Tag Archives: Gondola

Freight Car Friday #5 – ACIS 1415

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ACIS 1415 is an interesting car with a story to tell.

Built in 1974 by National Steel Car, this 61’6″ (inside length) woodchip gondola was purchased for service hauling woodchips from the (then) new Newaygo Forest Products lumber/chip mill at Mead, at mile 275.3. It was one of original 90 cars numbered ACIS 1401-1490. As the cars were exclusively used between Mead and paper mills in Wisconsin (my best information indicate the primary destination for these cars was a mill in Appleton) the “ACIS” reporting marks indicate cars assigned to strictly International Service and not to be used between domestic points within Canada under customs regulations.

By 1985 the Newaygo mill had shut down and most of the Algoma Central’s chip cars were sold off, however this became one of 5 cars (ACIS 1413, 1415, 1416, 1417 and 1433) retained and repurposed as a lumber carrier for Dubreuil Brothers Lumber in Dubreuilville. The end door was removed and replaced with the open steel bracing shown above and the top bracing holding the car’s sides together was raised to provide additional clearance for loading. These cars would be spotted at a ramp at the end of the loading track at Dubreuilville and pulled each day by the southbound freight to head down to the Sault on the night freight out of Hawk Junction. At Steelton yard they would be spotted at a Dubreuil Brothers Lumber yard next to the ACR yards and unloaded.

An interesting example of a unique service provided by a unique regional railway.

Freight Car Friday #4 – NFPX 1511

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ACR from Blair 034

In 1974, Newaygo Forest Products opened a sawmill at Mead (mile 275) on the Algoma Central, one of the major outputs of which was woodchips which were shipped to paper mills in Wisconsin. The Algoma Central purchased 90 60′ woodchip gondolas from National Steel Car in 1974 for this service, adding another 23 cars in 1980. By 1985 however, Newaygo had shut down the Mead mill, and the majority of the AC’s woodchip cars were sold to Newaygo and used in services on other routes.

Here’s NFPX 1511 (former AC 1511, one of the 1980 built cars) at Steelton yard in February 1999 with a load of woodchips from a lumber mill at Calstock, Ontario, on the Ontario Northland Railway near Hearst. (Photo courtesy of Blair Smith)

Freight Car Friday #1 – AC 433

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To keep this blog a little more active and interesting, and to share a bit of the collection, I’m going to try this new feature. On a semi-regular basis, I’ll schedule these posts for Friday mornings.

“Freight Car Friday” posts will normally consist one or two related photos of an Algoma Central freight car, or some other freight car subject related to the AC. This might be a prototype shot or a model shot. It might be an AC car, or a non-AC car photographed on the AC, or otherwise related in some context. It might be a revenue service or non-revenue car. It may or may not include a lot of commentary with the photo.

So check back in here on Fridays for a regular dose of freight cars. I should have enough material to keep this going for quite a while.

I’ll lead off the series with this photo of AC 433 at Steelton yard, taken on July 28, 2014 from the Agawa Canyon Tour Train on my summer railfanning vacation to northern Ontario.

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The 400 series number on this car was assigned by Wisconsin Central in the late 1990s. The lettering style marks this as originally from somewhere in the AC 601-875 series of 52’6″ gondolas built by National Steel Car in two separate batches in 1959 and 1961. Notice though the additional little angle iron brackets along the top edge of the car side in several places; these appear to be attachment points for clamping down covers for protecting coil steel loads, indicating that prior to its renumbering to the 400 series by WC for work service, this was either a 925-934 or 975-984 series coil steel service car (these two groups were drawn from former 601-875 series cars; another group of 25 cars numbered 900-924 was acquired new in 1961 for coil steel service). When in coil steel service, they would have colourful bright yellow painted 3 piece steel covers to protect the load. It’s now one of five AC gondolas on hand at Steelton yard loaded with track panel sections and track materials for effecting quick repairs to a section of track.

More love from Walthers for Algoma Central – 65′ Gondolas

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Well this is interesting.

I was skimming over the product announcements in the latest Model Railroad Hobbyist online magazine and prominently displayed under Walthers was an announcement for several new paint schemes on their 65′ Thrall mill gondola – including Algoma Central.

A little bit of searching managed to turn up the product listing on Walthers’ site.

