Author Topic: Locomotive lettering.  (Read 94141 times)

Ed Lecuyer

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Locomotive lettering.
« on: September 15, 2010, 08:07:04 PM »
MODERATORS NOTE:
Locomotive lettering. has been converted from the pre-July 2008 WW&F Discussion Forum.
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sgprailfan wrote:
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I have noticed that in a handful of photos I have seen of WW&F Ry locomotives they do not say WW&f Ry on them am I missing some thing?

ETSRRCo replied:
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For a period of the WW&F's life they did not letter their locomotives. I could not tell from when to when but I do know that the lettering returned a few years before the railroad closed. As to why they did not letter them I do not know. Someone who knows more will be able to fill in the blanks.

-Eric

sgprailfan replied:
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What about #2 & #3?

ETSRRCo replied:
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Same thing. Every locomotive did not have lettering at the same point and time as the others. From looking through "Narrow Gauge in the Sheepscot Valley volume V" it looks like the 2 lost her lettering in the early 1910's. It reappeared in the early 30's along with her number plate. The 3 I would think lost the lettering at the same time and it also received the small lettering in the early 30's.

Stewart Rhine replied:
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Locomotive lettering follows economic conditions and ownership change.  Ownership changes occured when the W&Q became the WW&FRR in 1901 and then became the WW&FRy in 1907.  We know that Carson Peck had the older locomotives repainted and relettered when engines 6 and 7 arrived from Baldwin.  As the company's income declined, painting and lettering became less inportant.  The Peck interests sold the railroad to the farmers group which later sold it to Frank Winter.  That is why the painting and lettering of locomotives is not consistant.  As Eric said, the newer, smaller lettering appeared in the early 1930's.

Stewart

sgprailfan replied:
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The reason why I was asked when I in the first place is because I would like to try and Model two locomotives like WW&F 2 & 3 for my Fictunal (On30) Private Roadname The Forney Creek Railway! If they were unletered when built I would make my Forney Creek Lcomotives Unletered and ta da.. WW&F locomotives when ever I need them!

James Patten replied:
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I'm not terribly enamored of the small tank lettering of the '30s, which is what we currently have on our engines.  It reminds me of a poor, nearly broken down railroad, which doesn't want its name proclaimed too loudly.

The lettering from the oughts and teens, however, is more my style: big lettering taking up half the tank.  This says to me we're a proud, moderately well-off railroad and we want the world to know it.

#10 before it underwent its rebuild had the big lettering.  Now it has the small lettering, mainly because I couldn't find the template I used to create the large lettering in the first place.  It was a lot of work to create, and I don't really want to do it again.

Stewart Rhine replied:
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James,   I could not agree with you more.  I was the one who painted the small lettering on #10 when it arrived in 1999 but I prefer the large letters that you painted on her later.  I have many photos of #10 with the "stacked" large letters and she looks better.  Since #10 is not an original WW&F  locomotive I think we should paint her with the large letters when the new tender is built.  I would be willing to do the job if she can hold still long enough.  Of course # 9 only had the small 1930's lettering so she will get the correct version when the tender is repaired.  The small lettering on there now is actually the wrong font and size.

Stewart

sgprailfan replied:
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I know this is not completly on topic but also for future modeling refrence, How did the  ww&f (and the w&Q) number there rolling stock( boxcars flatcars etc)?

James Patten replied:
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Not sure what you mean by your question, sqprailfan.  Do you mean where on the cars did the numbers go, or how they figured out what numbers to use?

sgprailfan replied:
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How they figured out what numbers to use, I can figure out where they went on a car by looking at the rolling stock at the museum. Sorry about that.

James Patten replied:
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In general, here's how the numbers were applied:

100 series cars were the flatcars
200 series cars were the snowplows (or the flangers)
300 series cars were the boxcars and cabooses
400 series cars were flangers (or the snowplows)
500 series cars were potato cars.

