Monday, June 23, 2014

Third District Bridges-Morello Avenue



I decided to take the long way home from the BAPM meet and do a little rail fanning on my chosen prototype.  Although I model 1944, seventy years later, some of those same structures are still in place.  But they are disappearing fast.

One such place is the Morello Avenue overcrossing just outside Martinez.  In 1952, it was designated Bridge A1170, a 35foot Ballast Deck Deck Girder (BDDG) bridge on the main with a 37 foot BDDG on the passing siding.


Vine Hill 1952 Track Chart

By 1992, the bridge had not changed, although the track chart no longer depicts Vine Hill siding and the bridge had been redesignated as Bridge 1169.1 in accordance with then current ATSF and still current BNSF practice.



Vine Hill 1992 Track Chart

I first discovered this bridge on an expedition to the East Bay in June 2011,  Here’s how it looked from the north.


B1170/1169.1 North Face 11 June 2011

Note the Grand Canyon Line Bridge Slogan



B1170 South Face

Note the absence of a Slogan and the absence of the passing track bridge

Hoping to get a bit more detail, I swung by the location after trying to duplicate the view of the Muir trestle.


Bridge 1169.1 South Face, 21 Jun 2014

So much for any more 1944 era details.  I’m sure the replacement made good sense to the BNSF in terms of maintenance, as the 2011 photos showed a need for a repaint.  I’m glad I caught the water tank and A-frame signal bridge at Bellemont, AZ back in 1988, as it too is long gone.  The old stuff is fast disappearing, shoot as much as you can today, because it may not be there tonight as the Tehachapi Depot fire proved.  Unlike 98 when I was shooting a combination of slide and print film, photons are free and digital storage not much more expensive. 

John Barry
Cameron Park, CA
23 June 2014


Adding a Fifth Dimension to Passenger Operations



Those of us who operate model railroads are playing what my friend an mentor, Paul Catapono, calls four dimensional chess.  Paul calls Time Table & Train Order operations that because of our three dimensional models and the movement of them over the layout over time.  I posit that Paul is correct about the game, but it has a Fifth Dimension: Purpose.  Why did we move a string of empty hoppers to the mines?  Why did we pick up a flat with a transformer load?  We all do it.  And those of us doing it with freight cars use a variety of techniques to direct our car movements.  Some of them ignore the content and tell us to move all the red box cars to siding A and orange reefers to industry C, but even the simplest and least detailed methods has at its root a Purpose for getting some car to some spot on the RR.  More advance schemes add varying levels of detail, but the Purpose remains the same: a reason to move Car A from B to C. 

Well, what about Passenger Ops?  Most folks with operating layouts use freight ops as their basis and passenger trains as something to add interest by providing something for the local to dodge out of the way of.  Or they use them as a way to break in newbies to their form of operation, be it CTC or TT&TO.  A superior train getting High Greens all around is a great way to see and experience a large, complicated layout the first time and learn which station follow which.  But what about an experienced crew?  You may find that your passenger trains go late in the bid because they lack interest.  What follows is a proposal of a scaleable way to add that Fifth Dimension of Purpose to your Passenger Operation.

To add realism to your operation and “Play Value” to your operators, many, including Andy Sperandeo, have advocated adding switching operations to your passenger trains.  This is great for locations like Kansas City, Tracy or Barstow where Train A would leave a car for train C, cars would be set out for diverging routes, etc.  But what about operations on a branch or in the middle of a main line division with no consist changes?  Fresno did see regular drop offs of Baggage and Express cars in the Oakland bound trains from Barstow, but what about other points?  The contents of the rail cars provided the purpose behind moving them. 

What did the contents of our prototype RRs use to get from A to Z?  Freight traveled on a Way Bill, Passengers traveled on a Ticket.  In both cases, the Conductor took possession of the travel document while on the train.  Today, it might be an electronic copy read from the screen of your smart phone or a computer generated train manifest.  In the past it was a physical copy of the document, often the original that would be used for accounting purposes.  In the model freight system using Car Cards and Waybills, the Waybill contains the destination of the car and often some description of the contents, even if it is “Empty for Loading”.  That fully describes the Purpose of moving that car.  Our scale passengers also have some purpose of moving from A to Z over our layouts.  Their full scale prototypes purchased tickets or had passes to keep from getting thrown off the train for bumming a ride.  We can use this to our advantage as a starting point to add the Fifth Dimension to our passenger ops.

