Examples of early kit built freight cars

Here is a comparison between Lobaugh and Faber freight cars.  As I understand Merle Faber either worked for or supplied parts to Lobaugh at some point.  Both offered similar kits in the late 1930's from the same city location. There are subtle differences between them however.  Interestingly, for the lithographed sides, most contain the name Lobaugh or Faber in the lower right corner of the side.  There are also other differences depending on the car.

Here are couple of Faber flat cars, see the Faber name printed on the lower right side of each.  Lobaugh flats were similar.  One difference is that I think the Faber cars used softer zinc alloy for the truck sides versus the bronze used for the Lobaugh cars even though the center bolster are the same.

Here are acouple of Faber and one Lobaugh R-40-10 PFE reefers. Note the color difference.

Also notice the difference in pin locations, the skirting on the lower edge of the side and the embossed details outside the lower hinges.

Below see the Lobaugh printing

And he Faber printing.

In the pictures below you can see the differences in ice hatches and end panels.

Very cool stuff Dennis. Amazing that they have survived and are in such good condition.

Bob

Westbrook is another wonderful early kit car manufacturer.  They provided cars made of wooden boxes with embossed and printed cardboard sides.  They also provided detail kits that offered grab irons, ladders, underframes etc.  So while simple in design, they could be built into very nice models that stand tall even today.  One downside is that with the cardboard sides, they are somewhat delicate and prone to moisture and poor storage.  Luckily, they must have made millions ( not really, bu thte made a lot!) of their kits.

They are known for the refrigerator kits and their boxcar kits. It's pretty easy to all of a sudden end up with quite a collection of these cars lol.

Above is an example of the Westbrook instruction sheet for the prewar kit boxcars like the Erie I show above.

The early Westbrook kits tended to include or offer a zinc alloy cast underframe and Auel sprung trucks.  There were three specific cast underframes each unique to the refrigerator car, the flat car and the normal 40 foot boxcar.

Below is the standard prewar style boxcar cast underframe with Westbrook embossed in the center.  Very easy to see.

Below is a scan of the later 1950s version of the Wesbrook kit plans after Bob Peare purchased the company and note the changes in underframe (now wood) and the non sprung trucks with large tinplate dummy knuckle coupler.

Below is an example of one of these later Westbrook cars as the B&O Sentinel.

Below is the standard reefer cast frame and note it is for a 41 foot reefer versus the 40 foot box cars!! You can also see the ribbed wheels on these Auel trucks.  This car is a bit rough, but I hope to put it back into shape and save the Baby Ruth carboard sides on it.

Below are the instructions for the roundtop X31 style boxcars I got this PRR car for $.01 plus shipping lol but it's probably only worth a few bucks at a train show.  That said the Auel trucks are complete and I like it so I'll tyr and get it back into shape as well.

A close up of the Auel Andrews scale sprung trucks as used on a great many Westbrook and other cars.  Once cleaned and painted these trucks look wonderful!.

@Dennis Holler posted:

That said the Auel trucks are complete and I like it so I'll tyr and get it back into shape as well.

A close up of the Auel Andrews scale sprung trucks as used on a great many Westbrook and other cars.  Once cleaned and painted these trucks look wonderful!.

They look complete. Usually the spring planks are broken.  Odds are though that they are 17/64th, and check that they have insulated wheelsets, too.  Lot of Auel are not insulated.

Did not know that Faber produced anything other than the flatcars!

Good looking cars Dennis. I have two that my Dad built for me. This one from the 40s has card stock sides.

The other one is all wood. The truck bolster cracked. I ordered new ones but haven’t installed them yet.

Yes, agreed, those spring planks are a like a tiny piece of glass it seems lol  most always they are broken.  I suspect that it never helped that most builders installed them with the attachment screw head outside of the plank instead of assembling the trucks with the screw between the plank and bolster. I will need to either patch a bunch back together or fake them with a strip of brass with the spring pads added...  We will see.  Feel free to post some of your built kits, I know you have some nicely assembled ones.  Railcraft gondola comes to mind.  You know me, I have more projects than nice pieces lol.

@Dennis Holler posted:

Yes, agreed, those spring planks are a like a tiny piece of glass it seems lol  most always they are broken.  I suspect that it never helped that most builders installed them with the attachment screw head outside of the plank instead of assembling the trucks with the screw between the plank and bolster.

