Reefer, Decals, Frustration and New Year

What an auspicious title for the new year! Don't panic, I'm not discouraged at all but trying to be fairly prototypical with a steam era fleet can quickly become a descent into madness... madness I tell you!

The good new is Erie did lease URTX reefers from at least the 1930s up to the E-L merger in 1960. I was able to find a picture of the real wood sheathed 40ft prototype Accurail based their concept on simply by looking at Wikipedia's Union Refrigerator Transit Line entry.

URTX cars on pier 19, East River, Manhattan. 1936 (credit: WikiCommons)

Not only it matches the paint scheme, but Accurail used a fairly prototypical model too. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea if these cars were still in service in the early 50s and leased to Erie.

According to information shared by Dave Husman, 16 cars were still on the roster at that time, corresponding to the series leased by Erie:

"The 1953 ORER lists 16 cars in the URTX 27000-27999 series.  IL 32'9", OL 40'11",   Other dimensions are pretty common with most of the cars on two pages of the ORER.  There are no other indications of ownership or assignment (on any of the other series either.)"

Thus, I feel it's better to not bother with theses oddballs. However, Accurail will soon release an Erie steel ice reefer. And that time, it both fits the era and the paint scheme is quite accurate too. But unfortunately, while the artwork is excellent, the model itself isn't Accurate. URTX used the well know steel reefers with the horizontal seam. Often associated with Milwaukee Road, this type of reefer was also leased by Erie. Walthers did produce in the past that specfic prototype and it could be used to create a decent version of an Erie reefer... however, here my rant starts.

Accurail's version of Erie steel reefers (credit: Accurail)

In the world of modelling, either you have the correct decals but not the model or the accurate model exist but not decent decals. I ran into this issue quite a few time over the last few weeks and it can really wear off your best intentions.

In the case of Erie reefers, the lettering was black, so I could make my own decals. In fact, I did start to recreate the artwork based on Accurail's own. But I ran in two issues. Very small lettering is impossible to decipher on pictures (that can be solved with the help of other modellers) and getting a decent Railroad Roman font is almost impossible. Every road had its own variation on that popular style. It thus means I will have, if I continue this project, to redraw individually each letter. I'm used to doing this, but it's a labour of love... Maybe I'm not that much in love with Erie!!! The layout option would be to buy an Accurail model, scan or take a high quality picture of the artwork, scale and clean it, print decals and voilà! That would be efficient thought costly. And the Accurail car would have to be repainted in a correct scheme later...

The other issue is much more bothering. I bought 2 Rapido GARX reefer kits 2 months ago. Built them and painted them. One in yellow to represent a generic GARX (not leased) car and another one to be a red-color Swift reefer. Fine by me, but imagine my disappointment when I discovered my Clover House dry transfer were for the SWIFT steel reefer and not the WOOD one... A little search shown me the Walthers steel reefer of URTX lineage would be perfect for the Clover House transfers... However, I have on hand wood reefer. Thus I thought to myself, let's find correct Swift decals. In all my juvenile naïveté, I felt it would be a walk in the park since Swift red wood reefers are iconic and popular with railroaders. So wrong. Only, Champ offered decals (readily available on Ebay) back in the days. While they seem fairly accurate, these decals are printed on very thick carrier paper, making them less than adequate. I've used them in the past, and wasn't that much impressed. So now, the only remaining option would be to get Champ decals, scan them, clean the artwork and ask some individual or business to print them... That will come with a fairly high price tag.

The most frustrating aspect of this adventure is not the lack of availability. You can't do nothing about that. But rather that I embarked these projects thinking they were simple and fast to complete. Who would believe modelling Swift reefers is so complicated? I did not... Now I know... "and knowing is half the battle won"...

Happy New Year to One and All!

EDIT:

Finally, I decided to rework the decal artwork and tweak each Railroad Roman letter to fit UTRX practice. Two hours later, I'm quite satisfied with the result. White lettering on the black ends could be done using any generic freight data decals and alphabets in Railroad Roman font. Now, if I could know if the Erie Diamond logo had a white background or if it was simply left yellow...

URTX-ERIE steel reefer decals (credit: Matthieu Lachance)

Meanwhile, I found another HO scale ERIE steel reefer artwork (supposedly from Accurail too). This one is dated 1956... The car is orange like the Milwaukee Road ones and URTX full name is dropped while the reporting marks and roadnumbers are painted in a much modern block lettering font. Another foobie? Another variation? Hard to tell, except if digging in an URTX dedicated book.

