7: Linville River Number 4. The 36’ car was never let-
tered for Tweetsie and was off the roster by 1942. This
is the Hoffman kit with a brass door and fittings.
7
8: Tweetsie galvanized metal car 443. This was the
only 36’ car to receive this rebuild. Johnny Graybeal
collection.
8
The Lite and Narrow Column - 5
Rio Grande layouts. HOn30 has a heavy Maine following and
most of the rolling stock that is offered reflects it. HOn30 seems
to be the most innovative with Clever having models available in
paper and Shapeways doing 3D printing.
3. The most modeled boxcar is the Rio Grande’s 3000 series box-
car, offered in all scales except HOn30. It is offered in ready-to-
run versions by P-B-L in Sn3 and Blackstone in HOn3, and in kits
by P-B-L in Sn3 and Trout Creek Engineering and LaBelle in HOn3.
It is also offered as a kit in On30 by AMS.
Building the roster
Although my Clinch River is a coal railroad, it still needs boxcars
to haul material to the company stores and tipples. Until three
years ago, my boxcar fleet consisted of a Gloor Craft EBT 170,
one that I modified to represent the 150 series cars, and several
of the Funaro and Camerlengo East Broad Top steel cars.
I have had an interest in Tweetsie (the Eastern Tennessee and
Western North Carolina RR) and had followed the construction
articles of Julian Cavalier that were published in the
Narrow
Gauge & Shortline Gazette
in 1985. I was confused by the draw-
ings of the boxcar presented, which showed the door off-center.
I thought that some mistake had been made or that all of the
railroad’s boxcars were that way. For some reason I never got
around to building the car.
In 2011 I built a complete Tweetsie freight train for the
2011
HOn3 Annual
. Prior to this, I had purchased “Along the ET&WNC,
Volume IV: Freight Cars Part A” by Johnny Graybeal. This is a very
comprehensive book on the Tweetsie’s boxcars. It was there that
I learned that the railroad had two types of boxcars, a 32’ car
with center doors, and a 36’ car with the offset doors.
MRH-Feb 2014
