SEPTEMBER 1999

    In our hobby of scale railway modelling, there has been an exciting trend of recent years toward re-creating actual times and places of prototype railways.   It is heartwarming to see the number of modellers who are taking advantage of the preponderance of information available concerning the CNR and choosing to re-create a slice of our railway past in miniature.  For such a pursuit, developing a credible freight car roster is essential, and to that end some background information is presented here on the largest single component of such a roster for a CNR modeller.  Our time period of interest is the immediate postwar years, but the principals may be applied to any era.

    Based upon the January 1945 Official Railway Equipment Register (information on the CNR roster from this issue is available on the CN SIG web page), 70% of the CNR freight car roster was boxcars.  A study of CNR conductor reports and freight shed correspondence (see "Palmerston, lcl and the CNR", July 1997 RMC, or "Palmerston:   Lcl Hub for the Bruce", CN LINES Vol. 7, No. 2) circa 1943-50 on the branchlines around Palmerston indicates that approximately 75% of the freight cars handled were home road.  Combining these statistics, if one was to model the Palmerston branchlines in the late 1940s, between 50 and 55% of the freight car fleet would be CNR boxcars.  It is probably safe to assume that the Palmerston scenario was typical of any CNR line in Southern Ontario during the 1946-59 era.

    On our example model railway then, if we establish a target roster of 100 revenue freight cars, 75 of them would be lettered CNR, about 53 of which would be boxcars.  Projecting the January 1945 ORER sub-totals of the 57762 boxcars onto our roster of 53 cars, we would need 22 steel-frame ("outside-braced") 36-foot boxcars, divided between 16 cars with five-foot doors, and six cars with six-foot doors.   The latter are modelled with Westerfield kits, the former with Westerfield CPR boxcar kits with some modifications.  Further, we would require 15 steel 40-foot boxcars, which could be modelled with Red Caboose (former IMWX) 1937 AAR boxcar kits, the majority of which would need roof, door and end modifications using parts from the Canadian Railway Modellers Parts Guild (CRMPG parts are gradually being re-introduced by Sylvan Scale Models after being unavailable for several years).  Of the remaining 16 boxcars, all steel-frame 40-foot cars, nine are covered by the new seven-panel kit from Sylvan Scale Models, and five with a nine-panel Accurail kit.  The remaining two cars could be done with modified Accurail kits.

    For CNR boxcars of the postwar period, then, up to and including the construction of steel boxcars with an inside height of 10'-0", we HO scale modellers only need concern ourselves with four boxcar kits on the marketplace:  Westerfield Fowler boxcars (in various configurations), the Red Caboose 1937 AAR steel boxcar, Sylvan's 1929 CNR steel-frame boxcar, and the nine-panel Accurail kit.  Unfortunately for CNR modellers, the cars we require in great numbers (36-foot steel-frame boxcars) are only available through labour-intensive assembly of resin kits.  By contrast, we need relatively few of the easily-assembled Accurail kit.  Fortunately, the resin kit from Sylvan offers quicker assembly, with one-piece body and roof.  As for modelling the steel cars, we will have to be patient while the CRMPG parts make their way onto dealers' shelves.

    Incidentally, are these totals for a fleet of 53 CNR boxcars borne out in reality?  Projecting the results of a sample of 219 CNR boxcars from conductor reports over a time period 1943-46 onto our roster of 53 cars, the following results are obtained:  sixteen were 36-foot steel-frame boxcars with five-foot doors, eight were 36-foot steel-frame boxcars with six-foot doors, fifteen were 40-foot steel-frame cars, and fourteen were 40-foot steel cars.  Considering the small sample size and rounding error, we can conclude that the statistical totals contained in Official Railway Equipment Registers may be applied to a model railway roster with a reasonable degree of confidence.

    As the equipment registers were issued quarterly, it is possible to obtain very accurate information on North American railway rosters for a specific season of a specific year.  While the ORERs are sometimes not easy to locate, an excellent and available resource for the transition-era modeller is the January 1953 ORER reprint, available from the NMRA Headquarters.  But don't wait long!  This volume, like all fine publications, is limited edition!

Ian Wilson
August 25, 1999

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