# Need Dims for West Side L.C. Tank Car no.5 -- "Coffin Car"



## Gary Woolard (Jan 2, 2008)

Can folks point me in the direction of some dimensioned drawings of the West Side Lumber Co. Tank Car No.5, the so-called "coffin car"? Here's what resources I've found so far --


NGSLG May/June 2006, articles by Mike Roberts and Bob Poli, and a drawing by Dale Darney. A good drawing, but a paucity of dimension. (I'm especially trying to figure out the lengths and bends of the handrails).


West Side Pictorial, by Ferrell. A couple of small photos and a note in the roster. And packed up somewhere in my garage is a copy of Ferrell's original West Side book. If somebody can tell me that it has the dimensions I need, I'll go unpack a bunch of boxes and find it!


I've also found the web pages of the Western Railway Preservation Society, where they've apparently been restoring the car for the last 7 years. Tantalizing info, but not the drawings that I need.


Also, I've become curious about how this car looked originally when it was owned by the Nevada-California-Oregon Railroad. Why did they build this flat-bottomed tank car in the first place? Anybody know?


Thanks for any pointers to resources!


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

NGSLG  May/June 2006, articles by Mike Roberts and Bob Poli, and a drawing by Dale Darney.  A good drawing, but a paucity of dimension. (I'm especially trying to figure out the lengths and bends of the handrails).Isn't it a scale drawing? If so, can't you take the measurements right off the drawing and convert to your proper scale?


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Dwight 

Published drawings in a magazine or book are seldom "scale stable". Some folks actually introduced errors into the drawing so they could catch people using them to produce commercial products. A good builder always uses the annotated dimensions and presumes the drawing to be "representational. I have worked with drawings for freight cars and and other equipment from various historical society archives. All cautioned me to use ONLY the annotated dimensions and not trust the drawing to be proportionally accurate.


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Guess it depends upon how technically accurate one is trying to be Jim. If Gary is only trying "to figure out the lengths and bends of the handrails," I would think direct measurements will provide a good approximation. If the drawing looks good and the basic tank measurements work out close to the drawing, the model should look good. At any rate, I've been doing it for decades. But I never shoot for "rivet counting" accuracy either.


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## Gary Woolard (Jan 2, 2008)

Umhh.. yeah Dwight, what Jim said! Actually, the accuracy of a supposedly dimensioned drawing is sometimes debatable; I once ran into errors building one of the old GR 'centerfold' projects, where the numbers and the measurable dimensions didn't agree with each other. I discovered I either had to build to the specifications or to the drawings -- I couldn't do both!


As well, I intend to blow the Gazzette drawings up to 1/20.3, and they'll hopefully agree with the tank casting I got. But I know from experience that when I go to Kinko's (or whatever they call it now) and dial in the proper 'blow up by XX percent" figure, the result will depend not just on the accuracy of the original, but the accuracy of the individual machine I'm using to copy with. So it would be nice to have several of the more critical dimensions to check against my trusty 1/20.3 ruler.


And from the several photos I've been able to collect of various models as well as the prototype, I see some variations in how that railing is depicted, especially where it goes out over the steam pump. Does the rail go UP or go OUT? At 90 deg. or something like 45?. I'm pretty sure at this point that the 45 degrees I thought I saw on one model was an optical illusion caused by the perspective of the photograph, but even what seemed like the 'best' model shot doesn't show a cross piece that's clearly in the Darney drawings. Is somebody right, somebody wrong? Or did the railing change with the several rebuilds that the car went through?


Which brings us back to the car's history, and why did the N-C-O decide to build a flat-bottomed tank car anyway?. This kind of stuff is like an itch -- the more you scratch it, the more it itches!

Thanks


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

For whatever help it may (or may not) be, I found myself in a similar situation when building #21. I had found two actual drawings, one in the Gazette and one in a book. Neither were dimensioned. I also found a couple of multiview 'drawings' on the web - also not dimensioned. All had differences in several areas, particularly in the ogee curves on the front and rear corners of the cab roof, and none looked to exactly match prototype photos. 

