Friday, February 26, 2021

Modeling SP B-50-series Boxcars (Part 3) - Plastic Options for B-50-8, -10, & -11

Continuing my researching and modeling blog post from May 2020 on the B-50-12, B-50-13, and B-50-14 classes, I'll be exploring backwards to the B-50-13's pre-WWI sister classes, the B-50-8, B-50-10 and B-50-11.

The B-50-8 is the first of the boxcars on the SP to be single sheathed and establish the 'look' on the SP and subsidiary companies.  The cars had wood ends with massive vertical posts.  The A-ends also had vertically sliding lumber doors.  Some had round roofs, but many had angled roofs of several types.

Accurail's SP 12020 with incorrect steel ends, but otherwise fairly close to mid-SP B-50-series wood sheath cars.

The Accurail wood door, wood end single sheathed boxcar models are an acceptable starting point for these two classes with some minor detailing work.

Roster of the B-50-8 Class Boxcar


Accurail 4000-series Undec Single Sheath with wood ends and doors with partial painting with SP Freight Car Red.

SP 24250-24749 (500 Cars) Built 1913 Standard Steel Car Co. with Bettendorf T-Section Trucks
GH&SA 37860-38359 (500 Cars) Built 1913 Standard Steel Car Co.
1000 Cars Total

Roster of the B-50-10 Class Boxcar


Accurail 4000-series unpainted.

SP 24850-25839 (990 Cars) Built-1916 Haskell & Barker Car Co. with Vulcan Trucks
CP 17682, 17741, 18252, 18255, 18481, 18789 (6 Cars) Built-1916 Haskell & Barker Car Co.
SP 18828, 24312, 24534 (3 Cars) Built-1916 Haskell & Barker Car Co.
PE 2525 (1 Car) Built-1916 Haskell & Barker Car Co.
1000 Cars Total

Roster of the B-50-11 Class Boxcar


SP 25840-26339 (500 Cars) Built-1916 Ralston Steel Car Co. with Vulcan Trucks
NWP 2160-2259 (100 Cars) Built-1916 Ralston Steel Car Co.
T&NO 38760-39057 (298 Cars) Built-1916 Ralston Steel Car Co.
GH&SA 28210, 38371 (2 Cars) Built-1916 Ralston Steel Car Co.
900 Cars Total

Retirement of the B-50-10 and B-50-11


SPMW 438 (B-50-10) Scale Repair Car and SPMW 790 Scale Test car. - Eddie Sims collection

The B-50-8, B-50-10 and B-50-11 were being retired in larger numbers by 1950 and a good list of the cars can be found in the Southern Pacific Maintenance of Way Jan 1, 1956 Roster, which the SPH&TS has published in their quarterly magazine The SP Trainline.  Many of these cars went to Bunk, Kitchen, Supply, Tool, and other similar non-revenue services.

As a side note for the SPMW 438, ex-SP 25831 converted in 1950, is shown above in later MW gray paint.  The car has been refitted with what appear to be T-section Vulcan trucks with caboose-style leaf spring packages installed instead of coil springs.  I wonder if this was to provide a better ride for the sensitive testing equipment carried in the car for the track scales.  

In Closing


SPMW 2272, a resin B-50-6/9 class car showing the obvious difference from the later B-50-8, -10, -11 class cars.

Just to clear up the question of what the earlier B-50-6/9 class cars were double sheathed cars look like.

I look forward to building several of these cars for both revenue service on the Jawbone Branch and several more in SPMW Supply Car service for LMRC.  Stay tuned for both future projects.

Jason Hill

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