Real trains had real tickets for each passenger or group.  We can selectively compress that into passengers who are through for the entire run, and those who get on or off on the modeled portion of our layout.  So for a train with two 52 seat coaches and three Pullmans of varying capacities, we have reduced the number of tickets from about 150 (way too in the weeds for our part time hobbiest conductors) to a half or a third depending on the traffic you model.  We can further compress that into the number of station stops on the layout.  We now have a very modelable level of detail for our conductors to work with.  Passenger trains run by schedule regardless of operating authority.  This allows the public to know when they have to be there to catch a train.  Whether CTC, DTC, TT&TO, passenger trains did not leave scheduled stops early.  They also needed appropriate authority to occupy the Main Track, but that is not the point of this discussion.  So our model now has a ticket representing a passenger or a group of passengers for each destination.  Destinations with no debarking passengers have no tickets in the conductor’s purse.  At each scheduled stop, the conductor picks up tickets from the waiting room and drops off the tickets for those getting off there.  If you have a diverging route, some passengers may debark and reboard a train to a destination on that diverging route.  The conductor puts that ticket in the waiting room and the train going to the diverging route picks up the passenger and ticket.  For a passenger going to a FLAG stop, the conductor will inform the engineer that he has a customer for Port Chicago if you are using a two man crew.  Since the number of passengers did vary on the prototype, you can vary the number of tickets you model.  This is where the scalability comes in.  For an orientation level run, make it one ticket with all through passengers or only a couple to show how passengers get handled at a single, scheduled stop.  As your operators gain experience with the idea of simulating passenger traffic, increase the complexity.  Its supposed to be FUN.  At some point, introduce the FLAG STOP Pickup.  At one of your flag stops, place a Ticket in the waiting room for a passenger to a destination served by your passenger train and display a flag to signal the train to stop.


Example Flag for Flag Stops

Setting up “Waiting Rooms” at Stations. 

This can be as simple as putting a cardboard divider into an existing bill box at your freight stations.  Put the passenger tickets behind the divider and you are ready to add passenger ops.  You can add dedicated “Waiting Rooms” as another dedicated bill box at appropriate stations.  You can divide them into East bound and West bound to simplify things for your crews.  You can add the complexity of a multi-spot stop at a short station by using coach and Pullman tickets, spotting first one, then the other at the short platform to embark and discharge passengers.  For diverging routes, you can have separate waiting rooms for each diverging direction. 


Sample Passenger Ticket
  
The Age of Aquarius is upon us, suddenly there’s an understanding. . .

Welcome to the Fifth Dimension of Passenger Operations.

John Barry
Cameron Park, CA

23 June 2014

Sunday, June 22, 2014

2014 Bay Area Prototype Modeler’s meet



The Rail Druids of Northern California gathered on the Summer Solstice yesterday in Richmond for their annual homage to modeling the prototype.  It was my first time to attend, despite now living farther from St. David’s School than I have for the last seven years.  The day started with a quicker than expected transit on the 101 mile journey.  A good thing since I was half an hour later than I’d planned.  The lack of construction on the “Fix 50” in downtown Sacramento gave me back that time and I arrived and parked just before opening time at 0900.  The journey’s highlight was an interesting contrast between Stonehenge and Manhattan in a short piece on Morning Edition.  Manhattanhenge set the tone for this post. 

On entering the hall, I was confronted with a decision, how many raffle tickets to buy, and which raffles to enter.  The second was easy, not an N scaler, cross that off; separate brass car auction, maybe, oh darn, its an SP baggage car, not so much; HO scale, Ok that fits well.  Now how many?  You want to be in on the action, but most of the goodies are soooooo modern, and I model 44, 1944 not 2044 and the prize table is laden with a great choice of ExactRail’s current production and other modern goodies, there are a few that might fit my era, the gift cards give you a choice, there were some cool decal sheets, but nothing I wanted to spend my mom’s inheritance on.  $1 each or six for $5.  I lay down an extra $5 with my entry fee. 

