Yet Another Stock Car

The gray pans are the watering pan which are now turned in the empty position. Filled with a tank located within the car, they would need to be rotated 90 degrees to function.

My stock car fleet continues to grow. This car, the Street's Western Stable Car Line, is not a well-known line but, after the turn of the century, ended up owning the two other major lines, CCCC and Hicks. This prototype of this particular car was on display at the 1893 Columbian Exposition and the drawings and specifications for the car were published in a book describing all of the transportation exhibits. The drawings were also published in Engineering magazine in August 1893.
      My model is built entirely of styrene with trucks I obtained from a seller on Shapeways. They do a very good job of matching the Street's trucks shown in the drawings. The colors for the car were taken right from the specifications. This just points out that even stock cars could be colorful in the 1890s period.
     This car has watering pans for the cattle which rotated in the prototype car. I had these produced by Shapeways from a drawing I made and they fit right in. I even have enough left to do the Hicks car I want. The stock car door is a little different. It is of the Alsop and Fisher patent and is made in two parts. The lower part is hinged at the bottom and opens downward to form a ramp for the animals. The upper part then slides open to let them out.
     For some reason, photos of these cars are hard to find. I found two, both in a freight yard and at a distance from the camera so details were not discernable. The lettering was based on woodcuts found in the Official Railway Equipment Register.
   

Another Private Owner Stock Car

Canda Cattle Car Company car 78 sits on the siding at the Burnett's stock pen. The hatches on the roof access feed for the occupants while the hand wheels control partitions between the cows. The center hatch is for the water supply which is distributed by the piping along the edge of the roof.

Some months ago (January 2017), I blogged about completing some Canda Cattle Car Company Stock Cars. At long last, I have just completed another Canda Cattle Car Company car, but one built at an earlier time. This model was apparently the first iteration of the "palace" car developed by Canda and built by Ensign. The prototype was featured in the March 2, 1888 issue of the Railroad Gazette. The article featured a good set of dimensioned drawings but, alas, no photographs. To this date, I have yet to find a photograph of this car.
     The car itself was 39 feet long and carried feed and water for the cattle so that stops for these items were reduced. In addition, partitions were provided between every cow or two to prevent them from injuring each other (or piling up at one end during an emergency stop). These partitions were controlled by the handwheels along the roof. Less than 200 of these cars were built as, by 1890, about 1800 of the type II car featured in my former blog post were in use.
     The model was built entirely of styrene in a jig to get the side slats reasonably straight. The trucks are Canda style trucks made by Bitter Creek Models and are very nice-looking. The numerous hatches on the roof all have hinges which are prominent. I had some 3D printed and they turned out nicely. The hand ring lifts on the hatches were made from Detail Associates lift rings.
     I still need a couple of models from Streets Western Stable Car Company and the Hicks Stock Car Company.

The Beginnings of Stock Car Service

Canda Cattle Car Company stock car 1256 waits at Oakdale along with other CCCC cars.The hatch in the roof is for filling the onboard water tank while the pipes along the roof sides distribute the water to the water trays inside the cars.

The Stockton & Copperopolis had several stock pens along its route, at Oakdale, Burnett's, Peters and Milton, perhaps a couple more. Up until now, I had no cars with which to service this traffic. Taking a break from Milton scenery, I assembled four Silver Crash Car Works resin kits. They are models of the 36-foot Canda Cattle Car Company palace stock cars from the 1890s.
    Palace stock cars were common in this period and contained food and water bins so that cattle could be fed en route without having to stop periodically to let them out of the cars. Several companies developed these cars which were then leased out to the railroads during their stock shipping season. The cars represented here were first displayed at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and were used up until about 1910 or so.
 

Builder's photo of a CCCC stock car. These cars were built by the Ensign Manufacturing Works in Huntington West Virginia. Ensign also built a number of other cars for the Southern Pacific.

The builder's photo that I have of this car shows that it is painted a dark color, most likely red or green. Extensive research did not turn up which color these particular cars were painted so I chose a dark green just so I wouldn't have another four boxcar red cars on the railroad. Assembly was fairly straight-forward. The trucks used are Canda trucks as made by Bitter Creek Models which are a fit for these cars.
     Before 1893, Canda also had an earlier design car which was quite different and was 40 feet long. Also, the Hicks Cattle Car Company and the Streets Western Stable Car Company showed up in this part of the country and models of those will eventually be built as well.