Southern Railway Silversides

[landnrailroader]

I wonder if anyone could create a group of Silversides Gondolas. These were used on unit trains by SR from about 1960 until they ran out their 50 year lives around 2010 and as far as I know all have been scrapped. These were made of aluminum with a gross weight of 286K lbs. When I hired on at the test department in 1965, one of my first assignments was to see if deflection of a bridge had caused a unit train derailment near Columbiana, AL. No, it was the to & fro rocking of the cars on jointed rail at resonance speed of around 15-18 miles per hour - varied by car and how much load it had. Eventually the quick fix was to add extension pads to the center plates and Stucki Snubbers to each spring nest, so if anyone does these, then they will need a black box like thing visible in each spring nest, about 4"x6" of visible part. I am working on an improved version of the CSX Kingsport Sub. and thought of this as I was adding about 15 miles of SR track from parallel to the Copper Creek trestle, under CSX at the north end of Clinch Mtn. Tunnel, and interchanging with CSX at Frisco, TN. I plan to incorporate some of this into a simulation of the Appalachia Div. as well. I have some pictures of these cars and I can probably get basic sketches of them.

Jerry Sullivan

[MMCdude]

These?

RunActivityLAA 2020-09-24 12-55-01-42.jp.jpg

https://www.trainsimulations.net/highhoods

[Lonewolf2777]

you forgot about the ESLW has made them to

[geepster775]

Library ID 89974 includes other later SOU and NS paint schemes

[landnrailroader]

geepster775,

Well those are correct for a later time period. Back in the late 60s, the lettering was orange in color, later green. However I can't use these without some payware item that I don't have. I refuse to use anything that is not "freeware" because it restricts the possibilities. So my request or question still applies.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

I looked it up and the cost is reasonable. Does the high hood train set include these cars - from the comments I ass/u/me that it does. Now for a little tale. I hired on with the SR Test Dept. in 6/65 and I have mentioned a stability issue with the SilverSides gondolas. Early on, we used a caboose assigned to the department as a test car. There was a cradle like arrangement welded to the floor on one end platform and when the car was being used, an Onan generator was placed in this cradle. Another enclosure secured the gasoline can. In hot weather, air conditioning was an open window. In cold weather it was a coal stove. So it became imperative that frequent stability tests be run on those cars in service and to do this we obtained some military surplus gyroscopes, created a 400hz inverter for them, and determined that if the side to side sway exceeded about 10 degrees, i.e. 5 degrees either way from vertical, it was serious. On one of these tests, on a Catawba (Marshal Steam Plant) bound train it was raining, and by then we had the R-1 track geometry car, similar to an office car with good A/C, heating etc. It was ballasted to 286K lbs. so as to load the track like a coal car. Usually, one coal car would be removed from the unit train, and we would be placed behind the train's caboose with one gondola between us & the caboose. Although it added some effort at both ends of the trip, it was considered worth it. On arrival at Marshal, the R-1 would be cut off and left at the entrance to the plant, so that at the end of unloading the train, the engines would pick it up and place it behind the head end power, backwards. Then that night, it would be added to the train bound down Saluda to Belmont for testing that route. This being done at Asheville and since it was brought back, backwards, it did not have to be turned at Asheville..
Well, on that rainy night someone forgot to remove one car and the tonnage rating for 3 head end units, plus 2 distributed power units 2/3 back was rather precise. A few miles out of Big Stone Gap, we came to the infamous Oreton hill. This is a few miles of fairly heavy grade and no sooner were we on it, than we could tell the engines were slipping on the wet rail. Slack was coming & going even on an upgrade. Glenn Goldston, system general road foreman was running and he asked the conductor to see what our tonnage was - well we had 101 cars with the R-1, and there was doubt we could make Oreton, but we did. Fortunately by the time we hit the next steep grade (1.5%) on what was called "Daniel Boone" rain had stopped and there was no problem. Glenn was one of the really great officials at SR. He was from Wartburg, TN and he would ask a new acquaintance if they knew where Wartburg was and if they did, he was an instant friend. He passed away by heart attack in his sleep at a motel near Princeton, IN around 1974 where he was training a new unit grain train crew.

Jerry

[uli2]

Does the high hood train set include these cars - from the comments I assume that it does.

Yes it does. A great set which is very well worth the money.

[pwillard]

It's one of the few TS items I own. A nice set.

This "HO Modeled" one looks more red than orange... image.png

[rrdiesel87]

There is also this pack of 18 SOU/NS Silverside re-textures/additions for the SOU/NS HIGH HOOD TRAINSETS | TrainSimulations uploaded here.

https://www.trainsim.com/forums/file...leid?fid=89974

[CSRX]

The pack Andrew mentioned, does have a pair of what you are looking for specifically, as well as the green scheme, heavily weathered, and NS schemes. Well worth the purchase for the original file, plus this addon pack.

[landnrailroader]

Shawn,

I agree. I had a heck of a time downloading the TS set. Kept getting files named "unconfirmed------" then finally got a legitimate executable file and installed the set. I'll deal with the ones you indicate later. There are two routes in the "to do list" that will use these. I have the Appalchia Div. under development, i.e. digitizing it, etc. and I have the Carolina Div. I will also try to include Bulls Gap to Newport & Newport to Asheville in the Carolina version. As I remember it, the crew change on the unit trains was at Bulls Gap but since that was only 80 miles or so from Andover, they may have gone to Newport. For our purposes it really does not matter. In the track charts (NS) that I have the divide between divisions was at Bulls Gap.
I got to say that the textures on those engines are way too clean.

Jerry