WWV Car Fleet

Details West (now sold by Athearn) 50' Plug Door Refrigerator, Bunker-Less boxcar, based on a Fruit Growers Express prototype. This car is darned close to several classes of Brainerd-built NP RBL's, several hundred of which were built with very few external differences between 1962-1967. These cars were the backbone of WWV's canned goods fleet

Behind the NP RBL's,the most frequently-found cars on the WWV to haul canned goods out of Milton Freewater were several classes of Southern Pacific cars, most built by Pacific Car & Foundry from the late 1950s to mid-1960s. The no longer in production Model Die Casting 50' RBL is based upon this SP prototype, and it was given a Details West Hydra-Cushion underframe. It was these cars that gave the WWV problems with sharp curves when delivered in the early 1960s.

Not as frequently found were Santa Fe insulated boxcars, as represented by this Branchline Models car. It's pretty sharp in that red paint and orange door.

Another Branchline car, and a beauty. The Burlington cars weren't found too often in the latter half of the1960s, when most canned traffic began being sold to buyers in California, but were quite common in the early part of the decade.

Ditto on the Western Fruit Express cars such as this Great Northern/WFE car from Branchline. Fairly common in the early 1960s, not so much in the latter half.

This Branchline kit represents one of the most common classes of UP RBL's found in Milton-Freewater, among the earliest of UP RBL's delivered in the mid-50s. This one still wears its original paint job, but it is getting quite ratty.

A sister car, but with the late 50's billboard UNION PACIFIC road name. A WWV layout needs a good supply of UP RBL's; by the mid-50s, nearly 1/3 of carloadings at the Rogers cannery were being interchanged to Union Pacific in Milton-Freewater.

The RBL and Mechanical Refrigerator were WWV's equivalent of the plain jane boxcar. Highly specialized--and expensive to purchase--were the mechanical reefers, which dominated frozen vegetable traffic off the WWV from the 1950s onward. Supplanting the older, smaller 50' mechanicals were the 57' cars built by PC&F from 1963 onward, using the Pacific Fruit Express R-70-13 design. This is a Con-Cor model.

Ice bunker refrigerator cars ("RS") were still going strong on the NP in the late 1960s, especially for perishables that didn't require freezing temperatures. The 91248 is an Intermountain kit of a late 1940s PFE design produced by PC&F--again, a design purchased by Northern Pacific. By the late 1960s, the ice bunker reefers were still being used to haul cherries and apples off the WWV. . .and during winter months, occasional loads of canned goods, though their smaller capacity somewhat limited their utility in this service. Check out the nice weathering job here by Donovan Furin.

No bones about it--this car is NOT a Northern Pacific prototype. The single double sheathed wood boxcar resembles somewhat a class of Northern Pacific cars, but the ends and most notably the roof is totally incorrect. But, it was cheap and the paint was accurate on this Accurail kit, so until I splurge for an accurate kit of this class of NP car by Sunshine, this one will suffice. I use this car in captive empty can service between the Continental Can Co. factory and the canneries in Milton-Freewater.

This car also. . .not even close! The sides of this Accurail single-sheathed boxcar resemble those of the NP war emergency boxcars, but the underframe is all wrong, as are the ends, the roof, and even the height. But other than that. . . it is simply a stand-in, also in can service.

This car is a bit more accurate. This is a Branchline "Yard Master" series boxcar in the late-50s large Monad scheme. I rebuilt the side sills to follow NP practice.

And with modified side sills, this car would be a bit more accurate than it is, but it still looks pretty good, for a car with molded on ladders and grabs. From C&BT shops. Weathering by the talented Donovan Furin.

Another "stand in" kitbash--NP's 50' double door cars are unique among most others--the doors are centered in the car, rather than offset. No one produces this car--yet--but it is possible to kitbash this car out of either the more detailed Branchline 50' single door car, or the cheaper Accurail car. I chose the accurail product. These were found in service throughout the NP, popular in lumber and paper loading.

