New Product Spotlight – Pennsylvania GLa Hoppers

The Pennsylvania Railroad owned an impressive roster of more than 30,000 GLa class hoppers which served from the 1900s into the Penn Central years. As if the PRR’s own roster wasn’t impressive enough, the car was copied directly by several other companies and became the inspiration for several other popular hopper designs which blanketed the United States in the first half of the 20th Century. We’ll cover the interesting prototype history of these cars later this week and in subsequent Freight Car Friday posts. Today, let’s look at Lionel’s upcoming model of this car – one we think will be as popular as its prototype!

Capturing the Variety

A 3-D drawing of the GLa version shows the many details these cars will feature.

These new hoppers will be the most detailed Lionel has ever produced. Starting with all new tooling, we’ve planned ahead so that we can not only capture the PRR’s GLa accurately, but also capture the key detail changes found in many of the cars which built off of this design.

Lionel’s design team worked from Pennsylvania Railroad drawings to create an accurate GLa. From the overall dimensions, to the distinctive boxy end sills, to proper 2D-F8 truck sideframes, this car will be PRR through and through.

In 1905, builders began producing cars of similar design for other companies. Compare this plan with the GLa to see the detail differences. This view also shows how the cars will look if you install scale couplers.

When several car builders began building near-duplicates of the GLa in 1905, a car which has subsequently been dubbed the “1905 Common Design” by historians, the overall dimensions remained very close to the GLa, but there were several structural differences to be found – especially on the ends of the cars. By the time these designs had evolved into the USRA’s standard two-bay hopper in 1918, again dimensions were within a few inches of the GLa with more minor detail changes around the ends and hoppers.

Lionel is tooling these models so that the later car designs, using the GLa body, can have other details which more closely capture the look of the cars on these other roads. This will include the end sills, end posts, hand brake and grab iron arrangements and hopper door mechanisms.

Scale Improvements

The underframes have been designed for easy application of a standard scale coupler box.

In addition to the overall high level of detail on these cars, which will even include cross braces and rivet details on the interior of the car, Lionel is adding some new design features to these cars which will make them much friendlier to the 2-rail and 3-rail scale crowd.

Although the cars will come equipped with our standard operating couplers, mounting pads will be provided on the metal underframe of the car so that scale couplers can be easily added by the modeler if desired. No extensive body modification or even drilling new holes required!

We’ve also addressed another little detail that is sure to please many of the prototype-focused modelers; the “Built by Lionel” date stencil has been moved to the underside of the car. It’s still there for the collectors, but won’t detract from the rest of the graphics which have all been carefully researched from prototype photos.

We’re quite proud of these new cars, and think you’ll agree they are some of the finest scale models we’ve produced. Other features include:

PRR and other GLa version cars will feature correct PRR 2D-F8 truck sideframes.

• Die-cast metal sprung trucks and operating couplers with hidden uncoupling tabs. PRR GLa cars will have appropriate PRR truck sideframes.
• Plastic carbody and die-cast metal underframe
• High level of separately applied detail parts including many road-name specific variations
• Opening hopper doors
• Removable plastic coal load insert
• Molded pads for easy conversion to scale couplers
• Individual road numbers on each car in multi-car packs
• O31 Minimum curve

The new GLa hoppers will be available as part of the Pennsy M1a Coal Hauler set (three PRR and one Berwind White Coal) as well as for separate sale in the following road names and quantities:

A third version of this car will be detailed to match USRA era details.

• 6-81686 PRR (circle keystone scheme) 3-Pack GLa version
• 6-81858 PRR (shadow keystone scheme) 3-Pack GLa version
• 6-81793 Berwind White 3-Pack GLa version
• 6-81687 Lehigh Valley 2-Pack USRA version
• 6-81688 CB&Q 2-Pack USRA version
• 6-81689 C&O 3-Pack USRA version
• 6-81789 New Haven 2-Pack GLa version
• 6-81824 P&WV 2-Pack 1905 Common Design version

Suggested retail price on the 2-Pack cars is $145.99. 3-Packs retail for $219.99. See your local Lionel dealer to place your order now, and look for some more background on these interesting cars starting this Friday on the blog!

Freight Car Friday – Pacific Car and Foundry

Pacific Car and Foundry, best known in its later years for its mechanical refrigerators and insulated boxcars, had its roots in the logging industry. The small company has had ties to major carbuilders and projects but for most of its history was a family business.

