The questions posed about whether or not Southern's wood racks went off line
jiggled a memory (now perish THAT thought!). It's likely they didn't go off
line much as they were captive (generally) between wood yards and a paper
mill in that area. However, there is a photo in one of the Clinchfield in
Color books showing a going-away shot of a Geep towing a string of empty
Virginian wood racks.
While living in Virginia in the 80s, I frequently traveled east to shoot the
N&W around Crewe, stopping at the N&W/SR interchange in Burkeville. It was
quite common to see loaded SR wood chip hoppers sitting in the N&W portion
of the yard awaiting pickup by the SR local for forwarding to a huge paper
plant east of Richmond at West Point, VA.
There are just two minor examples of off-road situations. Would a Southern
car be seen in Canada or Oregon? Probably not. But the AAR banned K-brakes
from interchange around 1951-52, which is what spurred SR to rebuild 4150+
boxcars (maybe some gons) into these cars instead of rehabbing their fleet
of ex-steel underframe wood racks that had K brakes. So, if these cars
weren't meant for interchange somewhere, why go to all that effort?
Variety is a good thing on any layout, even if you do nothing more than have
the car pass thru on a train or plopped on an interchange track. You can
always make up a story that a customer (either a wood yard or paper mill)
has reached a deal with SR to supply cars because they were easier to get
than another road's cars due to availability or price.
You don't have to model the Southern to justify a pulpwood car. And, no,
the SHS bulkhead flat is not a wood rack with a V-deck. It's a flat car
with ends. Totally different animal.
Jim King
Smoky Mountain Model Works, Inc.
www.smokymountainmodelworks.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> 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/
