Slightly off topic ... Western Wheeled Scraper Dump Cars

[gwerhart0800]

I have been working (slowly) on making a few 3yd. Western Wheeled Scraper side dump cars in 2 1/2" scale. When I started this project, I only had the drawings from the Westside Lumber Company book. I have since located lots of photos and patents on these cars. I will eventually put up a web page to detail my findings. One of my recent acquisitions was a Western Wheeled Scraper Co. catalog I scored off of e-bay for a very reasonable price. I have started to scan the pages. At this point, I have scanned all of the pages of railroad related stuff and set up a simple picture gallery page on my web site. The scans are very large, so they will be slow if you are on dialup. If you take the time to read some of the text in the catalog, you will get a laugh on the way they wrote back then ... "Without fear of contradiction from any disinterested party, we assert that ..." The catalog includes lots of great action photos. I tried to scan them in at a high enough resolution that they would be viewable, but in some cases, there is an interference pattern between the method used in printing and my scanning resolution.

Enjoy: http://www.grotonengine.com/western_whe ... atalog.htm

[Fender]

I have some old RR supplier catalogs and they have some pretty funny stuff in them too. My personal favorite is "axles are forged from the best quality steel or scrap". (Scrap?)

[Oilcan]

George:

Thank you for the link! I really enjoyed reading about the dump cars... fascinating stuff. I'll be anxiously awaiting your website update of your build project.

Neil

[gwerhart0800]

I converted the previously scanned pages into a PDF document and made every attempt to shrink the size of the file. It is now down to 5.6MB. You can download the PDF version from:

http://www.grotonengine.com/WWS1c.pdf

[Oilcan]

Thanks again, George... nice job!

Neil

[Loco112]

Awesome amount of information.

Its amazing what you can still find these days if you "beat the hedges" searching for it.

Thanks George!

[mikechoochoo]

FYI, there are two three foot gauge 4 wheel dump cars, maybe Western Scraper, on display at a gravel pit just south of Lake View, Iowa. I took some pictures and measurements a couple of years ago.
M.Nix

[gwerhart0800]

I took some pictures and measurements a couple of years ago.
M.Nix

Any chance you can share this with us?

Thanks!

[Bruce_Mowbray]

Here's one. But I don;t think it's narrow gauge

[Loco112]

I found this;

Welcome to the City of Lake View Iowa Black Hawk Lake, a 957 acre lake.
South of Lake View are several abandoned gravel pits which have been transformed into park lands. The largest of these pits is Arrowhead Lake.

Sauk Rail Trail web sites:

http://www.saccounty.org/conservation/saukrailtrail.asp
http://www.trailresources.com/trail-iow ... trail.html
http://www.inhf.org/iowatrails/sauk-intro.htm

"mikechoochoo"
Please take a look at this map and see if you can estiamte where the side dumps were;
http://www.inhf.org/iowatrails/sauk-2001map.htm

[mikechoochoo]

They are on the west side of highway M68, near D59. If I can find the pictures I'll post them.
Mike

[mikechoochoo]

The frame on the cars is 128 and 1/2 inches long.
the box is 119" X 90 " X 25 and 1/2 high
Wheelbase 50 inches
wheel diameter 19 inches
truck frame (arch bars) 3 X 3/4 inches

I have more dimensions but i would need to draw a plan for them to be understandable.
I'm on dial up here but I could post all my photos on a photo site with my laptop in a week or two if there is interest. (22 photos)