Greetings All,
Freight Car Spotlight #2-2022
P&LE Evans Breadbox Trough Coil Coach
A recent purchase at a local train show of a virtual ops favorite freight car, the Evans Breadbox Coil Coach, is the inspiration for today's post. Lets take a look at the prototype and models of this unique looking freight car.
The Prototype
The Evans breadbox car made it's debut in 1965 as reported in the November 1965 New York Central Headlight employee magazine. The experimental 100 ton cars featured sliding covers that protected the steel coils and slid open like a breadbox to access the loads. At the time the new cars could handle twice as much tonnage as conventional steel service cars.
The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie became the first railroad to order this new generation of freight cars designed by Evans and the New York Central over a period of five years to haul steel coils according to the New York Central Headlight July/August employee magazine.
The car was dubbed a breadbox car according to the article and was touted as the first major advance in steel coil handling in the last ten years by the P&LE president. The 125 ton cars featured a 50' long continuous trough that permitted heavier loading and gave greater flexibility
The P&LE bought or leased fifty of these cars starting in 1966 and the Bessemer & Lake Erie ten. Their unique covers that protect the steel coils were designed so that one person could easily open the covers which stayed attached to the car.
Unfortunately rough handling mostly by hasty crane operators opening the covers ended the one man operation and the cars were converted to a more industry standard hood like this B&LE car #31002 or had their hoods removed entirely.
The Models
This Evans breadbox P&LE #42279 is a Bachmann product that was a used train purchase. The car is classified as an AAR GBSR; "Open gondola having fixed sides a solid steel bottom and equipped to handle steel coils with cover." The build date is 11-67, the capacity is 230,000 Lbs. The Evans logo is on the left. Above the small New York Central System herald is the classification code 111F. The car number falls within the prototype P&LE cars numbers for this car, 42250-42299.
The car comes equipped with talgo mounted horn hook couplers and plastic wheels. The long tongue of the talgo coupler has been cut away from the trucks and Kadee #5 couplers have been body mounted with 2-56 screws.
The P&LE Evans Breadbox cars were also offered by AHM in the same road number but with a matching green hood.
Matching Prototype to Model
Did the P&LE cars come with silver hoods or green ones? The answer is I don't know. Here is P&LE #42268 in 1977 but without hoods. What about the B&LE? The B&LE car looks to have been built with silver hoods as seen in this 1967 photo of B&LE #31001.
Operations
Opening the hoods on the HO scale models is probably as troublesome as it became on the prototypes. For many years my breadbox cars sat in the purgatory box until around 2014 when I saw them in operation on PC Ralph's PC RalphVids youtube channel. Ralph had the cars looking good and running well as they serviced Kings Port Steel on his layout. Shortly after that I bought a pair of B&LE models.
At this time I was in communication with Ralph and received his permission to post an imaginary interchange of the cars that would go to the KP&W shop for rebuilding and return to my layout ready for service. Here they are in 2014 on their way to the KP&W Shop for rebuilding.
Here they are again in 2014 now in revenue service after being rebuilt and sold to the imaginary JTRX freight car leasing company.
I also received permission to letter the below KP&W car for my roster and this simple interchange would lead to what is now the Penn Central Car Movements Virtual Ops. Here is a close up of the KP&W car from 2014.
Closing Comments
The Evans cars with their factory one man operated hood had a short run but that run falls in perfectly with the time period of the PCCMs and my own late NYC operations. The cars have a unique look and they now serve two layouts very well after having been rebuilt.
Using the Talgo Coupler Mounts
I've found the long talgo coupler tongues from these cars and some cabooses to be perfect for extending a body mounted coupler to give a freight car that cushioned underframe look.
Additional Reading
PC Ralph's Kings Port Division blog
Various sites from Google Search
Thanks for reading and watching!!!
See you February 1st!!!
Nice freight car spotlight on a unique steel coil carrier! I do like these cars and have found several at train shows for inexpensive prices. A little tooling of couplers and wheels and these cars make good running models for the steel industry. I enjoyed your runaway coil car video! Friction? What friction?! :) Thanks for the background info on the prototype. I had heard that the covers were unreliable and sometimes jammed or opened unexpectedly. It is a shame that the clever idea didn't work well due to carelessness on the part of crane operators. I kick myself for not being able to find a pull out section I had from an article in a 1970's issue of Model Railroader or Model Railroad Craftsman about these cars! Fortunately you covered the info very well! Blog followers will see these cars running regular ops in our Penn Central Car Movement series!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ralph!!! A PC Ralph video got my coil coaches released from their long stay in the purgatory box. We had fun with the interchange of the cars in 2014 and they continue to provide good service and good times 90 virtual ops later in 2022. We've even added another car and car movement for a block if these cars that should appear in a few months in a future virtual op.
DeleteFor now readers should keep their eye on the upcoming PCCM 90 which will feature these coil cars among others.