Into the sacred space to greet my fellow worshipers and find some of the high priests.  I belong to the Santa Fe sect, seems a majority of the attendees adhere to that heretical Southern Pacific branch.  Unlike Sunni and Shia, there were no car bombs or suicide belts present and we all learned from each other. 

The model displays were impressive, Henry Baez had some beautifully weathered BNSF Diesels.  I was so engrossed listening to him describe his techniques of building up from the bottom and using a short, very thin brush to apply weathering to seams and door latches that I totally forgot to photograph them. 

The first Santa Fe item to catch my eye was Phil Villalobos’ former business car 2nd 10 in its final incarnation as Bunk Car 203739.




Bill Vaughn, an active BNSF train service crewman, began his career as a  switchman at Richmond.  His conversion of a Proto 2000 single door box to a Fe-21 is inspiring. 




I need one of these unique Santa Fe single door 50' box cars.

I displayed three of my in progress passenger cars.  Walthers 8-1-2 and Branchline 14 section in modification with Tom Madden roofs and Steam Ejector Air Conditioning as well as a BR 12-1 converting to a 13 section non-AC car, also with one of Tom’s fine roofs. 

In the first three worship services that I attended that day,  High priest of the State Belt, Bill Kaufman, delivered an informative talk on his very small sect.  Well done and I learned a few more things about the switching district that connected to my modeled area via car float.

Harry Wong, one of the several SP Mullahs, presented a VERY detailed look at their SDP-45s.  And yes Fenton, there is a Santa Claus, as some kind soul taped his presentation. 

Blair High Priest (vice president) of Production for ExactRail also gave an interesting talk on their business practices that brought a warm glow to the friends of the freight car.  I was impressed with his candor and commitment to their business model that includes a high fidelity to prototype.  Unfortunately for me (but fortunate for my bank balance), one little detail of his presentation will make it difficult for me to obtain many of ER’s high quality models in the future.  To achieve this level of detail, they extensively measure and photograph an actual specimen before constructing the molds.  Great for accuracy, but not so much for extinct species, many of which I need on my layout.  You modern guys have it lucky in that regard.  Fortunately, several specimens of interest have been conserved in zoos (aka museums) so I have some hope to contemporaries to their Rib Side car of which I could use a couple.  Blair actively sought input, suggestions and feedback from the congregation.  After the service when I had a chance, I did suggest an X-3 tank, as UTLX had gobs and served the Standard Oil Refinery at Richmond that Santa Fe switched.  Blair confirmed Supreme Ayatollah Richard H’s remarks at the Naperville conclave that ER did have an X-3 in work.  It won’t be out this summer, but he said the research is pretty much done and it is next in the pipeline.  That is good new for the pocketbook also as it gives time for accumulating wealth.  Anyone have the winning lotto numbers?  I forgot to ask if they give case and gross discounts.  I need a LOT of X-3 tanks.

I met some old friends whom I’ve not seen in a long time, including Charlie Slater, himself a High Priest of my Santa Fe sect.  Charlie is also a retired railroader and offered a comment after Harry’s service that “If it worked, they put it on.” And that during the rebuild of the Santa Fe’s FP45s at San Bernardino, “When a unit was ready, they would use a crane and pull the top hood off the stack to mate with the frame.  If the numbers didn’t match, they’d just repaint them.”  A good explanation for the profusion of horn types seen.

As the day came to a close the second an final auction numbers rang softly through the display hall.  My comments to Blair about X-3s were interrupted when I thought I heard 1568.  Deaf in the right ear and not sure that my cross hearing aid had conveyed my winning #, I asked for a repeat.  Alas, it was what I thought I heard, I had won one of the door prizes, one of the very few I could actually use, a Fox Valley B&O wagon top box in the express green scheme.  A lovely parting gift.

