ACL and SAL ventilator boxcars

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Could you provide the number series for the ACL and SAL ventilator boxcars. I am modeling the Live Oak, Perry and Gulf RR in the 1950s and these cars were used frequently on this railroad. By the way, I just ordered one each of these freight cars from Con-cor (HO scale) and I would like any opinions you might share. Thank you for your assistance.

-- Robert Shaffer (shaffer@oppcatv.com), January 24, 2003

Answers

Since I had several people ask, here is the short explanation of how to scratchbuild the doors. I know that it isnt very descriptive, but it is what I had easily available (I took it from my write up that was used when it was judged). If you will allow me some time, I will work on writing a how to article for Line South.

The vented doors are scratchbuilt from strip styrene and .015 music wire. The side parts of the door frame are two pieces of .060 x .010 styrene glued together. The top and bottom pieces have one .060 x .010 piece, with a .020 x .010 piece attached to the back. The music wire was then cut and glued to the backs of the top and bottom pieces at a scale 2” spacing. Then, the three cross pieces were cut from .060 x .010 styrene, and glued on. A total of 28 pieces make up each vented door. The solid side doors are cut from Evergreen sheet styrene. I then added strip styrene for the bracing strips to match the photo.

-- Bill Parks (bparks_43@yahoo.com), January 25, 2003.


Robert -

About a year and a half ago I did a kitbash of an Athearn wodden boxcar into an SAL ventilated car. I did do it in order to enter it in a NMRA contest (it took first place overall), but it could be done with less detail if all you are interested in is a "layout" quality model. The only hard part of this was scratch building the doors. If you are interested in how I did it, contact me via email.

Bill

-- Bill Parks (bparks_43@yahoo.com), January 24, 2003.


Thanks Larry for the quick response. I checked out the Westerfield kits but I am a little apprehensive in building a costly kit for the first time. That is why I looked at Con-cor because it is ready-to- run. I will look into the booklet you reference. If you think of any other RTR ventilator cars I would appreciate an update.

-- Robert Shaffer (shaffer@oppcatv.com), January 24, 2003.

The most common ACL ventilated boxcars in later years were the wood, 36-foot O-17 class, series 17000-18999. If I remember correctly, Sunshine made a great urethane kit of these a few years back. Another group was the O-15 class, 41000 series as I recall, with steel ends and 40 feet long. Westerfield has done a urethane kit of this class. Seaboard had several series of cars, mostly 79000 and 89000 series in the later years. Going from memory yet again, I think the Concor kit somewhat resembles the ACL O-17 class but is not exact. The 1st quarter 1998 issue of Lines South has a detailed article on SAL ventilated boxcars and is still available through the Society catalog.

-- Larry Goolsby (lgoolsby@aphsa.org), January 24, 2003.

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