Passenger cars started at 1 and went up to 7.  Then they redid the numbers to be 1-4 to be combination cars and 10-12 to be coaches.

sgprailfan replied:
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Thanks, wait  a second patato cars? Were they like Ventilated Box cars?

James Patten replied:
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The 500-series cars were boxcars with smokejacks on the roof.  They were also wider than the other boxcars.

The refrigerated milk cars were apparently selected at random from all over the fleet and modifed.  They didn't have refrigeration equipment, of course, but they were insulated and had room for an attendant to ride along.

There were other double digit cars, of which some were boxcars and some were flats, which I believe came from the construction company building the line from Weeks Mills to Winslow.

Joe Fox replied:
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I noticed that up in Phillips they have a hose on one of the box cars. Well, it looks like a box car, except it has two little sliding opening on the end of the car. I don't know the technical term for it, but I was told it might have been used for heat, but I think it was a vacumn brake hose. What do you guys think?

Joe

ETSRRCo replied:
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If its a SR&RL box its probably an airbrake hose. The end doors were so the car could be used to haul grain I think. Box cars didnt have heat (with the exceptions of the potato cars).

-Eric
_________________
Eric Bolton
East Tigard & Southern Railroad Co 1889-1958

tomc replied:
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They were used to load lumber and maybe grain.  I think most grain in those days went in bags.

Tom C.

Joe Fox replied:
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That is what I thought it was, since it looks exactly like an air brake hose. When the SR&RL ran mixed trains, how did they heat the coaches, or  did they just not have heat?

Joe

Bill Sample replied:
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Joe, to the best of my knowledge all passenger cars and cabooses were heated by one or two stoves.  No steam heat from the locomotive until the Edaville era.
I believe the "Rangeley" at the MNGRR Portland was built with a Baker heater, which was a hot water heating system that included a stove with some sort of water jacket. Most or all of this remains intact today on that car.

Dave Crow replied:
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Peter Barney's book on the SR&RL passenger cars show that the Jackson & Sharp/AC&F passenger cars had Baker "Mighty Midget" stoves.  If you look on the Sandy River website, there is a shot of the underframe of coach 18, I beleive, that shows both air brake AND Eames vacuum brake systems!  What a mess.

Combine 6 on the WW&F originally had steam heat, but they quickly removed a seat and added a stove instead; maybe the heat wasn't adequate, or it took too much steam from the small boilers on the locomotives?

Dave Crow

Joe Fox replied:
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Thanks for the info. I wasn't sure that's all. Does anybody know if the Rangley still has the bathroom in it? I think it would be great if MNGRR would give tours through the Rangley.

Joe

James Patten replied:
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I believe the Rangely still has everything it had on the SR&RL.  I've been through it but didn't feel worthy enough to sit in the seats.

Joe Fox replied:
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Oh, how were you able to go through it James? Did you go in it when it was at Edaville?

Joe

James Patten replied:
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It was in 1999 when we were moving Coach 3 from deep inside the MNGRR museum building to the mainline before they trucked it up to Sheepscot.  We had to move the Rangely halfway outside and juggle some other cars around before we could get Coach 3 out.  It was a day and a half job.  At the end of the first day's work we got to walk through the Rangely.

My feeling of unworthiness probably stemmed more from the dirt on my pants and hands than from anything else.  I really wouldn't want to touch it with anything less than perfectly clean hands.

Joe Fox replied:
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Oh. That's cool. How did they do the switching then? I think our first time down to Portland, we walked through Coach 3. If so, I will have to find that tape, and put it with the rest of my W, W, & F Ry movies. Talk to you later.

Joe

James Patten replied:
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We did the switching using multiple 0-2-0's and sometimes with help from their loader.  We had to move the snap tracks all around and in tight curves and so it wasn't always easy.  I can't remember how we got the Rangely and Coach 3 to switch positions, but it involved fancy footwork.