They used the wrong head type of screw - filister head would have avoided the problems. I still use those on some trucks.

I will need to either patch a bunch back together or fake them with a strip of brass with the spring pads added...  We will see.

They are almost impossible to repair as they break right at the center hole, and even if you reinforce them and drill a new hole it's iffy at best.  Maybe a bit of brass angle with the nubs for the springs soldered in place?

Wow, Dennis that is a great primer for these type of kits.  In my youth I assembled a few HO kits, mostly plastic but never an 0 scale kit.  Thanks for posting, really interesting.

Don

Thanks Don, If I can follow through zi would like to post a lot more of these. I have a bunch and I know quite a few around here have some or a lot even as well. In some sense kind of a forgotten or partially ignored corner of the hobbies history.

mwb, totally agree, I will figure sometging out. I have a bunch of these trucks in boxes and on cars. I agree on them being or seeming like they are 17/64’s and that is fine with me. They are bigger than Athearn and All Nation sprung I think. I should compare them for fun.

Here is a quickie compare on two Railcraft hoppers, ahead of schedule as I would like to offer more detail on the hoppers in a dedicated post but comparing Athearn left and Auel right on these two hoppers lol.

And I intend to cover a lot of mfrs, Walthers, Athearn, Shopcraft etc. and I know I will learn more from this exercise from the comments and such so I am hoping it will be fun.

@Dennis Holler posted: ...snip...

Showing what we presume may hvae been the original owner/builder of the car.

I knew him casually because I knew his son Bob, jr. when we were both members of the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. I may have seen that car on either the father's layout or possibly in operation at the Baltimore Society of Model Engineers when I was a member (#369). As the singer once blatted out: "Thanks for the memories.".

Awesome cars! Do you have any info on those scale sized operating couplers?

Here are a few pre-War and early post-War models I have. All were built from original kits, with a few rebuilt from built-up cars found at train meet junk tables (or under a table!)   

The materials in these kits used wood, cardstock, tinplated steel and cast aluminum, which was very popular for many things back in the 1930s. The desperate need for cast and molded aluminum to build aircraft for WWII led to most things made with it - cookware, planters, furniture, decorative items and certain makes of automobiles to be given up as scrap.

@S. Islander - beautiful looking cars, I especially liked the "Gerbers Baby Food" car.  Thanks for posting

@Dennis Holler- Wow the close up of both the Athern and Auel hoppers showed an amazing amount of detail included in those kits.  Really interesting.  Thanks for this thread

Don

Dennis, thank you for posting this. I don't have any early cars , so it is nice to learn about them.   I do have some post WWII brass cars from International Models that I would like to know more about.

This IS a great thread.

I'd like to post some pictures as well; will do so in the next few days...

Mark in (soon to be very wet) Oregon

Many thanks for the education Dennis.

I do not have all the great models you show us except for the one you sent me, finding them in France is really near impossible.

I do have some International Models, dating from the post war period. they where I think affordable models as they are not very detailed models. I got those ones unpainted and do the paint myself and used decals from an Ebay seller, K4 decals very good product; the result is not too bad for me.

On this one maybe the trucks should have not been painted black but matching the frame.

This one only has Japan embossed under the bogies maybe Max Gray but not sure.....

More to come.

Daniel

Daniel those look great ! I was thinking of you yesterday at the Stout auction with all the great European trains up for bid! A nice fellow from Germany was there and took home some good deals.

Daniel, I think your hopper car is a Max Gray. USH cars had a plastic bolster, Max Gray was brass. This is not a hard fast rule as these were imported many years.

Dennis, just watched your You Tube on the Max Gray 200T flat car. Max gray started out in Cleveland, Ohio. Early Champ decals have a Cleveland,O. address. He later moved to San Jose,CA. I think he passed away about 1964. After USH took over, and continue the KTM line. I don't clam to be an expert, but I like the O scale history.

@Dennis Holler posted:

Daniel those look great ! I was thinking of you yesterday at the Stout auction with all the great European trains up for bid! A nice fellow from Germany was there and took home some good deals.

Thanks Dennis.  I looked at the Stout auction yesterday, from my side there where very good prices for Marklin gauge one, and also some French models in O, not well described for what they are so a chance t o make a good deal.

Unfortunately flight prices, hotels and car renting plus some little souvenirs at Stout are way too much for me....

All my best wishes, Daniel