A mid-50s paint scheme? (credit: Accurail?)

Why not try to reproduce this one too!

URTX-ERIE steel reefer decals (credit: Matthieu Lachance)

As things are standing out right now, I'll simply acquire two Walthers Mainline Steel Reefer, strip the paint and letter them in both 1950s paint scheme. If better information ever come up, it won't be too hard to repaint them more prototypically.

Help With Erie Refrigerator Cars

While doing research about suitable reefers for the layout era - 1952 - I came upon several refrigerator cars decorated in dubious paint scheme. Most of them were made by manufacturers know for they "creativity". However, a model among many caught my attention. It was the Accurail #4813 kit, which was re-released with an improved paint scheme (mainly the Erie Diamond logo) as kit #4813-1.

URTX-leased Erie reefer (credit: Accurail)

While Accurail is now for their nice quality kits, we all know they apply the paint scheme on their models if it is fairly similar to a real prototype. This isn't criticism toward Accurail because most major manufacturers do that to make their models more appealing to a large crowd. In fact, Accurail generally try to find prototypes that are close enough to not be foobies and generally, their paint schemes are accurate and based on real-life examples.

This is interesting since from that, I can guess the URTX-Erie paint scheme isn't a fabrication, but probably a real thing. However, finding the real prototype cars specification is quite hard. As far as I can tell, the Accurail car represent a reefer built circa 1936. The big question is did Erie still leased reefers in the early 1950s. If yes, were the cars repainted during that period of time. My guess is yes. I have many reason to believe an updated paint scheme wouldn't have mentionned "Ventilated Refrigerator" as this expression was no longer used by railroads by the 50s. Also, the way the dimension data is spelled is quite archaic.

So basically, my questions are:

Did Erie leased or owned reefers in the early 1950s?

If yes, what type of reefer was it (wood, steel, etc.)? Which prototype?

What was the paint scheme or did Accurail's paint scheme survived until then?

Any reference to specific ORER information would be valuable.

Modelling Early Erie Steel Boxcars

An interesting part of Erie's boxcar fleet was their early steel designs which roamed the rails for many decades. They could be tricky to model, requiring extensive kitbashing, but fortunately, within acceptable means we can build them without loosing insanity. The funny thing is decal companies have made many Erie boxcar decals or dry transfer, but focussing solely on the unavailable oddballs.

Fortunately, a few years ago, Dan Hanley ran a 4-part article in Model Railroad Hobbyist (April 2013) to describe how one could recreate a few of the iconic prototypes. I'm certainly not interesting in going to such lenght as casting my own resin cars, but his articles provide enough data to understand the fleet, its history and particularities.

Among Erie's particular choices were Chicago-Cleveland radial roofs, Buckeye ends and Viking roods. I'm certainly not an Erie fan by choice, but it is essential to capture this diversity to better represent the typical Erie freight consist. The most interesting boxcars are all fall into the 75000-76999 series. All steel, 40ft long, with various heights ranging from 8'-8" to 9'-4", they had character.

While I'm completely open to the idea of scratchbuilding Buckeye ends and alter significantly available models, a few readily available models are already on the market and can serve our goal efficiently.

Atlas ARA 1932 Boxcar (credit: Atlas Model Railroad)

The first model is Atlas ARA 1932 boxcar design. This model sports all the correct details for an Erie prototype and capture the flavour of this railroad. Modification aren't required, except if you buy the version with the yellow Erie Diamond logo, which should have been white on these cars. The paint scheme could also be altered to represent the modern Large Diamong logo instead. However, don't buy any Atlas ARA 1932 since they all vary in details according to specific roads. Stick with the ones clearly identified as Erie.

TLT CPR Minibox (credit: True Line Trains)

The second model is quite interesting since it brings us back to 1929, in the all steel boxcar infancy. Back then, very few railroads embraced the new concept put forward by the proposed ARA 1923 40ft boxcar design. Among the pioneers, Canadian Pacific built its famous home variation called the "Minibox". These cars had radial roof and early Dreadnaught ends. However, the sill had tabs and side steel plates were assembled in such a way it eliminated the ARA 1923 flaw of trapping water and rusting.