Then once we got it out of the building it was a matter of the snap track keeping up with the forward motion of the coach, as it was a downhill run.

Joe Fox replied:
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That sounds like fun. Glad I wasn't in on that.

Joe

sgprailfan replied:
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I was looking at the picture of the flat car and I began to wonder if the first WW&F flats were painted the same way, or should I say W&Q??

MikeW replied:
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SR&RL Coach #17 also had a Baker hot water heat system.  The remnants of it can be seen in the car to this day.  In pictures of its later years while stil in use you can see the telltale housing on the roof on one end.

Keith Taylor replied:
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Joe,
It wouldn't be a vacuum brake on the SR&RL, they had Westinghouse air brakes. If you look at the drawings from Baldwin for the No. 23 locomotive, you can see it was built with an 8-1/2" single stage Westinghouse air compressor. While the No.9 still has it's Eame's patent vacuum brake equipment, that is ONLY for the locomotive. I don't believe the WW&F had power brakes on any of their rolling stock, but I'm sure those in the know will let us know if they did have automatic brakes on any of the cars.
The more modern power on the SR&RL all had air brakes.
If you follow the hose on the car at Phillips, it should be connected to a type K triple valve and a combination main and auxilliary reservoir and brake cylinder set up.
I can't imagine that any railroad anywhere ever ran steam heat lines through freight cars! And...all of the Maine Two Foot coaches I've seen all had individual car heating equipment.
Keith

Joe Fox replied:
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The coaches on the W, W, & F were all equiped with vacuum brakes. Or, I think that's what I remember reading in the book. Coach 3 still has it's vacuum hose on the east hand side of the car, and it goes right along near the edge of the car.

Joe

Keith Taylor replied:
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Hello Joe,
I don't doubt the W&Q coaches came with brake equipment, from everything I've read and heard, during the WW&F period, and particularly when used in "mixed" service, the brakes were not used all the time.
The problem is a vacuum system is much more difficult to maintain. If you have an air leak with with regular automatic (Westinghouse type) brakes, the compressor just pumps harder and it can make up the loss.
With a vacumm system the eductor can only draw so much vacuum, and there is steam loss all of the time to create and maintain a vacuum. If you have leaks, the eductor can't create more vacuum, so the brakes begin to apply serially along the train, from the point of the leak back.
In later days, even on passenger trains it was more practical to have the engineer whistle for brakes and the train crew tie down the train with hand brakes.
Vacuum brakes are actually an excellent system, but very labor intensive to maintain.
Keith

Joe Fox replied:
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How hard would it be to reinstall vacuum brakes on passenger equipment? Not that the museum would ever want to, but I am just curious, that's all.

Joe

Keith Taylor replied:
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Hi Joe,
I can't speak for the Museum, obviously, but I believe they fully intend to restore the vacuum brakes on No.9.
The NJ Museum of Transportaion has a complete Irish narrow gauge train that is equipped with vacuum brakes on the engine and passenger coaches.
Keith

James Patten replied:
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It looks like the spot where the vacuum pot would go is still in place underneath Coach 3.  I know Jason mentioned the possibility of installing vacuum equipment underneath the cars.

Joe Fox replied:
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Ok. Thanks

Joe

sgprailfan replied:
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It looks like the spot where the vacuum pot would go is still in place underneath Coach 3.  I know Jason mentioned the possibility of installing vacuum equipment underneath the cars.
What about the 8?

Joe Fox replied:
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Coach 8 never had vacuum brakes, due to it being an Edaville creation, and they didn't keep many, if any at all, vacuum brakes on the coaches. For example, the brake rigging was taken out of coach 3, and the hand brake rods were welded to prevent passengers from turning the brake wheels.  Somebody else, who knows more about the history of Edaville could tell you more than that. As far as I know, Coach 8 never ran with vacuum brakes, as Edaville didn't run with vacuum brakes. Talk to you guys later.

Joe
Ed Lecuyer
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