Scratchbuilding Wood Box Cars (and One Reefer!)

A NOTE ON BOX CAR CONSTRUCTION Wood box cars fall into two categories: single-sheath or double-sheath. A single-sheath box car is identified by the diagonal bracing on the outside. (For that reason, single-sheath box cars are sometimes referred to as outside braced box cars.) The second layer of sheathing is added to the outside of the diagonal bracing to make a double-sheath box car. The inside sheathing is almost always oriented horizontally, and the outside sheathing is almost always oriented vertically. Box cars may have wooden ends or metal ends; cars with wood sides and metal ends are often called composite cars. During WWI, the USRA issued standard box car designs featuring steel ends and roofs, even for wood-sided cars. Box cars with wood ends were phased out in the first half of the twentieth century; so if you’re modeling the latter half of the century, wood-ended box cars should form a very small portion of your fleet. Insulation – consisting of sawdust, wood shavings, wool, and the like – could be stuffed into the gap between the inside and outside sheathing. This meant that an insulated double-sheath box car could serve as a refrigerator car (or reefer) simply by adding ice bins at the ends and by providing a sealed and insulated door. Iced refrigerator cars were replaced by mechanical reefers throughout the 1960s and had almost disappeared by 1970. A NOTE ON FREIGHT CAR ROOFS Wooden roofs weren’t installed after the late 1800s – the tongue-and-groove construction necessary to keep water out was not flexible enough for freight car service, and flexible metal panel roofs were developed in the 1890s and improved throughout the 20th century. See the excellent article in the December 2016 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine for more details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Links to items mentioned in this video. (Note: I am NOT endorsing any particular product(s), nor am I compensated by or connected to any of the companies mentioned.) I do NOT guarantee that these links will give you the best available price! Consider these links to be a starting point for your search. Roof, Floor, Ends, Center Sill, Bolsters, Scribed Siding, Running Boards, Dimensional and Scale Stripwood are all available from Northeastern Scale Lumber: https://www.northeasternscalelumber.com/ E-Z LOK Threaded Inserts: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QJHPQ2W?... Truck Sideframes: I use Accurail – you can buy 100 pair for about a dollar per pair, and they come in three styles: Andrews, Bettendorf, and Roller Bearing. https://accurailinc.com/collections/t... Wheels: Accurail also sells Delrin wheelsets for about 20 cents per axle; but I use all-metal wheelsets from Intermountain. These cost about $1.50 per axle. https://www.intermountain-railway.com... Couplers and Gear Boxes: I use Kadee #5 (with the phosphor-bronze centering spring) in #242 gear boxes. If you shop around, you can usually find Kadee #11 – the bulk pack of 20 pair of #5 couplers – for about $40. The gear boxes come in packs of 10 pair and generally cost about $4 per pack. Yarmouth dreadnought ends are no longer available, but Detail Associates #6236 are very nice 5/5 Dreadnought ends. Also check 3D Central. Refrigerator Car Hardware Set: https://sanjuandetails.com/model-rail... Refrigerator Car Door Latch Detail: https://sanjuandetails.com/standard-g... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This video was edited using Shotcut for Linux. Video footage and still images were recorded using a Galaxy A10e phone and a Nikon D7100 camera.