Fortunately, Erie had almost similar cars equipped with the same roof and ends. However, Erie built them with the infamous straight sill. It thus could be possible to use True Line Trains own's Minibox  plastic car as a starting point and bashing the straight sill. Also, some minor alterations could improve the likeless of Erie's Dreadnaught ends which were marginally different. While not 100%, this model would be both almost pinpoint on overall dimensions and details.

Red Caboose PRR X29 with Dreadnaught ends (credit: Intermountain Railway)

The third option would be to use the old Trains Miniature (Walthers) 40ft steel boxcar with Dreadnaught ends. This is the famoust PRR X29 design. Starting with a Red Caboose kit could also be a better investment in term of quality and prototypicalness. Only the car with Dreadnaught ends would be suitable. Bashing the radial roof would be the biggest challenge, but the straight sill would be "correct". Think of this option as another way to replicate what could be done with the CPR Minibox. It's a matter of choosing your fight! A radial roof could be made in styrene, then cast in resin for ease of replication. I believe it is somewhat easier to alter a Minibox tabbed sill than tackle a fully kitbashed radial roof. However, it ain't that much hard to do with sheet styrene.

To be noted, another easy bash is using Intermountain AAR 1937 (IH 10') boxcar and replacing the roof with a Viking one. Minimal alterations would make it an excellent car to model without efforts.

As you can see, it is quite feasible to build a decent Erie early steel boxcars without reinventing the wheel. Depending your interested in Erie, feel free to you to follow Dan Hanley and go full kitbashing. However, it is nice to see a large array of interesting cars can be modelled with relative ease.

GARX 37ft Wood Reefers

Some of our decisions seem stupid when rated in term of efficiency. In this case, rebuilding Varney and Life-Like wood reefers as GARX refrigerator cars may sound foolish, and to some extent it is. However, simply judging a project value – particularly in the case of a hobby – from this perspective is brush over many layers of relevance.

Styrene, paper and brass...

The project started when I found out the general proportions of these models were a good match for 37ft meat reefers - a common lenght for decades in the packing industry - an idea found on Tony Thompson's blog. I had two cars, plenty of trucks and freight car parts that could be used to bring them to life. Dry transfer lettering is also a cheap and convenient commodity. Thus, my mind sought to find a way to make decent models out of them. My guess was that following prototype pictures and Rapido’s own meat reefer official artwork would yield acceptable results. Little did I know that I would venture in quite a quest.

Individually carved wood planks with bolts and wood grain.

Certainly, I can affirm a lot of work was involved. At the end of the day, only the car sides and ends were kept. Grabirons, stirrups, roof and hatches, brake gear and underframe were removed altogether, including door hinges. Someone could argue I would have been better to scratchbuild the damn thing from scratch and save myself a lot of tedious and unrewarding work. That’s probably true… However, I had to use several different techniques and skills to get the results I wanted. This kind of learning will be useful on other more worthy models. Practice makes perfect they say, and you can’t skip that step – even if it may look petty – if you wish to be a better craftman.

I didn't count the exact time it took to upgrade the models, but it certainly occupied me with quality leisure time for a few weeks. At each day, I looked at the models and decided which little detail I wanted to build or improve, taking my time to do the job right.

Correct underframe and brake detail, improved door hinges

This is probably becoming a leitmotiv here on Harlem Station, but I certainly believe working on a small and manageable prototype gives you the opportunity to progressively improve your skills and redo things better as required. On a large layout or project, the imperative of simply trying to complete the project makes it impossible to go back and redo or improve things. The show must go on…

If my explanation isn’t clear enough, think about it in terms of digital video encoding. If you only use a one-pass algorithm, you’ll get a somewhat acceptable result. But as you make a second and a third pass, fluidity and sharpness greatly improve. Depending of your goal, it can or cannot fit your aspiration. But if you want to learn skill and reach excellence in your modelling, this could be a good way.

In my case, I’ll continue to upgrade older freight cars, as they are an excellent way to improve oneself and spend some quality leisure time.

Reefer Colors in the Acrylic Era

Finding the right color for freight car can be a real pain, and I'm not talking about the intricacies about boxcar red.

One of the worst color for me so far as been to find a correct orange reefer in acrylics. I've looked at many conversion charts and I'm certainly full of doubts, particularly for FGE and SFRD refrigerators cars of my era (late 40s-early 50s). While I've seen paint labelled as Orange Reefer, many modellers aren't convinced of their accuracy.

Actual pictures show us FGE reefers were kind of light orange closer to a dark harvest yellow than pumpkin orange. The same could be said about SFRD cars, which always have a kind of yellowish color though it seems FGE and SFRF had their own specific paint color.