As I needed coordinates to cut the parts out on my CNC milling machine, I was creating my own set of AutoCAD drawings anyway. My solution was to select the drawing that looked closest to the prototype photos as a starting point, then "fiddle" with the parts that didn't look right until they did. When finished, I'd created my own set of 1:20.3 drawings that "looked right." These were used to generate the g-code necessary to cut the parts. 

I rather doubt that you will find drawings with the handrail dimensions you seek. In fact, I rather doubt that there were any. Since the car was a one-off, they were probably "bent-to-fit" by the guys building it. I suspect they wouldn't have taken the time to document it since replacement handrails would probably also been "bent-to-fit" using the old damaged section as a guide, and with little regard to whether or not they were an exact match. I could be wrong... but I doubt it. Loggers were a practical lot. hehehe


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Gary,

When I found a drawing of the Arrowhead Water Car used by Pacific Electric, I followed the same course as Dwight. There were a few dimensions, but what I needed to build the car. They DEFINITELY did not dimension the handrails! I I found this drawing tucked in the back of an old PE book written by Ira Swett. I enlarged the drawing from the book and used "known" dimensions on the drawing (some known AND dimensioned) and then used digital calipers to measure. Drew my plans on MasterCam and inserted the handrails per dimensions I scaled with the calipers. On the drawing in the book, the car was about four inches long. The plans I drew are for a 1/8th scale car over 61 inches long! Like Dwight said, the guys that built these old cars bent the handrails to fit "on the fly" and never recorded those dimensions for posterity.


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Gary W. 

IIRC tank #5 is in the Russ Simpson WSLCo plan sets avaliable from Rod Souza. 
He can be reached at ===> rod ATSYMBOL lisaknit DOT com


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

DWIGHT ==== How did the submit icon end up in my previous post?


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

DWIGHT ==== How did the submit icon end up in my previous post?I haven't a clue.


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## Russell Miller (Jan 3, 2008)

Gary, 
Have you looked at the photos of Tank Car #5 on the WSLC Yahoo Group sites? 
Here is a link to one: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/wslc/photos/albums/2112161272/lightbox/1118341567 
and another: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/wslc/photos/albums/2112161272/lightbox/361340976 

There are plenty more. Sorry, no drawings... 
Russ


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## astrayelmgod (Jan 2, 2008)

So, Gary, it sounds like you would be following exact prototype practice if you just made them look right, regardless of the actual dimensions. 

But, it also sounds like that won't be remotely satisfactory to you, so best of luck.


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## astrayelmgod (Jan 2, 2008)

Testing... 

http://www.mylargescale.com/desktopmodules/activeforums/themes/MLS/save32.png 

Well, whatever you did, it wasn't dragging and dropping the Submit icon in your post.


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## Gary Woolard (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks, everybody!

Bob Poli has sent me some drawings & pix of his model, and even he says "I know you are looking for dimensions of the railing but they are minimal.".. So I'll follow his lead.

Russ, I'm loading that site now while I'm typing this. It'll be interesting to see what I can find - thanx!

Astrayelmgod (btw, is that moniker from some Norse demigod, or..?) Actually, I'll be quite happy to just get them looking right, especially since I'm a novice modeler! I just don't want to get something so blatantly WRONG that those who might know the details would just point and laugh.

I am, for instance, considering mounting the 'coffin' on one of my commercial 30' flats, rather than go to the trouble to scratchbuild a 28' 6" car. Folks seem to agree that the tank was mounted on several different flats during its career anyway, so I feel like that gives me 'modeler's license'.

Wish me luck!


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## astrayelmgod (Jan 2, 2008)

"Astrayelmgod (btw, is that moniker from some Norse demigod, or..?) " 

That would be fun, but it's an anagram of my name: Gary Olmstead


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

I found this:

WSLC Tank Kit

Andrew


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## Gary Woolard (Jan 2, 2008)

Hey Gary, didn't I come up to visit you several (or more?) years ago and you showed me how you made your concrete mountains? Hi again!

& Andrew, that's a great link -- thanks! Besides a lot of detail, it shows a different interpretation of the railings -- and above all, he built the car for his[/i] railway!

So what the heck, I'm gonna quit worrying about getting it super "correct" and just build the darn thing! 

Thanks all!


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