John Barry
Cameron Park, CA

The day after the summer solstice 2014

Friday, June 20, 2014

Evolution of the Richmond Sand House

Richmond had at least three different sand houses during the steam era and now has modern diesel sanding facilities.  The modern stuff is outside the scope of this post.  These three houses were built as replacements for each other.  The first, circa 1900 with the original facilities.  

In a recent post on Locomotive Sand, I showed a 1903 view of the round house with what looks like a large rectangular sand tower and pile mounted water tank to its left.  The 1912 Station plat shows the relative locations of the sand house & bin, round house and other structures in the engine servicing area at Richmond. 



 1912 Station Plat, California State Archives, RR Maps 177-42

Richmond 1900 Sand House circa 1903

The original layout did not include a means to unload sand into the bin alongside the Round House other than shear muscle power.  This may have been OK in 1903 when the typical locomotive was a 2-8-0 with a small sand dome, traffic was light, and manpower was cheap.  It was still OK in 1918 when the next sand house was built. Photos from circa 1940 show it in the same general location as its predecessor.  The Coast Lines Terminal Division Building records document this house as having a 58x16' sand bin, shortened to 40' under authorizations C-272-28 in 1928.  The 1918 sand house was 50'x16', including the drying room on the north side.  It sat on a concrete foundation, was of wood construction with a tin shingle roof.  The peak of the sand tower portion had a nearly 1:1 pitch with it's axis perpendicular to the tracks.  

1918 Sand House and bin



1918 Sand House in 1941

     But by 1944, the situation was different.  Rosie was riveting away in the adjacent shipyards as most of the men had marched off to war.  Locomotives had increased in size, with the large 3400 class Pacifics doing the honors on the daily trans-continental passenger trains, 3500 class Pacifics were at the head of the freight pool, and plans were afoot to bring heavier power to the Valley Division as the FTs displaced steam in the desert divisions.  To aid the servicing of this power, the locomotive facilities at Richmond were remodeled with an extended turntable to accommodate turning the longer locomotives.  Elevating the track to the sand bin would mean one operator could empty a full GS gondola of sand directly into the supply in a matter of moments rather than hours of effort by a crew of laborers with shovels.  But the layout as shown above would not allow such a track as it would run into the turntable.  How to solve that problem?  Move the bin to the other side where a longer grade was possible.  As shown below in a 1952 track chart sketch, the wooden water tank was gone, the oil tanks replaced by three vertical ones, and the sand house and bin (#28 below) rebuilt and relocated RR west of the earlier location.
  
ATSF 1952 Track Chart


The 1944 annual report to the California RR commission shows an expenditure for a new sand house in Richmond as well as the turntable extension documented in the Warbonnet turntable article.


1944 ATSF report to Cal State RR Commision

The final steam era sand house is nearly a mirror image of the 1918 version with the drying room on the south side away from the round house.  It has a large sand bin supplied by an elevated trestle as shown in my earlier post Locomotive Sand at Richmond.


1944 Sand House in 1947

Modeling the 1944 Sand House:  

Mountaineer Precision Products produced a laser cut kit, number MTN990HO, of the San Bernadino Sand House as modified in the late 40s.  This kit is very similar to the 1944 Richmond sand house and could be modified with little difficulty. 

Unfortunately, MPP's owner had some health issues a couple years back and MPP has ceased production.  If any of you have a spare sand house, I missed out and am in need.

Modeling the 1918 Sand House:

To the best of my knowledge there is no commercial kit.  But you can use the Standard Sand House Plans published in Vol 3 of the Systems Standards, originally by Kachina Press, republished by the ATSFH&MS.  Dated 1918, they appear on page 365 and are a good match to the photos and the dimensions shown in the building records.

Modeling the 1900 Sand House:

The photos posted here are the best I have available.  Any die hard 1900 modelers have a significant scratch effort in front of you.  Good Luck 

I hope you have enjoyed this little bit of locomotive servicing history and its evolution at Richmond.