Among suggested color, Microscale suggest Gunze Sangyo #109 Character Yellow as a substitute for Floquil PFE LightOrange. They even suggest Humbrol #18 Orange, which is quite a saturated orange shade a little bit over the top for SFRD reefers.

While many manufacturers now offer "Reefer Orange", I'm not that much inclined in testing a few of them only to be disappointed. Not all reefers were born equal and I'm pretty sure painting these cars is much more than just spraying some random stuff out of the bottle.

Thus, if anybody have suggestion on acrylic paints that can be airbrushed and suitable for FGE and SFRD car, feel free to comment. In the past, I wouldn't have minded and mixed my own custom color. However, as I'm building several cars at different moment, I'm not eager to have huge discrepancies among the fleet.

Edit: Reading again articles by Tony Thompson and others, it seems SP Daylight Orange would be a close match for PFE Light Orange reefers. Only need to find a correct color for the SFRD cars.

Kitbashing Erie 37500 Series Gondola - Part 2

Everyday we learn a new thing – at least we should – and modelling is probably a good teacher in that regard. While working on my pair of Erie 37500 series gondola I got a lesson where I expected it the less.

As a starting point, I’m using the old Roundhouse 40ft gondola. Some will object it’s a crude model by today’s standards but details are crisp and the number of panel fit the Erie prototype I’m trying to replicate. Certainly, there are some discrepancies in length, but this high side gondola fits decently the bill. My approach is to make it more credible by installing wire iron grabs, A-line metal stirrups, improving the braking gear, replacing the trucks, thinning down some section profiles and redetailing the bare interior. In short, it’s a typical rolling stock improvement project that should take a few evenings to complete at a leisure pace.

The problem arose when I made a new steel deck with hand-punched rivet details. I was quite proud of my work and thus decided to glue it on the bottom of the gondola. My first idea was to simply secure the bottom with a few drops of CA glue, however, the rivet punch process slightly warped the thin styrene sheet and I was afraid this could impeded the bond. Thus, I decided to simply brush a generous amount of solvent-based glue on the gondola and cement permanently the new deck. At this point, all was fine.

However, on the next evening, I found out the car sides had badly warped toward the interior and by a large margin. Using my hand, I carefully pressed the warped parts outward by applying a certain amount of force. I thought the sides were affected by the glue bond at the perimeter of the new deck… But imagine my surprise when the next day, the car sides were once again badly curving inside. Not only that, but now the deck itself was sagging the middle. It didn’t take long to find out the problem. The gondola bottom had warped significantly due to the solvent used to cement the new deck. When I installed the metal underframe, it no longer sat on the plastic shell but rocked on the curved bottom impeding the trucks movements. Big problem!!!

What happened was a simple and well-known phenomenon. When laminating two different materials, they have a tendency to warp when both have different characteristics. Generally, the process takes some time and is gradual. In my case, the generous use of solvent softened the plastic to the point that when materials hardened and cured in the following hours, their different rates of contraction created a disaster. The result was predictable to some extent, but little did I know a 1 mm bulge would manifest itself in such a spectacular way.

At this point, I was able to straighten the gondola sides. However, the only practical solution to repair the warped bottom - which should be better described as a belly - was to shave down the bulge with a chisel. It surprisingly went well, but it certainly didn’t address how badly warped the steel deck look. If it was a wooden gondola, I wouldn’t care since these cars were generally badly warped and sagging in old pictures. Unfortunately, steel cars generally keep their shape better.

From there, I had two options: try to fix up the deformation or simply cutoff the car bottom and replace it with a brand new one. In both case, it was a question of releasing the built up stress in the plastic. While at first I was leaning toward a full reconstruction, my long experience with resin figure garage kits kicked in. I plugged the hairdryer, set it to maximum heat, and applied evenly the hot hair on the car. I made sure to soften the plastic until it was malleable but was carafully enough so details start to molten. I didn't keep track of time, but it was less than a minute. When the car was soft enough to be reshape, I put it bottom up on a flat surface and gently pressed down the belly uniformally. When the shape was restored, I kept pressure until the plastic hardened again. As expected, the gondola sides straighened and the bulge disappeared once for all.

