver– They were showing a B&O Wagon top boxcar on their table. The examples on the table were older brass models meant to try to size up the interest in the crowd to see if they should produce the model. They mentioned that it would be built overseas and we should expect it to be close in quality and pricing to their B-60’s. I think it will be a winner.
Mullet River Model Works– They had some great new kits on the table and some fantastic details. Their NYC caboose would have gone home with me if I didn’t have a brass version of the same car sitting at home.
Rails Unlimited – Ted had many of his resin cast freight cars with him. Some were selling out and will not be re-run. I passed on the new B&O car, some modelers have complained about the casting quality of this new release, some that I know have returned their kits. I’ll wait for the Weaver version. I did come home with a PRR Gr gondola even though I had kit-bashed a similar car already.
RY Models – Rich had his Baldwin switchers on the table along with his tank cars. I also saw a lot of his trucks going home with people.
The layout tours were inspirational. Being at the starting blocks of my railroad, it made me re-think some of the decisions I made about what could be done. I’ll write about each of the layouts I visited in the coming weeks.
Last Thursday night, I had the pleasure of visiting Steve Staffieri’s HO scale Elmira Branch layout. John Dunn and Buzz Burnley had been invited to see the layout and they were kind enough to extend me an invitation.
It’s a nicely done railroad in a wonderful environment. The basement is nice and comfortable. The railroad has a finished feel to it even in areas that are still a work-in-progress.
The layout is based on the branch from Williamsport to Sodus Point, although it focuses on the run from Williamsport to Southport Yard in Elmira, NY.
My brother Bobb has an article and scale drawings of the PRR class H49 and H50 covered hoppers published in the June 2009 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. Congrats to him.
I was just looking at the site and saw it listed in the table of contents. I hope the article looks good in print, I scanned the photos that went with the article.
This is the second set of drawings that he has published with RMC. He also had some LV passenger car drawings published to go with another author’s modeling article last winter.
Since the publication some SPF”s have writen some harsh comments about the drawings. I know exactly how that feels seeing that in print. That is one of the big reasons I stopped drawing for RMC back in the late 80’s. Too many experts sitting in their chairs doing nothing, but very quick to put down someone elses work.
This is very common for “PRR Modelers” Which also happens to be one of the best reasons to model the Reading Company!
Prototype History The H21 was originally designed as a 50 ton coke car. Construction of new H21 cars ran from 1909 through 1914. They were built by Altoona Car shops, Pressed Steel Car Co., Cambria Steel Co., American Car & Foundry, and Standard Steel Car Co.
A total of 21,738 car were built as the 50 ton H21 car class. It did not take long for the railroad to see that these cars had the capacity to hold 70 tons of coal. Lines West began converting the class into H21a’s in 1911. In 1912 the railroad began producing H22’s for coke service and converting the H21’s to handle coal. All H21’s would be converted to H21a by 1925. The conversion was basically placing 70 ton Crown trucks under the cars.
From 1915-1918 the railroad built an additional 14,270 H21a cars. The builders of the new cars were the same as for the H21’s with the addition of Ralston Steel Car Co. The railroad began to see that the frames were not able to hold up to the 70 ton coal loading. They began adding the reinforcement angle on the top sill from bolster to bolster starting in 1919. A corner to corner strengthened bulb angle would start appearing in the ’30’s but would not result in a class change. Nor would the conversion from original style “clamshell” hopper to “sawtooth” hoppers result in a class change.
The H21b class was created in 1930 when the railroad started a program to upgrade 100 cars with a 12 inch ARA center sill. This program was again done in 1943 to bring the total of H21b’s to 198. Externally there were no visible features to distingush the class besides the class stencil.
The H21d was a one-of-a-kind car conversition into a covered hopper car. While the H21d looks neat, I do not like to model one car classes. As I’ve pointed out before, most likely you would not have ever seen the car standing trackside in real life.
The class H21e first appeard in August of 1947 and reached a peak of 8,546 cars by January of 1953. The rebuild included adding a power hand brake and internal crossridge stakes. The power brakes had been applied to some H21a class cars without resulting in a class change. These H21a’s retained their internal cross ties at stakes 2, 4, 6, and 8. Some H21e car would have their side stakes welded on instead of the normal riveted side stakes.
In 1953 the PRR rostered 37173 class H21 hoppers. The OER did not fully split out the subclasses of “a”, “b” or “e.” Here are some fleet totals for the H21 class from 1952-1958 OER’s and the percentage that number represented to the total PRR open hopper fleet.
1952: 39702 cars 49.5% of the total PRR open hopper fleet
1953: 37173 cars 50.2% of the total PRR open hopper fleet
1956: 30737 cars 53.2% of the total PRR open hopper fleet
1958: 28020 cars 47.8% of the total PRR open hopper fleet
The PRR Steel Hopper book lists the following for class breakdowns for July of 1953: 35,256 total cars, 26576 H21a, 170 H21b, 1 H21d, 8509 h21e.
Cars of later subclasses are after my modeling time of 1952. I’ll let someone else talk about those classes.
References: Keystone Article PRR Steel Open Hopper Cars – John Teichmoeller January 1952 Official Railway Equipment Register September 1953 Official Railway Equipment Register April 1956 Official Railway Equipment Register
Modeling the H21’s in Proto48 In O scale we have been blessed with nice brass examples of the H21’s over the years. Some are clearly better, more accurate, or have finer details than others. And they have different price tags to go with them. The manufacturers of these cars are Precision Scale, Pacific Limited, Yoder Models and Keystone Model Works.
In recent years we have been blessed with a plastic version from Atlas O. While not a a finely detailed as some of the better brass car the cost about one sixth of the newest brass cars.
I hope to have additional posts about my modeling of these hopper cars.
On the trip back from the Cleveland Show in November, I had the chance to visit with Rob Enrico and see his Monogahela Division layout in person. I have to say that I seen his layout in print before but I wasn’t prepared for what it looks like in person. The photographs in print do not do it justice.
It’s actually a very simple layout if you look at the published plans. It’s basically a double track loop around his two car garage with a section across the middle for a yard area. What it may appear to lack because of the simplified track plan design, it makes up for in scenes that are recreated on the railroad. The rail fans on the overpass could have been my brother and me. Notice the fence posts.
Or this simple scene of a crewman walking out to his car at the end of the workday. How many times have we seen that rail fanning? But how many times have you seen it on a layout?
Here is Rob talking with Rich Yoder about freight car truck.