John Barry
Cameron Park, CA
20 June 2014

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Freight Statistics I--1945 California

Santa Fe carried a lot of freight for the war effort.  It's annual report to the California Railroad Commission documented that effort in the amount of carloads and tons of freight carried.  The table below is a summary of freight handled by the Santa Fe in California during 1945.  Within the borders of the Golden State, Santa Fe handled a whopping 721,392 cars of carload freight.  Of this total, 40% originated on the Santa Fe within California.  They received an unknown portion of their traffic from other carriers originating in state and a good portion from out of state sources.  They terminated 60% of their traffic on line in California handing off the other 40% to other carriers or moving it east themselves.  

ATSF California State Commodity Summary 1945

1945
California in state statistics, ATSF
Originating on line
Other freight carried
Total freight carried
Terminating on line
Class
Commodity
Carloads
Tons
Carloads
Tons
Carloads
Tons
Carloads
Tons
800
TOTAL. Products of Agriculture
103414
2365067
32494
974161
135908
3339228
35186
1082122
810
TOTAL ANIMALS AND PRODUCTS
5472
130414
23562
378747
29034
509161
21803
357684
820
TOTAL PRODUCTS OF MINES
24297
1262770
46299
2231025
70596
3493795
52990
2787305
830
TOTAL PRODUCTS OF FORESTS
2254
71183
21905
761133
24159
832316
19424
677114
840
TOTAL MANUFACTURES AND MISCELLANEOUS
153479
4646817
308216
7951428
461695
1.3E+07
301187
7955216
850
GRA.ND TOTAL, CARLOAD TRAFIC
288916
8476251
432476
1.2E+07
721392
2.1E+07
430590
1.3E+07
710
All L. C. L. freight

115779

89031
0
204810

133870
850
GRA.ND TOTAL, CARLOAD AND L. C. L. TRAFIC
288916
8592030
432476
1.2E+07
721392
2.1E+07
430590
1.3E+07
701A
Forwarder traffic included in Class 701
2135
36771
29404
442229
31539
479000
28488
435939
Source:  1945 ATSF Annual Report to CA RR Commision, CA State Archives

These are enormous numbers.  Lets take a look at the daily averages so we can begin to understand the magnitude of the traffic.  Not accounting for weekends and holidays, there was a war on, the daily volume in California was shown below:

ATSF Average Daily California Car Loadings

1945
California in state statistics, ATSF

Cars per Day

To others/

Class
Commodity
Originated
Others Ca
Tot Carried
Terminated
out of CA
% off/out
800
TOTAL. Products of Agriculture
283.3
89.0
372.4
96.4
276.0
74.11%
810
TOTAL ANIMALS AND PRODUCTS
15.0
64.6
79.5
59.7
19.8
24.91%
820
TOTAL PRODUCTS OF MINES
66.6
126.8
193.4
145.2
48.2
24.94%
830
TOTAL PRODUCTS OF FORESTS
6.2
60.0
66.2
53.2
13.0
19.60%
840
TOTAL MANUFACTURES AND MISCELLANEOUS
420.5
844.4
1264.9
825.2
439.7
34.76%
850
GRA.ND TOTAL, CARLOAD TRAFIC
791.6
1184.9
1976.4
1179.7
796.7
40.31%
701A
Forwarder traffic included in Class 701
5.8
80.6
86.4
78.0
8.4
9.67%


