Experience, my eye!:angel: I have only 3 years ago become heavily interested in the Grande (read: obsessed, according to my wife), but I have many books, and a few favorite bookmarked sites.:shade: Here's my single most useful Grande book:
I have seen a video with the CTRN quad hoppers (with the white ends) on the SP over Soilder Summit in pre-UP Merger. I think it was one of the Charles Smiley videos. It was a unit train from memory - but the hoppers had the silver ribs, which is a scheme Trainworx hasn't done yet. They seem to be intermixed with the rest of the UP and DRGW hoppers these days - but isn't CTRN a UP reporting mark now anyway??? I've only ever seen the NORX bethgons, not the Thrall Hisides. There was an article in Railmodel Journal back in the 90's when the bethgons first appeared that had an Espee train of loaded NORX gons on BN trackage rights. Been a fan of the NORX scheme ever since and am working on a set of 20 deLuxe cars. Just wish they'd do another run! The PSCX trains seem to commonly have a mix of bethgons and hisides freely intermixed too. I was also told the SFIX gons (black with white ends too) ran over the Rio Grande from Utah and down into LA on the SP. Never seen any photos though, but it came from a good source.
Cross-posted from the DRGW Yahoo list: Obviously, after '97, NORX trains are routed via the Moffat. As for CTRN, I dunno if UP has that trademark, or uses those numbers, but it sure runs a lot of CTRN trains.
Red Caboose CSUX Ortner 5-Bay Hoppers A fixture on the Grande for many years. During the 1970s and 1980s, after the development of major new coal mining facilities, the Craig Branch went from being a sleepy and somewhat decrepit dead-end route into a major coal hauling route, with upgraded track. Much (all?) of the CSDU coal originated there. The branch would be fun to model. --Bryan Pfaffenberger Charlottesville, VA
How did I forget the Nixon loads?!? Yes--Colorado Springs Nixon Power Plant 25-40 miles south of CoS originated off the Craig Branch. Axial and Empire mine, and later Converse mine (location unknown to me). Some cars were also set out at Drake power plant, in CoS. Red Caboose and earlier, Precision Masters made these cars in N... CSUX cars nowadays look like this:
The CTRN cars appeared about 1995/96. The first were alunimum cars with silver ribs. They are in the 600000-60300 number range. Then came steel ones with black ribs. I think they are in the 60300 number range. I can't remember all the train symbols, but some were destined for Illinios, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas. Several older cars namely BN bottom dumps were restincled to CTRN. There were also cars restincled for HLMX, bottom dumps, bathtubs and gons. Also ran were the CCTX bathtubs for Coleto Creek, TX. KPLX for Kansas light and Power. DEGX to Mississippi. For a couple years in the early 90' there was an train with Soo Line and Milw Rd bottom dumps.
Honestly, I don't have either car.. I say let your wallet guide you--Athearn tends to be less expensive then LBF, FWIW. My few Athearn cars, all box and flatcars, are niely detailed. I do have 30 assorted hi-side gons coming, however. When they show up, I'll let the class know what I think of them.
I haven't seen either of theses. I do have all 20 road numbers of the Athearn 70-ton, outside-brace triple hopper cars. They did a nice job on them detail-wise, but I wish they hadn't used such a deep, rich black... dark grey (like Trainworx) looks more prototypical. As you're comparing prices, bear in mind that Athearn ships their cars with Accumate trucks and couplers. You will probably want to replace these with Micro-Train trucks and couplers, which cost roughly $3.50 per pair when purchased in the 10-pack. --Bryan
From the info we collected here, I think I will focus on 3 coal trains in N scale : * 1 consist of mixed "DRGW" owned coal hoppers, with a majority of DRGW quadhoppers (from Trainworx) some DRGW 100Tons 3 bay coal hoppers (from Atlas) some DRGW Hi side Thrall gondola (waiting for Athearn to release a late DRGW version with a yellow end, serie ) here is a pic * 1 PSCX coal train with Hi side Thrall gondola PSCX (do they already exist from previous run of Roundhouse ?) Bathtub PSCX (LBF) here is a nice picture from Nathan D. Holmes showing both types of PSCX coal cars from * 1 CSDU unit train I now have plenty of cars to collect. Will my wallet afford for that? you can PM me if you want to part from such corresponding coal hoppers. Jean-Edouard HELLER