This is the updated version of the previous car--the "Ply Pak" car built in 1968-69 by NP Brainerd for use in plywood hauling. This is a "beta test" kit produced by Modelers Choice. I'm very lucky to have been able to build one of these cars, which will soon (we hope) be available on the open market.

The largest commodity hauled on the WWV, hands down, was the sugar beet. The majority of the cars hauling beets were NP ballast cars, with a smattering of 50-ton two bay coal hoppers, GS gondolas, and a variety of cars from other railroads.

Best news for NP sugar beet train modelers: The new Atlas ACF Hart selective ballast cars--the backbone of the sugar beet fleet. And this car is a beauty--from the frame up. It has serious issues with accuracy of underframe and bolsters, but with a little styrene work, you can create a damned accurate car. I've bought nearly 25 of these so far. . I'm not looking forward to doing the modifications, but the end result is pretty nice!

A few--less than 2-3 percent--of the beet loads were carried in GS gondolas. Most of these were the NP trademark high-side version (upcoming from Sunshine in a resin kit); a few were standard low-side GS gons. This Red Caboose GS gon isn't really close to the NP version of the car, but you take what you can get when you're assembling a fleet!

Rounding out the fleet of NP cars in the late 1960s were a handful of 50-ton two-bay cars. Both Atlas and Athearn make fairly close versions of this car; this one is an Athearn.

Car movement records show that up to 15-20% of the beet loadings were carried in foreign line cars--in the late 60s, these were predominantly CB&Q and GN, with a couple UP cars mixed in there. Strange that these roads would have such cars to spare during the beet season, as they all had pretty substantial sugar beet campaigns of their own to move. But, fairly common on the WWV were the 50-ton 34-foot war emergency composite side Burlingon beet car.

Also present were some of CB&Q's older steel two-bay cars. This Accurail car is a USRA design, somewhat shorter and with less capacity than the Burlington cars.

And, finishing the fleet are a couple of GN ACF/Hart ballast cars. This one has had its interior weathered, but their exteriors by the late 60s were really quite trashed. This one will be fun to work on!

Among the off-line house cars found on the WWV occasionally were these pretty Great Northern PC&F Plate C 50' insulated boxcars. One or two seem to have visited the WWV during the late 60s.

And I was overjoyed when I came across a car movement record for one of these Evergreen 50' PC&F boxcars, magnificently produced by Athearn in their Genesis line. One of these cars delivered a carload of bagged fertilizer to the co-op in Milton-Freewater in 1969!

A few times a year, valley farmers required ammonia-based fertilizer for their crops, resulting in a small rush of loads from the ammonia fertilizer plant owned by Phillips at Finley, Washington, to a distributor just north of Milton-Freewater. Atlas' 11,000 gallon Propane/Fertilizer tank is a dead-on match for these PSPX cars.

What the hobby really needs, I feel, are good late 1960s heavy-equipment pieces to populate our flatcars. Union Pacific interchanged a good deal of such cars to WWV for delivery to Stone Machinery, south of Walla Walla. I've yet to come across many suitable loads, so here's six of the cheap-o International Farmall tractors atop a Walthers 53'6" GSC flatcar. These equipment flats represent the greatest variety of road names found on the WWV.

A signature late-60s UP boxcar is the 50' plug/slider car, as produced by Details West/Athearn. The paint on this car is pretty nice, even though Athearn did put the wrong numbers on the car! This one wears a little weathering from two years on the road.

Union Pacific's 40' boxcars were known for their "alternate center rivet" pattern down the middle of the side panels, a feature duplicated in these Trix/Marklin boxcars. The prototype were found on the WWV hauling loads of paper to Snyder-Crecelius downtown.

Bringing up the rear, the Trix/Marklin CA-3 caboose. WWV didn't have cabooses, so this is the layout's token caboose. The 25138 was the long-time assigned caboose working out of Walla Walla, often on the local south to Athena.

NP 96129