“The Model Railroader’s Guide to Freight Cars”
Author: Jeff Wilson
Publisher: Kalmbach Publishing
ISBN: 0-89024-585-1
Retail Price: $19.95
Pages: 96
Pictures: Color / Black and White
This review was originally published in the NMRA Midwest Region Winter 2006 Waybill. by Mark N. Goedert
“Freight Cars” is a close look at prototype freight equipment from the 1920’s through the modern era. The book covers each general type of car; box, tank, covered hopper, refrigerator, open hopper, gondola, flatcar, and intermodal equipment. The history and discussion of major car types is extremely helpful in deepening your understanding of freight cars which can make your modeling much more accurate.
The overall look and feel of the book is the high quality that we have grown to expect form Kalmbach publications. Each chapter has appropriate color or black and white photos illustrating different car attributes and styles of car in each category. Side bars are included in some of the chapters to focus on a specific car attribute like roofwalks or an entire car sub-type like ore gondolas and emergency war hoppers. The sketches included in some of the chapters offer insight on how different car components work, like the valve system on a tank car or the load cushioning devices inside a box car. All the illustrations are high quality and clearly illustrate each concept.
Each chapter is devoted to covering a specific car type. Generally you will see a nice historical overview of the car with photos showing significant car characteristics and the evolution of the car becomes evident as you read through the chapter. The book does have a few pictures of model train cars however ninety five percent of the book is focused on prototype freight cars. There is an appendix showing types of cars offered by model manufacturers. The material is not scale specific and can be used by anyone interested in learning about freight cars.
The last chapter of the book focuses on the components that make up a freight car such as trucks, wheels, couplers, and brakes. To be clear, this is not a deep discussion but just enough to raise your awareness of car components. I found the dating of different components useful when replacing or upgrading components on my freight cars. I am less likely to replace my archbar trucks with the roller bearing spares sitting on my workbench, read this book and you will know why.
Jeff also goes into some detail with reporting marks on cars, what they mean and what era or year the marks were placed on cars. I found this information useful because the reporting marks on a car will give you a good idea as to what year you are modeling. This makes for more accurate models and if you are truly a rivet counter you can avoid car markings that contradict themselves. This information coupled with a few sets of decals can really allow you to hone in the year you are modeling.
This book, I feel, covers a significant void in model railroading information without drowning us in a pile of Car and Locomotive Encyclopedias. When you look at building a model for the Cars Achievement Award the information needed to satisfy the requirements is scattered among many sources. Discouraging enough, some of the sources are quite costly to attain. Jeff has done us a great favor and waded though countless resources and funneled the information into a useful and concise text. If you were to just look at the cost of compiling the research materials that went into this book the price is a bargain and it will get you off to a good start understanding freight cars. Do not mistake this as a complete text however it does give you a lot of information in 96 pages.
I recommend “Freight Cars” to the general modeler because it is a unique, informative, and attractive text. Even if you are not a “rivet counter” this book can satisfy the general modeler because it will explain what all that gorgeous detail represents under that new Kadee™ freight car you just added to your fleet. Now, I wonder if Jeff just happens to read this review can we look forward to “Passenger Cars”?