24 hours later, both cars were still keeping their shape thus I resumed the redetailing process. I was also a good occasion to address will laziness toward molded on ladders. At first, I'd planned to remove them, then decided to keep the ladder and save myself a tedious task. But after all the effort put on the cars, it was silly to still keep clunky ladders. I heard the voice of reason, took my chisel blade and scrapped off the unwanted details.

While I was able to repair my horrible mistake, I've learned my lesson. Next time I face a similar challenge, I will superficially glue the new deck with non-solvent based cement to eliminate altogether the risk of warping. I’m certainly not proud of myself for what initially seemed to be a well done job. Once again the old rule applies: use as little glue as needed. 

For some reason, we have a tendency to believe styrene is a stable material compared to wood or cardboard, but this is far to be true. Styrene (and other plastics) is surprisingly  vulnerable to warping and I've seen more than my share of projects going awry in a matter of days or weeks.

But enough about mistakes... The rest of the project was relatively straight forward, involving a new Accurail gondola brake apparatus, retainer valve and details from Tichy and a Kadee brakewheel. I went as far as adding the fulcrum and installing a bracket for a cut lever. Also, riveted steel straps were added inside the wall of the car as it did exist on some gondola. It was to reinforce the impression this is a real steel car and not a one piece injection-molded shell.

The goal is simple, these cars, even if they are prototypically accurate should at least have the same level of detail as a Proto 2000 or an Intermountain car. My reasoning being discrepancies in details are much more noticeable than overall accuracy. The model should look like a real car and have the basic features. From that point on, sky is the limit.

Kitbashing Erie 37500 Series Gondola

An so the endless waltz of car roster improvements starts with two old gondola to be bashed as close as possible to Erie prototypes. The idea is not to make exact replica, but to put enough efforts so the models can be credible. I've bought sets of dry transfer from Clover House suitable for Erie 37500 series. These cars were initially built as drop bottom gondolas until they were later rebuilt with fixed floor. While I've been lucky enough to find as built picture of Erie cars, my search for rebuilt car wasn't rewarded by any significant results. For more information, Ronald Dukarm wrote a short but informative story about these cars on railfan.net.

For this reason, I ask any reader that can point me decent sources of information about these particular cars to contact me. Many books and publications about Erie cars have been released over the years, but sometimes, it can be quite hard to find out particular prototypes when you have very little information about them except length, road numbers and sparse details.

In fact, I'll have to build (or rebuild) many boxcars and gondolas following Erie practices. Thus, I'm quite open to acquire relevant books/magazines on these subjects. However, I'm not that much familiar with Erie and would prefer to purchase books based on educated suggestions. Factual data over nostalgic books would be better. For the boxcars, Don Hanley's excellent series of articles in Model Railroad Hobbyist back in 2013 is an excellent starting point. I certainly would love to have better information on gondolas.

Setting Up JMRI & New Discoveries

Work on Harlem Station recently resumed. I’m mainly motivated in finally implementing JMRI Operations on this layout to create automated switch lists. While the learning curve is quite steep, the software itself has a lot of potential, particularly for such a terminal.

Setting up a credible operating plan isn’t as easy as one could think even if this layout is rather small. It is quite a busy place and space is at premium. It quickly becomes a real issue when you run a few passes with JMRI and see how the car moves on the property.

As a matter of fact, most of you know I set the layout date to 1952. It is mainly based on information found in an article about Harlem Station that ran in Erie Railroad Magazine that specific year. It provides a list of customers and commodities handled by the terminal, which is premium information to start building a decent switch list.

But nothing is ever simple or straight forward with Harlem Station and I’m still struggling with the track plan even if I’m studying this terminal since 2010 (it’s been 7 years!). Erie Railroad Magazine mention there is 10 sidings for a total of 55 cars that can be handled. But on my layout, I’ve got about 13 sidings that can hold more than that. What’s the problem? Where did I mess up?

The answer is simple, but finding it required to study a lot of old pictures, most of them bad reproductions of printed material. To booth, some parts of the yard are seldom photographed, probably due to accessibility and the fact most photographers prefer to shoot locomotives. Add to that the fact I’ve never been in New York of my life, the prototype no longer exist and I’m stuck with limited access to primary and secondary sources… no wonder it’s so hard to piece up the puzzle.