Some of these numbers scale out well for an ops session.  Forwarder traffic originated in two main centers, San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Dividing the traffic evenly between them means that it is reasonable to have 1-3 cars per day loaded at the forwarding companies.  Others are not so easy.  The Agricultural Products are well known, Potatoes from the Central Valley north of Bakersfield made up most of the 20,152 car loads originated.  Santa Fe carried an additional 3414 cars of potatoes, but only terminated 6326 in state.  Most moved to eastern markets in GFX blocks.  This was an average of 55 cars a day over the year, but that's not how they shipped.  In the month or two of the spud rush, the entire crop moved to California users and out of state customers.  Citrus was similar with a longer season, with the majority moving east.  Hogs moved in the other direction, with none originating in California during the year and 5.8 cars a day terminating little piggies at CA destinations for the dining pleasure of Californians.  Logs were insignificant with less than 30 cars handled over the entire year.  Lumber, big through traffic with 34 cars terminating each day, 4 originating, and 39 coming from other carriers or out of state.  One example was a car originating on the California Western, shipped over the NWP to Tiberon, Santa Fe to San Diego for delivery to a customer on the San Diego and Arizona Eastern.  Knocked down autos and trucks were also significant with 2.4 cars per day originating and 17.4 terminating in state of the 27.2 carried every day.  This is not surprising, given that many trucks were crated for shipment overseas and several of the depots were served by the SP and PE.  One other commodity directly related to the war effort shows up for the first time since 1941, explosives.  Santa Fe carried 39.1 cars each day in 1945, originating 10.2 and terminating 12.3 cars while handing off or moving out of state 26.9 cars.   Given the interchange to the Government RR at Port Chicago, a major munitions loading point, this traffic is another must for my modeling.  A number of the originations would have come from the Hercules Powder Company near Pinole.  

More in the future.

John Barry
Cameron Park, CA
19 June 2014

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Colors & Markings of the 2014 Shake & Take Santa Fe Cars


Santa Fe re-built its Bx-2 class double sheathed USRA box cars into steal sheathed versions resembling the 1937 AAR box car during 1938-42.  Small differences in the rebuilt cars as different lots were converted over time resulted in the Bx-28, 31, 32, 33, and 36 classes depending on the year rebuilt.  Physically, Bx-28 and 31 were shorter cars with 10’ Inside Height and Running Boards at 14’8.  The Bx-32, 33 and 36 were slightly larger cars with 10’4 IH and Running Boards at 14’11.  The 2014 Shake & Take parts are for the shorter cars.  One subtle difference between the otherwise identical Bx-28 and 31 is the shape of the underframe extensions.  The 28 had triangular brackets while the 31 and later cars had trapezoidal brackets. The other major difference is the Bx-28 got new ASF Cast Steel trucks which raised its capacity to 100000 pounds where the Bx-31 retained its original Andrews trucks and remained an 80000 pound car. 

As delivered all the rebuilds would have come out of the Topeka Shops with overall mineral brown finish, including the wood running boards and a black anti-slip roof.  The Bx-28 rebuilt from USRA Bx-2s in 1937 would have had 9 inch A.T.&S.F. reporting marks, 7 inch numbers in series 138500-138699, and a 3 foot cross and circle herald.  Cars remained in this plain paint until repainted with one of the Slogan schemes.  The Bx-31, rebuilt in 1939 in number series 148000-148199, would have been delivered in the same plain scheme but with A.T.S.F. reporting marks.  Not the subject of S&T 2014, but the forthcoming parts for the taller rebuilds would have been delivered with versions of the Slogan/Map scheme.  Colors remained the same, reporting marks continued with no & but periods, A.T.S.F. for the rest of the USRA rebuilds.  Bx-32 and early Bx-33 rebuild got the Style 2 curved line map.  Later Bx-33s had the early version of the straight line map without the word “Ship”.  Bx-36s had the later straight line map with the word “Ship.”  The map cars had the original slogans: The Grand Canyon Line, The Scout for Economy Travel West, The Chief Famous Daily Streamliner West, The Super Chief to California, and El Capitan Coach Streamliner West.

Slogan assignments as delivered:

Bx-32
148200-249 Scout
148250-349, Grand Canyon
148350-399, Scout. 

Bx-33
145000-099, El Capitan
145100-199, Super Chief
145200-299, Chief
145300-399, Grand Canyon
145400-499, Scout

Bx-36
148400-549, Scout
148550-699, El Capitan
148700-849, Super Chief
148850-999, Chief
149000-149. Grand Canyon