It should come as no surprise that PC&F’s first freight cars would serve the logging industry.

The Pacific Car and Foundry name first appeared in 1917 as a result of a merger between the Seattle Car and Foundry Company and its top regional competitor, Twohy Brothers Company. The corporate history however dates back to as early as 1901 when William Pigott first established the Railway Steel & Supply Company.

This firms first railcars were logging disconnects. These cars were not much more than trucks which were placed beneath either end of a large log. The first skeleton log cars came in about 1908 under the Hercules trade name. These cars were much safer than the disconnects yet still had a much lower tare weight than conventional flat cars.

PC&F’s “Beer Cars” are one of their more common designs. For a view of the opposite side of this car, see last month’s blog on the subject.

Logging cars would continue to make up the majority of sales for the then Seattle Car and Foundry Company from 1911 through the merger in 1917. Total production had averaged less than 800 cars per year. Shortly after the merger however, the new United States Railway Administration delivered the company an order for 2000 boxcars.

In the 1920s, the company began to develop two different but successful product lines. Its Renton plant continued to turn out quality products in large quantities for the logging industry. Increasingly however, the trucks were of the rubber-tired variety. Meanwhile its Portland plant had developed a successful line of refrigerator rail cars.

 

A PC&F car originally built for Pacific Fruit Express served as the prototype for Lionel’s O and S scale models.

American Car and Foundry acquired PC&F in 1924 but the company continued to operate and market its cars under its own name. Pigott’s sons, William J. and Paul, bought the company back from ACF in 1934. That decade would challenge every car builder of course, but PC&F remained intact. Declining car sales were offset by ventures into other manufacturing and corporate diversification from the 1930s through the 1960s. Following ACF control, the primary railcar product remained reefers. Notable among the other operations was the structural steel division which produced steel for Seattle’s Space Needle and New York’s World Trade Center.

Although best known for insulated boxcars and reefers, PC&F also built cars for other service. This auto parts car is one example.

The third generation of the Pigott family, Paul’s son Charles, assumed control of the company upon his father’s death in 1961. In 1972, PC&F was reorganized as PACCAR, and Pacific Car and Foundry became a division within the company and continued to build freight cars until 1984. Although the company is no longer serving the rail industry, PACCAR remains a major supplier for its trucking competition.

Although they have been out of production for thirty years or more, many of PC&F’s boxcars and reefers can still be found roaming the rails. A few earlier examples of their craftsmanship have found their way into museums.

Freight Car Friday – Magor Car

The Magor Car Corporation may not be the best known of America’s car builders, but it had many important achievements to its credit in its sixty-five year history. Located in Clifton, New Jersey, the builder produced everything from diminutive narrow gauge cars for export to record-breaking covered hoppers.

Still hard at work in 2013, Magor built 50 of these side dump cars for the Chicago & Northwestern in 1965. Dump cars were a major part of Magor’s business.

Early History

What would become Magor Car began as an 1899 partnership between Basil Magor and Robert Wonham. In 1902 the two men incorporated as the Wonham-Magor Engineering Works. That company would become Magor Car Company in 1910 and Magor Car Corporation in 1917. Incidentally, it’s properly pronounced “May-gor.”

The new company emerged at a pivotal time in the history of car builders. 1899 saw the consolidation of thirteen smaller builders into American Car and Foundry. It was just the first and largest of a growing trend. Over the next two decades, a handful of large companies like AC&F, Pullman Standard, North American Car and General American would come to dominate the marketplace.

The USRA composite gondola had unloading doors in the floor making it suitable for a variety of loads including coal. It fit well with Magor’s product line and the company built 1000 under USRA contract.

The consolidation came with good reason. The first decades of the 20th Century also marked the beginning of the switch from wood to steel in car construction. Even composite cars with steel frames would require larger facilities to produce and greater production runs to secure economies of scale than the early family run shops could support.

Basil Magor himself would leave the company in 1911 and go on to found the National Steel Car Corporation of Canada. NSC would go on to become one of Canada’s largest car builders and is still in business today. Basil’s brother Robert Magor would take over the reigns in New Jersey and not-surprisingly, a good cooperation existed between the two companies through Magor’s inclusion in Fruehauff in 1964.

The Big John would thrust Magor into the spotlight in the 1960s. Car 7966 still carries its original paint with few modifications in 2008 – a testament to Magor’s quality.