Let’s identify every siding on the layout with a number in order of succession from the car float pontoon to the yard lead:

01 - Short coal siding near the pier and parallel to East 149^th Street

02 - Short siding to the pier on Harlem River

03 - Long siding parallel to the car float

04 - Long siding to the concrete loading ramp

05 - Long siding superposed to the freight shed/thawing shed up to the concrete loading ramp

06 - Siding #1 to gantry crane

07 - Siding #2 to gantry crane

08 - Siding #3 to gantry crane

09 - Very short siding parallel to Exterior Street

10 - Long siding parallel to Exterior Street

11 - Siding #1 to freight house

12 - Siding #2 to freight house

13 - Long siding between Freight House and gantry crane

Then let’s clarify some things about the different structures at Harlem Station. From now on I’ll call “Freight House” the large brick and concrete structure standing near Exterior Street. This is the office and it acts as the defacto “station”. The gantry crane was standing on the property, on the same spot, from day one until the terminal closed down under Erie Lackawanna tenure. The concrete loading ramp also seems to have been there since the beginning too.

Now, let’s tackle the freight shed/thawing shed issue. This is the long wood structure built by the concrete ramp and a lot of speculation exists about it. Without much fanfare, here are my findings. Reminder: please bear in mind most historic Harlem Station pictures aren’t in the public domain and by respect to their owner, I won’t publish anything. This freight shed is not an original building. On pictures shot in 1929 and 1932, even if not clear, the shed doesn’t show up. In the 1932 one, it is particularly clear two sidings run parallel up to the concrete ramp (sidings #04 and #05. My layout is based on that design and while not very accurate, the 1928 Sanborn Map do show the big freight house, the pontoon and what seem to be a structure over siding #09 (I wouldn’t be surprised this short siding used to be an engine house similar to the one standing at the adjacent CNJ Bronx Terminal.) However, no trace of the long freight shed which would have caught attention of people surveying the area.

The next piece of evidence is the 1942 Bromley Map which clearly depict the long freight shed built over what used to be siding #05. In fact, that siding is still – partially? – in place and run up to the shed wall. The next photo evidences are from circa 1951. At that point, we have relatively good shots of the shed.  While we can clearly see the turnout leading to siding #05 is still in place, there is not enough space to spot a car in front of the shed. Interestingly, a large pair of door exists on the end wall has if cars could have been shoved into the building. This is probably what lead peoples to propose – as an unverified hypothesis – it could have been a thawing shed for coal hoppers. While this idea would be great and logical, this is not my conclusion after carefully analyzing the architectural feature of that structure.

It must be noted the end doors, while sufficiently tall to clear a freight car, aren’t large enough. Also, some 1950s pictures clearly show a wooden platform serving that door with delivery trucks. This is further confirmed by the presence of a floor inside the structure. If I could describe it better, I’d say the freight shed was built over a wood platform erected on concrete bases. The presence of that platform or floor can be attested on every picture showing the freight shed. Thus, it would have been impossible to shove cars inside the structure. Finally, on some picture, it is clear siding #05 is buried in dirt and used by trucks to access the freight shed loading dock. All these evidences – combined with the fact the shed bear very little architectural resemblance to real thawing shed – proves it was a freight shed probably built to supplement lack of storage space at Harlem Station. It seems sacrificing a siding was less important than getting additional warehousing capacity. Thus, it is not a mystery this structure disappeared circa 1957 when the freight house was substantially enlarged. Since many sidings were removed at that time and the wooden freight shed was redundant, siding #05 was put back in service again.

Now, some people will ask what happened with siding #05 when the freight shed was built. My educated guess is the siding was left there and the structure built over it. There was little incentive to remove the track and maps and photos all agree the turnout and rails were still in place when the freight shed was still standing. This is interesting because it could indicate the freight shed was a temporary measure and Erie didn’t thought it was required to remove the track since they could be used later. It should also be noted the freight shed was quite a hastily-built structure clearly not made to last a long time.

But how all that new information impact the layout is interesting because it helps to understand the discrepancies between Erie Railroad Magazine description and my track plan. So let’s see things through new lenses.

Clearly, the sidings referenced by the 1952 article could be #01, #02, #03, #04, #06, #07, #08, #10, #11, #12 and #13. But that brings the count up to 11. Certainly #05 didn’t count since it was buried under the freight shed and unserviceable at that time. #09 was very short and all photographic evidences (including aerial photos) show this track was not accessible by road vehicle (no concrete pad, no dirt road and no grade crossing). It seems it was only used as an extra off spot car storage (some pictures show a car spotted there), maybe still used as an engine track from time to time. Unfortunately, is it hard to tell what was the last siding omitted. All of the remaining ones were actives and used to load and unload cars. My first idea was that one of the very short sidings at the pier (#01 and #02) was omitted. But both had a road access and were in use. Even the shortest one did hold two hopper cars for Miranda Coal. Could siding #01 have been only a storage track for Miranda since it would have been hard to unload a car there into a truck? I can’t tell, but on aerial photographs, there is a hint of a small concrete pad build against 149^th Street retaining wall. Anyway, there is no trace of coal handling at siding #02, confirming that commodity was unloaded on siding #01.

