"arched windows"

Supposedly, the fixed window panes on these cars were arched. But from studying the pictures of Ward Kimball's car, his aren't. Instead, they have little quarter circles which could easily be mistaken for arched windows in the fuzzy details of pictures from 115-130yrs ago on which I've based these models. Their are no commercial plans for these cars...just miscellaneous info, much of which comes from folio sheets (basic info such as length, width, height) that are dated from when they were nearly 40 years old.

Since Ward's car still has the original style roof and is probably from the same plan, I'll guess that the windows were the same...at least in dimensions and details. One major difference is that I believe the DSP&P cars had end windows...the C&C/SP cars did not. I believe the South Park cars had them because I can see belt rails on one end of the ruins of #3 which Todd Hackett photographed in 2002...thank you Todd! (I doubt you'll ever read this, but your pictures have been invaluable to me!) Belt rails were frequently visible on wooden passenger cars...they were a cosmetic feature which covered the framing under the windows (and at the tops of the side trusswork). They look like armrests. If windows were sheathed over, the belt rail usually remains...but if no window ever existed, their is usually (or never) a belt rail. Ward's car doesn't have belt rails at the ends.

My sides are complete on the exteriors, minus the fascia which needs some styrene I've run out of and the name plate ovals. I've started the ends...and I'll probably go with rounded top doors as #3 had at the end of its life...while Ward's has square tops.




Yesterday, I visited Johnny's to see if they had any Thomas OO stuff on scale for Liam. They had an Emily set on sale...and I thought a bit about it (Emily is the Stirling Single of 1870...it has a single 8' or so driving wheel). I ultimately decided against it...for now at least. Last year they had an excellent special on Thomas stuff at this time. I walked away with $10 or so of stripwood and 3/32" thick "plywood" for starting Liam's large scale "trainset".

Here is a picture of a real Stirling Single which I took 2 years ago in England:


I cut some of the "plywood" into deck planking for Liam's first flat car, as well as cutting a few sills. This photo shows the scale of it alongside an On3 frame of the same car that I built 6 months ago. They are both models of the Colorado Central's 1872 23' long, 7' wide flat cars. Liam's trainset will have a Colorado Central 0-6-0 and a series of 1870s Colorado Central freight cars that are designed to survive his childhood (as will be the engine!). Lisa thinks the flat car looks huge, it is 20.3 times smaller than the real thing, while my On3 car is 48x smaller than the real thing.

Here are a few links to some Colorado Central goodies on the DPL WHC site...
Sometimes you have to refresh it several times to get the pictures to load...
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?20102201+CHS.J2201
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00301084+WHJ-1084
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00130075+C-75
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00130084+C-84
http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00130097+C-97

The Colorado Central is great because the cars were dinky. The early Rio Grande is great for the same reason...small cars and small engines look great on 2' radius LGB track. I plan to build him 2-4 locomotives...a Colorado Central 0-6-0, a Colorado Central 2-6-0 (which is actually bigger than many 2-8-0s) and possibly Rio Grande 2-4-0 and a dinky Rio Grande 2-6-0 (close in size to the 0-6-0). Some of the Rio Grande cars were only 14' and 17' long!?!