# Civil War Train Cars



## prouddadbob (Jan 31, 2011)

Hello,

I plan to scratch-build a few civil war train cars. The 14-wheel car carrying the Parrot Cannon, I believe it is a 13-pounder but not sure. The Mortar Car which I believe is called the Dictator and the smaller car shown in pictures which I believe would carry munitions for these guns. I would like to build these cars as close to scale as possible but have not come across anything as yet that provides dimensions. My preference would be to build in 1/29. I have contacted TCA which provided some very good information and I have sent a message to NMRA. I thought I would ask the same question here as well.

Would anyone have any information which would provide dimensions of these cars?

Information regarding the dimensions of the guns?

The pictures for the cars indicates the journals are inside the wheels of the car. I have not seen these on any site as yet.

Thanks for any information you may have, Bob


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

http://www.firstmdus.net/Rail cars.htm 

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Civil+war+train


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

You may need to know what gauge the various rail cannon were designed to run on. The railroads of the North were primarily Standard Gauge (4'-8.5"), but the railroads of the South were several different gauges, from a Broad Gauge of 5' to Standard Gauge to Narrow Gauges of 4', 3.5', 3', 30" and a few others. War historians theorize that this lack of standardization was detrimental to Southern execution of the War.

If you want to do an exact "scale" then it is possible that the two guns you specify might not end up in the same scale or you might need to hand-lay a separate track for one or both of them if you want them to be "in-scale" with the rest of your equipment.

As an aside: the famed "General" was originally built as a Broad Gauge engine and was so when it was stolen in what became known as the "Great Locomotive Chase". But, it but was destroyed (probably by Sherman, in or near, Atlanta, in his march to the sea) and was rebuilt as a Standard Gauge engine after the Civil War. If it were to be modeled "correctly" in its Pre-war state it would have to be in 1:34 scale to fit "G"-gauge track, and in 1:32 scale (1:29 if you must) if modeled in its present state.


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## Ralph Berg (Jun 2, 2009)

Bob,
Keep us posted as your project evolves.
I'm very interested in civil war history and trains.I'm sure others are too.
Ralph


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## general1861 (Jan 22, 2010)

Oh you have my attention also!. I have been thinking about doing some Civil War era cars myself and would be willinmg to share anything I find to help you out. I want to build a rail cannon car. I will find my book I have somewhere here at home. It has Civil War railroad modeling pictures and may have some ideas... Travis


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

I have also been interested in doing some Civil War Railroad modeling!
havent built anything yet, but I have been looking into it..
check out this guys blog, some fabulous Civil War RR modeling (O-scale)
US Military Railroad, Virginia, 1863

I wondered what existing large scale locos could be adaptable, and I came up this this:



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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

Four stunning pics, original hi-res size:
Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo 4

easiest way to get those photos is to *right* click on the link, and choose "save target as"..that should download the photo to your computer,
then you can view it, resize, etc..

Scot


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

opps..I messed up..photo 1 and 2 above are the same photo..rather than try to fix it, (which will probably screw up the code)
here is the correct photo 2:

Correct photo 2

Scot


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Bob;

The cars are very do-able, as they are mostly wood. I modelled my Brandywine & Gondor Railroad (set in Middle Earth) cannon car loosely on the US Military Civil War version. I had to overcome the problem of stub-ended branchlines, so the carbody on my cannon car can be rotated. You may have to "guesstimate" car dimensions based on the people posing with the cars. Since my car is basically freelance, I did not have to worry about the dimensions as much.




















Oh, and I used sheet styrene painted a rusty rail color for the armor plates.

Best,
David Meashey


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## Dennis Paulson (Jan 2, 2008)

The HLW 4-4-0 started me into LS CW trains and a layout . AT the time my family was several years into CW re-enacting also . Anyway I thought the HLW 4-4-0 somewaht close , and their rolling stock , , flats , boxcars . My biggest stumbleing block was the soldiers , most CW photos have a lot of soldiers , and CW soldiers in LS are not to be found .

Anyway I had fun , redid the chase a lot , but eventually drifted away .





































1962 and the General being in Evansville Indiana was a real big event for me 






































Now , I hope no MFR produces CW locos and trains and soldiers in LS , it would cost me a lot of money !









Oh yes , those are BRASS Accucraft stacks on my HLW locos , back before HLW made a balloon stack .


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## afinegan (Jan 2, 2008)

The Kalamazoo Civil War trains my dad and I brought to diamondhead 2010 (taken by Carol Jobusch)
Kalamazoo (HLW has the molds I bet) made these 2 sets a long time ago (minus the engines here)
















































































Yours Truely








My father and I









You can right click these and open the image url if you want to see larger versions


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## tj-lee (Jan 2, 2008)

Great pics! Thanks for posting them. 

best, 
TJ Lee


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## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

I know this is a silly question, but why the four trucks on the Lincoln car? I mean, seriously, it couldn't have been _that_ heavy... 

Robert


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## prouddadbob (Jan 31, 2011)

Hello, 

Thanks for the feedback and the great pics. I am scratch-building a few cars now, no prototype, and once I complete these I hope to start a few of these civil war cars. My plan is to have a few ready as C-Mass gifts. I am headed over to the farm this morning to drive the hay wagon for folks picking blue berries and early this afternoon I plan to head to the steam-up here in Virginia.I do not have any live steam but I sure appreciate the invite. Thanks Again to all for all the information. Bob


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Robert; 

The President's car was armored with iron plates. This was during the period when most cars were primarily built of wood, hence, the extra trucks due to the need to spread out the load on each axle. If it had been mounted on only two trucks, it would have repeatedly broken the light rail that was in use when it was built. 

