Freight Cars for the Connecticut River Set

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I've been remiss in posting progress shots of what I've been working on for a good while: the upcoming BLW/ZT Connecticut River Line set. Set in 1956, this will include locomotives from Boston & Maine, Central Vermont and Canadian Pacific all of which ran over the route of Paul Charland's upcoming Connecticut River line route. I've been working on freight cars, leaving locomotives to Max. Rick Franzosa has been the master and made the shapes and textures and some reskinning too. The goal is about 100 freight cars to go with the locomotives, representing a cross section of what was moving on the line at the time (and useful for just about any 1956 route, especially in the northeast and Canada). A heavy dose of Canadian cars are included, reflecting traffic patterns in the Connecticut River.

Lets start with flatcars:



The 40' Flatcar was the mainstay of B&M's flatcar fleet. I've shown it here with crates which could have housed a shipment of machines from Claremont or Springfield. They would have been seen in maintenance service too. The SAL and C&O cars were documented going to Claremeont. Inbound loads for Claremont included steel for the large Sullivan Mfg plant and poles, which might be destined for any team track. SAL originated a lot of them.

And here are some gondolas:



The B&O gondola was bringing steel to Sullivan Mfg in Claremont.



The Rutland car could be seen bringing Vermont marble to B&M points. With wood sides, they stood out in the 1950's. The Wabash gon was used to bring auto frames from Michigan to the Ford plant at Assembly Square, Somerville at B&M's Boston Terminal. Would have moved through White River Junction and through Canada. Rick is working on an auto frame load (not yet completed).

Also not yet completed, but close, are four B&M 40' steel drop bottom gondolas. They were seen all over, mostly in maintenance service, it seemed. In earlier years they were used a lot for delivering coal from warf to inland dealers.

Christopher

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Hopper cars for Bituminous coal for the mills along the route:

The dot on the B&O cars was applied to all cars with modern air brakes during the time of transition from what came before.
The PRR car is a new repaint on one of he new schemes the PRR tried in the mid fifties to replace it's traditional look. An attempt to fix or disguise its underlying problems with paint.

These three railroads each had massive fleets that could be found everywhere, especially in the northeast.

That first B&O car was spotted bringing coal to the International Shoe factory in Claremont NH. The other cars were all at Claremont as well. Coy Paper got B&O hoppers for their power plant. Other mills up and down the valley also received coal. Some arrived in N&W, WM and Berwind hoppers which are not included in this set.

This offset model is actually a new model for this set, thanks to Rick Franzosa.

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Anthracite Hoppers for the coal dealers on the route. Central New Jersey, Lehigh & New England and Reading

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Here is a CV hopper, mostly used for company service (coal and ash for steam engines, ballast and gravel for the right of way).

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B&M hoppers represented 7% of the cars on the B&M system in 1947. Off-line hoppers represented 8%. In the Connecticut River Valley there were less hoppers (many B&M hopper served the large sand and gravel pits of New Hamphire). Some coal was transloaded from ship in Boston and Portsmouth for inland customers, although this dropped off by mid-century. These cars were often seen in ballast and MOW service and seemed to be their main use in the Connecticut River Valley.

There were B&M USRA hoppers but they were confined to the steam era and were off the roster in 1956.