Then could it be that siding #02 was used only to hold extra cars even if it was perfectly accessible by truck? It could be. After all, a 1957 photo shows a loaded PRR coal hopper left there but in a spot that couldn’t be used for unloading purpose. Also, cars are seldom seen spotted on siding #02. A set of picture shot there in 1951 show a boxcar on the pier while the locomotive is picking up and setting out cars on the car float while a color picture from 1955 show a flatcar hastily left on the siding in similar conditions. This brings me to think this track could have been used as extra space when sorting out cars. It is perfectly located for the task and can be used to store extra cars the rest of the time. It would have been really handy and if required, it could have been used as an extra spot on demand.

Thus, I can now affirm with a decent level of certainty the ten sidings used by customers (this precision is critical) back in 1952 were #01, #03, #04, #06, #07, #08, #10, #11, #12 and #13. Erie Railroad Magazine mentioned the terminal could handle 55 cars at once which, incidentally, is exactly the capacity JMRI computed for my layout. This, I feel, is a great achievement.

Thus, I reach the conclusion of my research. Certainly I could go further, but the hours invested wouldn’t probably pay off in term of enjoyment. The layout is as accurate as can be with the data I can reasonable gather. At this point, continuing the search would divert resources, time and money that would better be invested directly on the layout. Such efforts would be to scratchbuild the freight shed and modify (or replace) the Walthers car float so it has only 2 tracks and a center platform as it used to be the rule on Harlem River. This would bring the maximum of cars brought to the terminal at 12.

According to 1951 Erie statistics, about 1800-1900 cars were handled that year. With a 6-day per week schedule, it would be an average of 6 cars per day, which is consistent with period photographs which show about 6 to 7 cars on the float. Doing so would reduce the exhausting workload generated by JMRI (16 cars per carfloat) and help alleviate the layout saturation with cars. This little detail as caused many car routing issues due to the impossibility to find open spot. And we must keep in mind that with an average of 32 moves per sessions, at about 3 minutes per move, operating the layout can take over 90 minutes which seems to be a little bit over the top if it happens to often. On the other hand, an average of 6 cars brings the session length to a comfortable 35 to 45 minutes, which I consider optimal to ensure the crew isn’t exhausted and isn’t bothered taking time to operate as prototypically as possible.

Finally, another aspect that JMRI brought forward was how often cars come back on the layout even with more than 60 cars on the roster. It became almost a joke after building several virtual trains. At some point, many cars were in and out at every session to the point suspension of disbelief was no longer working. It means three things: bringing the number of car per train lower will reduce the need to feed cars onto the layout, fine tuning the schedules will be required so cars won’t magically appear the next session when they should be traveling thousands of miles  and the roster will need to be buffed up. This last item isn’t truly an issue since I have many cars in my stash that could make great modelling projects. The diversity of rolling stock handled by terminal such as Harlem Station is also a great opportunity to learn better about railroading all over North America.

By the way, I’d like to point out I’ve been using OPSIG customers lists [ML1] to bring life to my layout by using real life customers for the layout. It certainly isn’t required, but felt it brought a sense of purpose to the layout. Isn’t it great to know that specific reefer is loaded with Carnation Milk from that plant or this Bronx based waste paper broker sell is stuff to a large paper mill in upstate NY? No need to go in great details, but knowing a few real customers of Harlem Station, the commodities handled and the roadname of cars seen on photographs really helped to shape a credible and immersing world.

In Search of... Erie Railroad Magazine February 1952 Issue

The title being quite obvious, I'm looking for Erie Railroad Magazine's February 1952 issue which had a detailed article about Harlem Station property and operation. Many websites and later articles about the Erie 149th Street Terminal refer to this article, but while trying to figure out the tenants, it has become quite obvious each author has its own interpretation of the facts. To be blunt, there are a lot of discrepancies and available historical photographs paint a slightly different pictures.

So, I need some help to locate a printed or scanned version of that precious article since it is directly related to the layout era.