Yours, 
David Meashey


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## general1861 (Jan 22, 2010)

I was always under the impression that the Lincoln funeral car, which was originally built for the president as his personal rail car while in office, but never had the opportunity to use it for its original purpose, had the extra trucks due to the different gauges of rail. Standard, Narrow etc. since the funeral train would be traveling over different railroads back to Springfield, Illinois. The funeral car eventually burned near a wharehouse I believe in Illinois, not sure on that. Arson was suspected.


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Well, my explanation was noted in a book about models that also showed that car, but it made sense to me - as the rails of that day were light and often brittle. Maybe someone can find a history on the car that would give the proper reason for the extra trucks. 

David Meashey


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## general1861 (Jan 22, 2010)

Hey Dave, I found an article on the lincoln car. The car was destroyed by a fire started in a prairie grass. The fire destroyed 10 blocks of Columbia Heights where the wharehouse that the car was being stored in burned. I found this on yahoo search article wriiten by R.J Norton


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Here ya go you might find the following sites of interest.

THE ROUTE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FUNERAL TRAIN[/b]

The Lincoln Funeral Train[/b]


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## RimfireJim (Mar 25, 2009)

Check out the March 2011 edition of _Trains_ magazine - it has a feature article on railroads in the American Civil War.


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## DKRickman (Mar 25, 2008)

Posted By general1861 on 19 Jun 2011 08:37 PM 
I was always under the impression that the Lincoln funeral car, which was originally built for the president as his personal rail car while in office, but never had the opportunity to use it for its original purpose, had the extra trucks due to the different gauges of rail. Standard, Narrow etc. since the funeral train would be traveling over different railroads back to Springfield, Illinois. The funeral car eventually burned near a wharehouse I believe in Illinois, not sure on that. Arson was suspected.


The different gauge truck thing makes absolutely no sense to me. For starters, the vast majority of railroads in the north were standard gauge. More important, though, is that NO OTHER ROLLING STOCK in the history of the US (the world?) has ever, to my knowledge, carried separate multiple gauge trucks. They're heavy, clumsy, troublesome things to have to tote extras of, and it would make more sense to use the correct gauge truck at the point where you change gauges (like the EBT used to do with standard gauge cars, and like passenger trains today do when traveling between Spain and (either Portugal or France - can't remember off the top of my head).

However, the excess weight thing does make sense. Look at the wheels, they're all on the rail. The car was said to ride and track poorly, as a result of the 4 trucks. Mechanically, that's a much more sensible arrangement than having different gauge trucks on it.

I'm not trying to be mean or flame or anything, I promise. Just trying to explain my logic and understanding as best I can.


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By DKRickman on 01 Jul 2011 06:22 AM 
Posted By general1861 on 19 Jun 2011 08:37 PM 
I was always under the impression that the Lincoln funeral car, which was originally built for the president as his personal rail car while in office, but never had the opportunity to use it for its original purpose, had the extra trucks due to the different gauges of rail. Standard, Narrow etc. since the funeral train would be traveling over different railroads back to Springfield, Illinois. The funeral car eventually burned near a wharehouse I believe in Illinois, not sure on that. Arson was suspected.


The different gauge truck thing makes absolutely no sense to me. For starters, the vast majority of railroads in the north were standard gauge. More important, though, is that NO OTHER ROLLING STOCK in the history of the US (the world?) has ever, to my knowledge, carried separate multiple gauge trucks. They're heavy, clumsy, troublesome things to have to tote extras of, and it would make more sense to use the correct gauge truck at the point where you change gauges (like the EBT used to do with standard gauge cars, and like passenger trains today do when traveling between Spain and (either Portugal or France - can't remember off the top of my head).

However, the excess weight thing does make sense. Look at the wheels, they're all on the rail. The car was said to ride and track poorly, as a result of the 4 trucks. Mechanically, that's a much more sensible arrangement than having different gauge trucks on it.

I'm not trying to be mean or flame or anything, I promise. Just trying to explain my logic and understanding as best I can.

Yeah, the version of the story where the Lincoln car had 4 trucks due to different gauges, simply is not true..
The Funeral train ran its entire run over Standard Gauge rails..there were not different gauges in common use in the North by 1865..
the "Class 1" rail network of the North was all Standard Gauge..the Lincoln car was not designed to run on multiple gauges, because it didn't have to.
and, its also not true that cars carried around extra sets of trucks for different gauges..
So its "myth busted" for that story..not sure who originally came up with that story! it could well be 150 years old..but its not true, and was never true.

The car had 4 trucks because of its weight..

Scot


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

I have been doing some research on "cabooses" in use during the Civil War..
I figured the information must be known by now! im sure people have researched it in depth..
found it! 

The "caboose" as we know it today didn't yet exist during the Civil War Era..
the caboose as a specific custom, specialized car, built new *as* a caboose, didn't exist until the 1870's..
And the cupola on a caboose also didn't exist until the 1870's..

What *did* exist during the C.W. era was an early primitive caboose, called a "Waycar" or "Conductor's Car"..
they were converted boxcars..some windows cut in the side, and the interior converted into a primitive "office"..

Not every C.W. era train would have one! they were still quite rare and unusual..
the majority of C.W. era trains simply had "regular" freight cars bringing up the rear..
the era of a "caboose on every train" hadn't yet arrived..

If you do want to model an accurate "waycar" for your Civil War train, it would look like this:










This guy is working up a "virtual" conductor's car for one of those "train-simulation" programs:









Webpage with more views:
Civil War Era Conductor's Car 

Scot


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