Yet in the midst of this change, there was still room for a smaller builder like Magor to make a name for itself. Most of its orders would come from the jobs too small for the large shops to want. These “cast offs” included industrial, mining and export cars but also orders which were simply beyond the capacity of larger builders in peak times.

For the first fifty years, Magor Car’s primary business was export cars. Proximity to New York harbors and a willingness to take on small orders and innovate helped the company. Unable to go head-to-head with an ACF or Pullman on large orders for big American customers, it hunted out other “niche” products for which it could compete. These included sugar-cane cars for Cuba, steel cabooses, car repair / rebuilding services, pneumatic side dump cars and later, aluminum-bodied covered hoppers.

The company also handled many government and military contracts including USRA drop-bottom gondola cars and a 250 ton-capacity car for carrying Naval guns during World War I. Between the wars, Magor became the largest builder of export freight cars in the country, capturing better than 40% of that market. Following the war, Magor’s car orders are a window into our foreign policy; 1,000 cars for Russia under Lend-Lease, 3,000 for France as part of the Marshal Plan, then 5,000 for the US Government for shipment to Korea in the 1950s.

Post War Years

Fruehauf built 150 of these immense coal gondolas for Detroit Edison unit trains in 1971. Some can still be seen in trash service today.

In addition to government contracts and exports, Magor saw increases in its domestic production following WWII. And by 1959 its innovative thinking would open up a new line of production.

Partnering with Reynolds Metals and the Southern, Magor completed the first mass-produced composite aluminum – steel cars in the U.S. This was an order for 455 covered hoppers in 1959. Over the coming years, Magor would emerge as a leader in this construction method with more than 5000 aluminum cars built by 1971. Most notable of the cars were the subsequent “Big John” covered hoppers for the Southern. (Read about these history-making cars in this past blog!)

Built for Penn Central in 1971, this G47 gondola was one of the last projects completed by Fruehauf. Aside from rebuilt ends and new paint, it looks much as it did forty years and two owners earlier.

These new lines offset declining export sales, which were discontinued entirely in 1963. In 1964, Magor was sold to Fruehauf Corporation. Fruehauf expanded and standardized the product line and in 1968 the new owners enlarged the plant, planning for additional capacity.

Things looked bright through the first years of the 1970s with major gondola and boxcar orders to fill for Penn Central. But these would end up being the last new cars built at Magor. With the freight car market entering a downturn, Fruehauf pulled out in 1973. Some assets were sold to other builders, but aside from rail cars which still ply the rails in the USA and around the globe, little remains of Magor’s corporate legacy. Ever the underdog, Magor proved that with innovation and resourcefulness, even a small company could have a big impact on railroad history.

Freight Car Friday – Reporting Marks Quiz

The school year is winding down, so let’s get in one more quiz before summer vacation arrives! Nothing too complicated here, just your ABC’s. Let’s see how well you recognize your favorite railroads by their reporting marks.

Reporting marks are a subtle but essential part of railroad operations.

Reporting marks are the unique set of initials assigned to every company that owns a railroad car. Containers and trailers which ride the rails get them too. Along with the road number, these marks identify the car and provide the railroads’ operating departments a way to route and track it correctly.

Usually the reporting marks are related to the railroad or company name or initials. In some cases the marks seem strange, particularly where the initials are based off of the official roadname and not necessarily the one with which we’re most familiar, like Cotton Belt’s “SSW” for example.

Here is a list of 26 historic and contemporary reporting marks. In addition to well-known railroads, there are some smaller companies, private car owners, intermodal shippers and leasers included to make it a little more challenging. How many do you know?

When cars are sold, often the reporting marks are changed without completely repainting the car.

1. AA
2. BN
3. CSX
4. DTI
5. ETTX
6. FW&D
7. GM&O
8. HLCX
9. ITC
10. JBHU
11. KCS
12. LBR
13. M
14. NOPB
15. ONT
16. P&WV
    

    Some roads, like the Pennsylvania and Southern, spelled out their entire name on cars into the 1960s. Automated car tracking systems and computers would make such a practice impractical and reporting marks are now limited to 4 letters.

17. QC
18. RDG
19. SFRD
20. TRRA
21. UTCX
22. VC
23. WC
24. XOMX
25. YV
26. ZCAX

How did you do? Check out the answer key to check your work and learn a little more. If you want some more chances to test your knowledge, look for the next issue of the LRRC’s Inside Track – coming to members later this month!