Hi Tom;
There was an article a few years ago in S Gaugian on the origins of the AF tank car. I recall the author determined it was probably an ACF tank car from the 1931 CBC (the source for many of the AF designs). The author noted that Gilbert designers appeared to have made an error in selecting the dimensions from the table with the drawing, resulting in a tank of the wrong proportions. The two I have on the layout are attached to AF frames that I bought at a show, already converted to scale by attaching a Stewart bolster over the AF truck mounting. The results are not right, but this was before the S Scale America/Des Plains cars were available. The key point on most tank cars is that the trucks must be both the correct distance from the end sill (usually 5 ft 6 in) AND centered under the tank saddles. Any other position tends to look wrong, and this is hard to do with the AF tank and frame. The ULTX design had longer end platforms than most other tanks, so the AF car is closer to that design in appearance than any other. The tank is a bit too long for it's diameter, so my plan involves shortening both the tank and the frame. Cutting off the end platforms to the open part and adding a new end sill and walkway should help the appearance a lot. Also cutting out the side walks between the tank saddles and and replacing with thinner material will give a general look of an ACF or ULTX tank while the Des Plains tanks are based on GATX design. Train Shed Cyclopedia has reprinted the tank car section of the 1931 CBC, so you can find the original drawing. Mainline Modeler published a drawing of the ULTX X-3 cars many years ago, and there is quite a bit of info on them on the Steam Era Freight Cars site at http://www.steamfreightcars.com/index.html At one point I scaled up a photo from that site to S to comapre with the AF car as a means of seeing how close it was to the X-3 design. Pieter Tom Baker wrote: You are taking up a thread I have long wondered about. In full knowledge that while the AF tanks are not excellent, they are good stand-ins until something better comes along. I believe they are somewhat larger than a 10,000 gallong car. Are they possibly 12,000 gallon cars? Pieter could you describe exactly how you altered them and what did you use for the frame? Tom The poll results are in....... To REPLY to the list, use REPLY ALL, to reply to the sender, use REPLY. I do NOT know if this works on all e-mail software, but it works on some of the most common ones. For those of you on DIGEST mode, all REPLY messages go to the list. Change your membership, change your message settings, use our CALENDAR, view shared files or photos, view the list archives, GO TO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
