Wooden Mail & Express Cars |
JANUARY 2000
Next to the locomotive, the most vital part of most passenger trains in the 1950s was the mail car or Railway Post Office. RPO cars in use on the CNR during the steam era can be broken down into two groups: full mail cars with 60-foot compartments, and combination mail & express (or mail & baggage) cars with 30-foot mail compartments. In this month's column, we will take a look at some older examples of the latter type in operation in Southern Ontario in the 1950s, and explore the possibilities of modelling such a car in HO-scale.
Secondary passenger trains were the domain of the wooden combination mail & express cars. On the Allandale Division, assignments which utilized these cars included trains 45 & 42 between Toronto and Midland, trains 661 & 662 between Hamilton and Allandale, trains 61 & 62 between Allandale and Meaford, and mixed trains 391 & 394 between Beeton and Collingwood. In the London-Stratford-Palmerston area, the mail & express cars could be seen on trains 173 & 174 between Hamilton and Owen Sound, trains 168-M329-M330-171 between London and Southampton, trains 601 & 600 between Stratford and Sarnia, trains 603 & 604 between London and Clinton and mixed trains 219 and 218 between Stratford and Fort Erie, among others. East of Toronto, trains 603 & 604 between Lindsay and Midland and mixed trains 389 & 388 between Lindsay and Haliburton were but a couple of assignments requiring the wooden cars.
Trains which carried an RPO can be identified from employee time tables of the period by careful inspection. Such trains would make stops at every station or most stations, and there had to be a return movement. They must also have operated daily or daily except Sunday. Identification of postal cars in photographs is not difficult; they are usually right behind the engine. Mail doors are generally 3 feet in width (ie. much narrower than a baggage or express door), and there may be evidence of a mail catch arm. At the express or baggage end of the car, a 5- or 6-foot door is found. On the combination cars we are examining this month, there would be three windows per side for the mail portion of the car, and either no windows or two or three windows for the express portion.
The majority of wooden mail & express cars lasting through the 1950s on the CNR were of Canadian Northern origin. Let us consider those cars in the number range 7706-35, as many examples were to be found in Southern Ontario in the 1950s. They were built by four different carbuilders over the time period 1907 to 1915, and all were later renumbered into the 7700-series. All technical information presented, unless otherwise identified, comes from Canadian National Railways Passenger Equipment and its companion volume (both published by Bytown Railway Society, P.O. Box 141, Station A, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 8V1).
Numbers 7706 and 7707 were built by Rhodes Curry in 1907, and both lasted through the 1950s in mail service. In December 1951, car 7707 was in service at Hamilton, and there is an excellent picture of it in Canadian National Railways Passenger Equipment. From the second group numbered 7708-14, delivered by Preston Car in 1910, number 7709 was retired in September 1954 and number 7708 was wrecked in May 1955. The remainder of the cars lasted in mail service through the 1950s. Number 7711 was a regular on trains 601 & 600 between Stratford and Sarnia, and a photo of this car will appear in To Stratford Under Steam. Car 7713 was assigned to Toronto in December 1951, and showed up on Midland trains 603 & 604 in 1958, visible in Steam at Allandale on pages 109, 136 and 137. The third group, numbering from 7715-25, were constructed by Crossen Car in 1912. Of these 11 cars, numbers 7720-24 were scrapped before the 1950s, followed by sister 7719 in July 1950. Number 7725 was retired in December 1954, followed by 7716 in July 1958. The remaining three cars, 7715, 7717 and 7718, lasted in mail service through the entire decade of the 1950s. Number 7718 operated on the mixed train between Beeton and Collingwood in the late 1940s. The final group in question, numbers 7726-35, all lasted through the 1950s in mail service. There is an excellent colour view of 7734 on page 97 of Steam at Allandale, and 7728 shows up on page 26. Both of these pictures show the car in service between Hamilton and Meaford.
Now, what are modellers to do? Speaking as an HO-scaler, there is precious little available in a reasonable price range which is remotely close to one of these cars. But my friend and fellow modeller Richard Chrysler has fashioned a beautiful CNR mail & express car, using a Rivarossi kit as a base. In my opinion, Rich is among the top two or three HO-scale car modellers in Canada. But he will be the first to point out that his techniques can be replicated by anyone who works carefully. From studying Richard's work over the past few years, I have always returned home with an 'I can do that too' inspiration, which speaks well to his workmanship and approach. We'll let Rich take over in his own words:
It began as a Rivarossi plastic representation of a heavyweight steel car of unknown prototype. The car was dismantled by removing the one piece roof and window material casting, by releasing the six tabs which hold it through to the underside of the floor. The six wheel Rivarossi trucks were removed and stashed in the spare parts drawer for future considerations.. Four wheel Central Valley trucks were installed in newly repositioned styrene built up bolsters, whose centres were about 18 scale inches toward the end of the car from the original spacing.The body casting was laid onto its side on 80 grit sandpaper and with a block of wood trimmed to fit inside the car body, the sides were carefully sanded until all contours and details were ground off the car sides and ends. Then a .030"x .120" styrene strip was fitted to the upper edge to form a new fascia panel. .020" scribed styrene siding was laminated onto the car sides and ends and butted up to the fascia strip. The windows and doors I wanted for the finished car were then carefully laid out and were cut into the sides, leaving about .015" clearance, using a carbide boring / carving bit in the Dremel tool, running at slow speeds and allowing the plastic to be cut a bit at a time so as to not heat up and destroy the material, or to melt in and clog the cutter. The finished openings were then cleaned up with small needle files.
The next operation was to frame out and install the windows and doors as required. This was done with styrene strip and some good quality, up close photos standing by for constant detail references. The baggage and mail door steps and grab irons were made up from Detail Associates brass strips, the step assemblies were bent up, taped down and soldered together using fine low melting point silver solder purchased at Canadian Tire. These assemblies were pilot drilled and fitted to the under-edge of the car using Walther's Goo, which gives strength and slight resilience in case of hard use.
The car was finished by detailing the underside with the appropriate brake gear, air, steam, signal hoses and air tanks, etc. from CalScale. The roof has vents and stovepipe chimneys. Diaphragms are by American Limited, paint is Modelflex CNR Green, with Polyscale Steam Power Black roof and underside. Body mounted Kadee couplers are fitted and the car is weighed to about 6 ounces using 3/4" nuts siliconed to the inside floor of the car. I found that this method of car building maintained the strength, squareness and rigidity of the original commercial body casting, but gave me the freedom to position the doors and windows where I needed them to create a unique model of a very interesting prototype. This particular car has a wide enough roof casting that it's edges still protruded slightly beyond the fascia, even with the added laminations.
Thanks Richard. For anyone contemplating a similar project, New England Rail Service makes appropriately-sized doors. Now let's roll up our sleeves and get to work!
Ian Wilson
December 30, 1999
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