One of the main reason I need the article is to locate precisely Harlem Station tenants so I can devise a somewhat accurate way to operate the layout.

My target era would be 1952 or 1955 though I prefer 1952 since the thawing shed was still standing and the Erie Railroad Magazine gives a lot of information about that specific year.

Tentative location of tenants

If you have any information about the tenants, let me know. As far as I can tell, I've been able to locate the following tenants precisely:

-Bay Transportation trucks were generally found near the freight house, particular on the north side near 150th Street.

-Eastern Carloading trucks can be seen on the south side of the freighthouse.

-Victory Coal trucks are located near Eastern Carloading. More on Victory Coal later.

-The crane company used the concrete ramp and the west siding under the gantry crane (booms were transported on gondolas). Some people identified the crane company as Gerosa, but I wasn't able to positively find evidence of that name on pictures.

-Consumer's Coal used to be located on the siding located near the apron and carfloat. It isn't clear if they also were the company that used the siding near the thawing shed but that could be possible.

-Jerome Fuel was located on Consumer's Coal siding but near the turnout according to a mid-1950s photo showing their office shed under construction. However, according to Erie Railroad Magazine, they were already a tenant.Unfortunately, I don't know where they were located back in 1952 and 1951 statistics state it was the largest customer served at Harlem Station!

-Gassman Coal was located exactly where Consumer's Coal was. The change visibly happened at the same time Jerome Fuel became a tenant. It should also be noted that some New York City documents online indicate Gassman Coal used to sell Victory Coal. Thus, could it be Gassman was already a tenant and relocated at Consumer's Coal spot later?

-Mirandi (or Miranda) Coal was a tenant in 1952 but I can't locate it on photographs. However, I know the short siding on the pier handled coal hoppers and a small office and scale house stood there. Unfortunately, no sign is visible on pictures, but that would be a likely spot.


-Adolf Gobel is also indicated as a future tenant but it's hard to know where it was located. However, almost every reefer cars are spotted in front of the freight house.

-National Carloading was also another tenant, but I don't know their exact spot. They could have used another siding located east of the freighthouse. As a matter of fact, it seems boxcars used to be spotted on the eastern side of Harlem station while hoppers, flatcars and gondolas were handled on the western side.

-Finally, Harlem Station also dealt with wine. Some pictures of Harlem River show carfloat with Chateau Martin reefers, thus I guess it was the same kind of traffic that was handled at Harlem Station. However, I have absolutely no idea if the cars were spot sensitive or not.

Thawing Coal Shed and Customers

A lingering mystery about Harlem Station is the coal shed that used to stand near the loading ramp. This narrow and long structure would be quite easy to model, but photographic and graphical evidences clashes.

The thawing coal shed can be seen on the right side.

1951, Track Planning for Realistic Operation, 2nd edition, John Armstrong
Kalmbach Publishing

According to some maps (in fact, most of them), the coal shed – often identified by railfans as a thawing coal shed – was built on top of a track. It would mean coal hoppers we pushed under the structure. Photographs also show there was indeed two tracks leading to the ramps thought only one is visible on the Harlem River side of the shed.

My biggest concern is about the shed itself. If a track was under it, how the building structure was made. The pictures let me believe there was some kind of raised floor on each sides of the track, but it would make little sense to have one.... How would such a building be put in use?

Feel free to comment with your favorite theory, or to clarify my understanding of that neat structure in Harlem. I’m pretty sure someone got some knowledge of similar coal shed covering a track. Edit: While information abound about modern thawing sheds, older ones are less documented. According to several sources, the heating process was done by torching or with steam pipes. We can already exclude the later since Harlem Station didn't had any sizeable boiler room that could have supplied enough steam (except if something comes up).

By the way, as I’m planning to develop the operation concept for the layout, I’m searching for customers that used to be served by Erie’s Harlem Station back in the 1950s, more exactly in 1952. I already have on hand a list of names, but except for a few obvious ones in pictures (Gassman Coal, Jerome Fuel), but others are harder to locate since they didn’t have billboard on the property. Among them are, tentatively, Mirandi Coal (?), Victory Coal, Consumer’s Coal, Bay Transportation, National Carloading, Eastern Trucking and a company dealing with construction equipment (cranes in particular). Any glimpse of information would be appreciated. I have no knowledge about Erie’s archives, but under normal circumstances, papers and scale drawings of the property should survive with indications about tenants and their location.