Repaints:  The first was probably the addition of “Buy War Bonds” to 368 of the Bx-36s over the existing paint in 1942-43.  Bx-36 was only Santa Fe box car to receive this additional War Slogan.  After 1944, the periods were removed from the reporting marks, yielding ATSF when repainted after that date.  Some Bx-28 and 31 may have received the straight line map and slogan if repainted prior to 1947 as Bx-31 37004 did with a Grand Canyon slogan and map when fitted out for Chrysler rear axle loading in 1946.  25 cars, 37000-37024 were so equipped.  Their marked capacity was reduced to 75000 and they had the short white rectangle with circle indicating parts racks.  37004 had a black route card board below that marking on its door and ATSF on the second rib and 37004 on the third rib of the top group of five on the B end.  Eight years later, when refitted for Chrysler-De Soto rear axles, 37001 received a Ship and Travel scheme.  Its capacity was lowered to 73000 and the end marks were in the spaces with ATSF above and 37001 below the two ribs in the end extension.  In 1959, Santa Fe discontinued the train slogans and adopted a large Circle and Cross Herald to the left of the door with Ship and travel to the right on both sides of the mineral brown cars.  Surviving cars repainted after that date received that very modern scheme.

Roof color changed from black car cement to mineral brown with anti-slip granules added in the mid-50s.  Richard Hendrickson stated that the black continued to be used by many shops till their supply was exhausted.  So its conceivable that you might find a large circle cross with a black roof but it would have been unusual.  

A note on data blocks.  On the pre-map cars the data was arranged vertically above the Class designator just to the left of the end ladder on the right side of the car.  When using a map or slogan, the data was divided into three blocks starting at the left side of each of the three middle panels on the right side of the car.  Repack data appeared on the right side of the center panel, Class designator appeared on the end panel or slightly overlapped the seam to the second panel from the end.  None of the photos in the CSRM collection that I have seen so far have the build date for any of the USRA rebuilds.  A photo of a Bx-13 steel rebuild does have its original 5-31 BLT date.  Not sure why, but this BLT date is consistently missing in the photos I’ve seen of Bx-28, 31-33 & 36.

No photos today as I don't have permission to publish the CSRM photos.  But details are available of the brackets on the Bx-28 and 31 as well as a number of builder's photos from the Topeka Shops.  

References:  R. Hendrickson, Santa Fe Railway Painting & Lettering Guide, Vol 1. Rolling Stock, SFMO, 1990.

Sunshine kit data Bx-32-33, 36 reissue.

Sunshine kit data Bx-28, 31

California State Railroad Museum Collection, Bx-28, 31, 32, 33, 36 Photos



John Barry
Cameron Park, CA
Flag Day
14 June 2014





Friday, June 13, 2014

Santa Fe Forms



Ever wonder which form was for what purpose?  The Santa Fe had a system.  Most large organizations do and they also have an index so you can find the right form.  Santa Fe’s index eluded me for many years as I did not know what exactly to look for.  An on line discussion with some fellow modelers yielded results last year when John Moore of Albuquerque asked me if the List of Blanks was what I needed.  A couple sample pages later and I was convinced that it was indeed that index that had so long eluded me.  John generously loaned me his 1947 and 1958 editions. 

The Form 1091 Standard, List of Blanks in use by lines of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway System, is described in its 1947 edition as Description of Printed Forms.   And what a description it is.  Everything you can think of that had to have a standardized format is in here.  From Train Orders (Form 933 Standard) to Train Sheets (Form 1546-F Special for the Valley Div 3rd District), Freight Waybills (too many to list here but one is Form 1829 Regular, Preferred Movement), Locomotive Service Report (Form 1161 Standard), to Instructions to Station Freight Agents (Form 500 Standard).  All this and a whole lot more including car cards, accounting documents, shippers notifications and everything else needed to run the railroad.  The forms evolved over time, with some becoming obsolete and deleted with others added as needs changed.  You can see this in the addition of Consigned Empty Freight Car Card (Form 1851 Standard) and deletion of Meat Card (Form 1390 Standard) between the 47 and 58 editions. 

More on this useful document later.  PDFs of the 47 and 58 editions can be found on the ATSFRR.ORG website at http://www.atsfrr.org/resources/BarryJohn/47%20Form%201091%20Std%20Form%20Index.pdf and http://www.atsfrr.org/resources/BarryJohn/58%20Form%201091%20Std%20Form%20Index.pdf

John Barry
12 June 2014
Cameron Park, CA