The power truck looks like an old Lindsey, I have one of them it has an adjustable wheelbase.

Definately not the bowser unless they used a Lindsey early, the old Bowsers had a vertical motor. Now I will have to poke around some early model mags.

that looks like a sleet scraping shoe. I think that blows off Texas Electric because it rarely gets icy there. It can only be a midwestern line. Whoever did this model knows their biz.

Chicago Downtown hobby would do some unique models such as the CA&E cars, and you wouldnt see them in the mags, Chicago would have such a strong traction following they would sell and not need to advertise.

Might this be a kitbash of a base model plus features from favorite cars?

Wesley

Who says it even has a prototype? Lots of models were completely free-lanced. During my brief foray into O scale I had one commercial model (All-Nation NW2) and 11 home-brew cars that followed no known prototype exactly but borrowed details from various railroads, both mainline and shortline. I wonder where those are today?

Still, it's easier to copy something (a prototype) than to just make it up. Usually generic models tend to be rather bland. The distinctive shape of the baggage door and those twin toilet windows are anything but bland. Somewhere there is a prototype that has those features.

What bothers me most about the model is the disparency between the carbody and the roof. The carbody architecture suggests very early twentieth century, and generally the car looks as though it should have a railroad roof. Even on the Illinois Traction System, well noted for the bulbous arch roofs, the oldest cars originally had railroad roofs.

It may be that this model portrays a car rebuilt in the twenties with a more modern roof. Or, it may well be that some modeler simply felt that the car would look better with an arch roof. Who knows. If I had a lot of photo references (I don't) I think I would try to find an example of the body architecture, ignoring the roof, then research further to see if any match with a railroad roof was ever rebuilt.

Agreed; the combination of arched roof and arched upper sash windows narrows it down quite a bit, as very few lines built cars like that. The only two that come to my mind are ITS and Southern Traction. Two questions I can't answer from the posted photos are (1) whether the model has a train door on the back end and (2) whether the model's prototype has T&G or steel sides. Both the ITS and Southern Traction cars had steel sheathing and train doors at the back, but if the model has T&G siding and/or no rear train door then I'd guess its prototype is likely as not a rebuilt railroad-roof car.

Or, of course, it may not have an exact prototype. I'll bet that either way, whoever made that model would get a kick out of this discussion!

I suspect that it is a freelance car loosely based on Tidewater Southern 201-203. Those are the cars that I know of that most closely resemble the model. However, the cathedral arched baggage door is a feature that I have never seen in a "real" car, and would be impractical in service.

Other examples of arch window, arch roof cars existed in addition to IT and Southern Traction. I mentioned Tidewater Southern. Also, the Fort Dodge, DesMoines & Southern had one, and one of the Indiana Railroad predecessors had some.

There was some slight overlap between elliptical upper sash windows and arch roofs. What is more significant to me is the shape of the door heads... going back to steam RR coach architecture to find earlier examples, Barney & Smith cars built in the 1890's did tend to have full semi-circular door heads, although I can't think of an example of a baggage door off hand. By 1900, the doors tended to be wider, with round corners to keep the arch from coming too low, even while elliptical arch windows were still the dominant styling feature. The ITS cars we know and love are a good example of this.

I wonder if Barney and Smith ever built any interurbans with this styling, either arch or railroad roof? That would again make the mid-west lines, especially Ohio and Indiana, good candidates.

This Lehigh Valley Transit Jewett has several of the features we've been talking about; Paired toilet windows in the left rear corner, round door heads... maybe these are standard Jewett design features.

https://ceramembersblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/img714.jpg

Who is restoring this car? the link from the image to it's page seems to be broken.

That is an ancient photo of LVT 801 in Ed Blossom's rail yard in Topton, PA. The car is now at Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton.

Wesley

I've just scoured multiple books, nobody but the Illinois Terminal seems to show the single ended car with the double poles for ice breaking for the middle pole, this has to be an IT inspired car. Most cars like this had to have the upper curved windows blocked off, so this car is a pre-modded car.

I have 2 thoughts for the model, it might be a one up 3d printed car totally custom worked, or an early 50's 60's made model. Still more poking to do.


oboy, Detroit United lines had the center pole also...