Necessary Freight Cars for the Camas Prairie Railroad

Necessary Freight Cars #1:  NP 40' Combo door boxcar

During the past several years, Ted Cullotta wrote several articles for Railroad Model Craftsman titled Essential Freight Cars, about the needed freight cars for the typical post-war, transition era modeler.  So I have borrowed Ted's byline to start a new series of posts on the freight cars needed to model the Camas Prairie Railroad in 1967.  


Ted's excellent articles were focused on the prototype car information, then a well described process for modeling the car in HO scale.  My posts won't be how-to articles per se, but will be  general information about the prototype car and the basics of how to model it.



Prototype
In the mid-1950's, Northern Pacific Railway found they needed more specialized boxcars than the ubiquitous 40 foot, 6 foot wide door boxcars that had been the mainstay of the car fleet since the mid 1930's.  

In 1958, NP began building boxcars that could be used to load grain but also be loaded by forklift with shipments such as lumber or paper.  The result was a 40 foot combination door car, that included a 6 foot sliding door and a 8 foot plug door.  With the plug door closed, the car could be easily coopered with a grain door for grain loading.  With the plug door open, the 14 foot opening would make loading lumber by forklift possible.  

Track Plan

This portion of the plan shows the east end of the modeled portion, from points east, 

through Forebay and the log dump, by the Potlatch Mill complex, to the yard at

East Lewiston.  A portion of the downtown area is at the bottom, ending at the 

Union Depot.

Hi all, been away way too long since I wrote about anything Camas Prairie!


I finally have a track plan for viewers to look at.  Its a pencil drawing and more of a draft than a final plan, but it gives a pretty good framework for the footprint of the layout.  

This portion of the plan continues on from the depot, into downtown
and along Snake River Ave.  Staging for Riparia is also included, running
behind the modeled portions of downtown.

Some track work may change as the track is laid, but this is the format the railroad will follow.  You'll notice it has an unusual footprint, as it occupies two rooms in the upstairs of my Texas house.  The transition from the main room into an adjacent bedroom, goes through a door way.


Each grid square represents 6 square inches.  The prototype of the portion modeled is approximately 4 miles and is represented by approximately 1.5 scale miles.  


Not shown in this plan, is the staging loop that will be under the Potlatch mill.  This staging will represent points east: Spokane, Orofino, Kamiah, and Grangeville.


The drawing of the Potlatch mill is also somewhat flexible.  Since making this drawing, I have made some revisions in sketch form to  the mill complex track work and building layout.  A better drawing of the mill will appear in a following post.