Of course these aren’t remotely accurate – the real cars from Algoma Central series AC 1001-1400 are 61′ (not 65′) inside length cars with riveted side construction (not welded like the model) and distinctive bulkhead ends.

ACR from Blair 039

AC 1014 at Steelton shops. Blair Smith photo.

On the other hand, the lettering style and font matches that used on the 61′ cars and looks well rendered, and if you’re careful and can touch up the paint cleanly, it could be possible to take a decorated car, shorten the end panels and scratchbuild the end bulkheads to come up with a pretty reasonable representation of one of these cars, which could be a huge advantage to modeling these cars as a decal set matching the font used on these cars doesn’t actually exist (the CDS dry transfer set is for the 52′ gons, matching the lettering font on the AC 601-875 which is a bit “blockier” in the curved letters like O and C) and adding a scratchbuilt bulkhead end to an existing model is easier than scratchbuilding the entire car, particularly with all of the side rivets.

Of course, since you’re chopping up a modern welded car to represent a prototype that was actually of riveted construction, this is still only a general representation, but with 400 of these cars rostered, they were actually more numerous and wide ranging than the 52′ gondolas and any serious ACR modeler really needs a fleet of these cars. Their large size and bulkhead ends made them particularly useful for everything from pulpwood logs to steel products, and loaded with steel from Algoma Steel these cars ranged all over North America, which means modelers of other Canadian railways can definitely also justify running one of these.

I might just pick up at least one of these to try the conversion and see how I like it.

Rapido 52′ Gondolas Arrived

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This evening I stopped at the post office to pick up several packages – packages containing the new Rapido Trains 52′ Canadian gondolas. (I won’t tell you how many exactly I picked up, because this was partly a pooled group order of cars for the WRMRC layout, so better than half of the cars will end up belonging to others, but let’s just say I acquired “more than one” 6-pack of AC cars (plus a few CPs) for my own purposes.)

These models are based on a common design of 52’6″ gondola with riveted construction and drop ends that were built by Eastern Car Company during the 1940s-50s for most of the major Canadian railways. Similar cars were built by Canadian Car & Foundry and National Steel Car up into the early 1960s, with generally similar features, but some detail differences.

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The prototype Algoma Central cars were built in 1959-62 in two batches by National Steel Car. (AC 601-800 and 801-875. Another almost identical batch was built in 1962 as AC 900-924 with covers for coil steel service.) They actually differ from the model in two ways. One, the AC cars have a different style of structural ribs on the sides. While the model features the distinctive Z shaped ribs fashioned from simple angle stock, the later AC cars had a stamped rib with a more of a hat profile (if you cross-sectioned the rib). The AC cars were also a higher capacity car with a 4′ interior height instead of the 3’5″ height of the model. However, the number and spacing of the side ribs is still consistent on all of these Canadian cars, so that still makes these cars a better stand in than any model of an American prototype. (The older Proto2000 gondola, based on a design built by Greenville Steel Car and Bethlehem Steel Corp., was previously the best stand in, but has a different number of side ribs and panels, which alters the layout of the Algoma Central billboard lettering on the side of the car.)

The models are well packaged, but even so exercise care when removing the cars from the packaging and check for any minor damage in shipping. There’s been some reports of the delicate ribs damaged in shipping (I haven’t seen much of this yet, but I’ve only removed a couple of cars from their packaging so far) and I had a few ends knocked free and rattling around inside the box (the drop ends are just press fit in place, so this is no big deal).

Here’s a few photos of a sample AC and CP (Action Red scheme) car to see some of the detail on these new models:

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The relief of the Z shaped ribs is a distinctive feature of this model. The individual ribs are actually separate pieces to achive this effect. So one will have to take some care when picking up these cars not to crush any delicate details.

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These CP red cars feature trucks with converted roller bearing journals, a nice touch.

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I weighed one car at 4.1oz, just slightly under the NMRA “recommended” weight for a 7″ car of 4.5oz (1oz + .5oz/inch), but then almost every factory car is slightly under this recommendation, and consistency is one of the most important things. The Rapido car actually weighed out exactly identical to one of the Proto2000 gondolas I had nearby.

And lastly, a couple of final shots of the two cars on my in progress switching layout. The cars both appeared to track and roll quite well, although admittedly I don’t have much track to roll them around on. The real test will be when we try dragging a set of these around in a train at the club layout.

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