Probably true of flour, whose fine particulates tend to clump and stick and lose themselves in handling, but a major use was grain loading to the mills, gradually replacing boxcars with grain doors; the three-bay PS-2 100T even more common for this purpose after they were introduced.
I couldn't resist one of the brass cars from Chuck Porter's collection which Jeff Madden was selling at St Louis, as I'd seen several of them sitting on Ken Zieska's railroad (not surprising, as it represents the industrial section of the Twin Cities with all its milling). O scale has had considerably more bounty in Airslides: in addition to brass imports, Ambroid/Quality Craft had a challenging wood kit with metal details (been there, done that), and American Standard--better known for truly excellent heavyweight passenger cars--offered a very fine kit for one with a choice of pre-lettered sides (done those, too, and have more kits on the shelf), and, last, Atlas came along with a ready-to-run quite satisfactory one in many different schemes. It is one of those very common semi-modern cars whose absence in S scale stands out; we can hope if Lionel is serious about new full-scale cars in their S scale line that Airslides will be among them (the Chinese already have the research and engineering from doing the Atlas in O scale, probably right in the same factory). I've already expressed the hope that PS-1's would be another obvious candidate (and which Lionel did very well in O scale) I have not come across an S scale models of the very-similar and largely contemporaneous ACF 70T twin covered hoppers, many of which had the characteristic open centers on the sides. I had almost missed the SHS converted USRA very early convered hoppers (bought a pair in the current sale); already had one of the Lehigh Valley kits for pretty much the same kind of car. Jace Kahn General Manager Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co. > The only Airslide car in S was an early NASG sponsored brass model. > > I suspect that the 70 ton PS-2 cars as produced by SHS were NOT commonly used > for grain, but for cement and mineral or chemical transportation. > > Pieter E. Roos > > > --- On Tue, 11/8/11, ctxmf74 <[email protected]> wrote: > > > --- In [email protected], > > "Bill Nielsen" <wrangler@...> wrote: > > > The flour was unloaded from the hopper cars and piped > > under the highway to the bakery. I remember seeing the > > hoppers as a kid, and noticing that some looked different > > (original Airslides). > > > The Maine Central had some covered hoppers used to > > carry wooden clothespins, although they were rebuilt from > > open offset side hoppers and had side extensions to increase > > the height of the car. Here's a picture of one: > > > > Hi Bill, I've seen photos of single bay airslides > > unloading at bulk flour facilities, I think they replaced > > the bagged flour in boxcar shipments in the 60s. Can't > > recall if anyone makes an S scale airslide model or kit? > > That clothes pin car is really neat. Do you have any > > idea where they sent the clothes pins and what the receiving > > industry might look like? > > Regards, DaveBranum [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: [email protected] [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/