The Coaliner train I have just found this article on http://utahrails.net Below is the interesting excerpt. Full article can be found here http://utahrails.net/utahcoal/utahcoal-sunnyside.php "On June 17, 1969 the new high capacity loading facility at Sunnyside was dedicated by the presidents of Kaiser Steel Corporation, Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, Union Pacific Railroad, and AT&SF Railway, along with Utah Governor Calvin L. Rampton. The new facility was used to load a 8,400 ton Coal Liner unit train every four days. The service began late in 1968 using leased cars. The dedication was held in June 1969 with the delivery of the new gondola Coal Liner cars. (Deseret News, June 13, 1969) On April 21, 1988, Kaiser Coal Corporation closed its Sunnyside No. 1 and No. 2 mines at Sunnyside, Utah, idling 189 miners and 33 salaried workers. Twelve salaried workers were retained. Kaiser Coal was bankrupt at the time, and asked the bankruptcy court for permission to lease the mines to Sunnyside Reclamation & Salvage to allow that company to mine the remaining one million tons of coal reserves still in the mines. Mellon Bank owned the longwall mining machine in the No. 1 mine, which had been leased to Kaiser Coal, and the bank been trying to repossess the machine since July 1988 and sell it to another coal company. Mellon had been paying the maintenance costs of the mine, about $150,000 per month (more like $1,500.00 per month), which was necessary to keep water (which would damage the mining machine) pumped out of the mine. Most of the costs were electricity for the pumps. On November 25, 1988, Mellon "walked away from the situation", after Utah Power & Light agreed to keep the pumps running, at least until a buyer could be found for the mine, on or about December 7, 1988. (Salt Lake Tribune, December 6, 1988, p.C1) The last train operated between Columbia Junction and the Kaiser loadout at Sunnyside in 1991. (email from James Belmont, May 27, 2003)" So, Should we conclude that we can realistically operate Nscale Roundhouse DRGW and UP Coaliner Hi-Side Thrall gondolas from 1969 to 1991 ? Jean-Edouard
D&RGW ran so many coal trains, nearly any power company-owned lease fleet hopper/gon could be used, realistically. Your options are as limited as your wallet.. Mine is pretty limited, in that case..
coal trains Hi all, I will be running the following coal train cars when possible. PSCX*-MDC Thrall gons CSDU*-Red Caboose Ortner hoppers NORX*-MDC Thrall gons AEPX*-Atlas 3-bay hoppers DEGX*-Red Caboose Ortner hoppers MP/TP/CEI-Trainworx 4-bay hoppers D&RGW-Trainworx 4-bay hoppers D&RGW(ex-WP)-Atlas 3-bay hoppers D&RGW-MDC/Athearn 3-bay hoppers D&RGW(ex XXXX)-MDC Thrall gons *unit trains I will not be using the Atlas 100 ton hoppers as they are incorrect for any D&RGW hoppers except those above. Also, there were only 5 D&RGW thrall gons on the Kaiser Coal train and it was primarily a UP train and UP trains will NEVER run on my layout. That said, there will be numerous other railroad hoppers (incl. UP) in trains as they were seen on D&RGW rails. Other D&RGW coal trains will be added when the correct style of rolling stock becomes available, such as CCTX. BTW, I have Trainworx hoppers for 30% off retail available. Thanks.
I assume you mean the older CCTX cars as opposed to the newer bethgons. What type of cars did they use? Were they Berwicks? I remember the CCTX reporting marks plain as day but I've seen so many coal trains pass by they all get mixed together, and that was before I photographed many (any) coal trains. If you have photos of the older CCTX cars that would be awesome...I haven't been able to locate any. A few years ago I had a small group that were going to put together a "Powder River to Texas" coal decal set including UFIX, FPPX, CCTX, and SATX reporting marks/numbers but I couldn't get the artwork together for the CCTX and then everyone kinda lost interest. And another question...do you know when the older CCTX cars went out of service. (at least for their Texas run) I am modeling a CCTX bethgon train as UP ran in 1998, (the Kato n-scale CHTT cars are almost spot-on for the CCTX cars after a decal job.) but I think the older cars were still running in 95/96 and I'm not sure what the cutoff is. I probably won't model the older train, but it's nice to have options.
CCTX gons Hi Doug, The CCTX gons were essentially the Atlas Coalveyor's but the tub was squared, not rounded. There also might be a few more discrepancies that I have not spotted. I do not have any specific pics of these but will look around for some. Also, I do not know when they went to the newer models but I will look into that as well. Hope this helps.
Has MDC Roundhouse ever released the Hi side Thrall gondola in the black and red scheme of PSCX in N scale ? Has anyone a picture of this specific model ? Jean-Edouard
PSCX MDC/Athearn has not done the hi-side gon in the PSCX scheme. I was able to get Trainworx to do a special run for me. As far as pics, try www.railarc.org
I recall seeing the CTRN cars showing up (both new and ex-BN cars) around 1995/96, on coal trains in Long Beach, CA. IIRC, CTRN stands for Central Tennessee Railway & Navigation, and was an SP-owned leasing mark.
