Wagner Car Company Truck Book No. 5 - Part 2

This is the balance of Wagner Car Company Truck Book No. 5 along with a few inserts at the end.

There is something interesting about the following page for those who may not have been aware of the friendly relationship between Wagner Car and Q-Car.  At the bottom of this page is a CA&E 419 truck power and trail trucks. Of interest are the  sideframes and 3rd rail beams made by Q-Car Company.  Wagner Car and Q-Car would not duplicate one another's products.

You could get Q-Car sideframes with a Wagner power and trail trucks from Wagner and vice versa. If you were to check Q-Car sideframes verses Wagner's, for side frames which seemed the have the same description; the sideframes were slightly different! The same is true regarding the trolley related products and parts they produced and sold.

Up to this point nothing has been said about the production of the truck booklets. Both Birdie, Rich Wagner's wife, and Rich were aware that in order to have an income from a very selective small market, they had to continuously product products which the market would buy.

Birdie prepared and published "Trolley Talk" and may have had a hand in preparing and publishing the "Trolley Truck" booklets and other publications of Wagner Car Company.

You may not have noticed as the number of sideframes and parts grew, the publications stayed with the same number of pages. The "Trolley Truck" booklets grew to 24 pages. Expanding by 1 or 2 pages was impossible. The booklet had to add multiples of 4 or 8 pages depending upon how they were printed, assembled, and stapled.

Whoever set up the pages with photos and print had to be clever enough to make the layout of the pages work and look correct. Notice how the sideframes are grouped by their use. Credit has to be given to Birdie and Rich for their abilities.

The following is a parts order sheet. The parts sheets were printed back to back. There were parts booklets which will be covered in a separate Post.

The following is a power and trail truck order form. The back of the sheet was printed 90 degrees to the front of the sheet.

This "Trolley Talk Publications" booklet will be the subject of a separate Post.
  

Cheers,
Ed

Wagner Car Company Truck Book No. 5 - Part 1

Next is Wagner Car Company Truck Book No. 5 - Part 1. Again the booklet will be covered in 2 Posts. Rich Wagner has recovered from his heart attack and has returned to making power and trail trucks. It looks like the booklet is dated April, 1984.

With "Truck Book No. 4" the layout of the cover has changed to red across the top and bottom. To me this signaled a change. The booklet looks more polished than prior truck booklets. More on this later.

The model of the North Shore Line (NSL) car 775 was made from the newly redesigned Walthers North Shore kit. The ends are epoxy castings. Walthers had 1st introduced kits for the later NSL coaches, the combination, diner, and observation. The original punched tinplate sides for these kits were not the best. However, with the newly designed NSL kit the coach model when properly painted and finished could rival any brass imported model. Also, this kit when built with the old, original NSL diner and observation sides could result in a beautiful model.

I made a CA&E Cincinnati coach using the redesigned NSL kit plus old, original Walthers sides for the CA&E coach. Some modifications to the kit were required.

  
Part 2 of this booklet will be next.

Happy New Year, 2020 to all!

Cheers,
Ed

Merry Christmas 2019 and a Happy New Year 2020!

As a Christian Christmas means to me peace, joy, understanding, patience, and more. Therefore, peace, joy, understanding, patience, and more to you and your love ones no matter what your religious believes are!

Happy New Year to all in 2020!

We were getting ready to place a wreath on a large clear glass window in our living room. As a ladder was placed in location to install the wreath on the window, it was 1st placed on the floor. Almost immediately our cat Sweetie jumped into the center of the wreath to take a knap. So Merry Cat Christmas to all of you from Sweetie.

Cheers,

Ed

Wagner Car Company Truck Book No. 4 - Part 2

These are the balance of the pages in Book No. 4 plus some supplemental sheets.

While the "Elevated Car Trucks" were intended for the Chicago Rapid Transit (CRT)/Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) 4000 cars there were other CRT/CTA cars these trucks could be used for. 

The addition of the wheel guards to these trucks made these trucks the true North Shore Line standard trucks. Note the underbody detail is mounted on a brass plate which in turn is mounted to the bottom of the model. 

Perhaps most interesting is this flyer which was not an official part of "Truck Book No. 4". If you recall in the inside cover of this catalogue was an "Editorial" which mentioned Rich's health problems. Rich had suffered a cardiac arrest (heart attack). This flyer was for a copy power truck to replace Wagner power trucks. HO parts were used. The motor is from an HO diesel locomotive. It used a plastic worm. The spring belt between the pullies was rubber. This power truck did not operate as good as a Wagner. I bought one. It worked but it wasn't the same as a Wagner. It's still in my parts bin.

Cheers,
Ed

Update on My Health

Please excuse the delay in posting more of Wagner Truck Books. Since late May I've been plagued with various throat and lung infections. This includes Thrush, bacterial pneumonia, and now a fungal pneumonia.  

It's difficult to get things done when you feel like a series of trucks have run over you. I'm starting to feel better. As soon as I take care of a few things the balance of the Wagner material will be posted.

Cheers,
Ed

Wagner Car Company Truck Book No. 4 - Part 1

Please excuse the interruption in posting the next Wagner Truck Book. Unfortunately I was sick. 

With this Post there's a change in the format of presenting each page of the Book. It will be easier to explain each page as it is presented. 

The cover still has the orange band at the left margin. For some unknown reason my scanner chose to make the orange a red.  

Page 2 has an interesting "Editorial". Please read it. How many of the names do you recognize? Rich Wagner's illness during 1976 is mentioned. More about his illness will be covered later. There is a date at the end of the "Editorial". A separate price sheet to be presented later is dated April1, 1976.  

A note in the margin of page 4 mentions about 37-1/2" prototype wheels. These are LARGE wheels!

There are photos of the underbody of models on multiple pages of the catalogue. These are interesting to note. On the bottom of page 6 the underbody pieces were mounted on 3 separate pieces of brass sheet, The brass sheets were then "screwed" to the underbody of the model. 

There are many ways to mount the underbody pieces to the brass sheet. If the part is heavy it can be screwed to the sheet. Lighter parts can be soldered to the brass or glued using epoxy or ACC. Sometimes small pins are used.

If you look at the underbody of a prototype streetcar or interurban close-up you'll notice not all items are mounted directly to the underfloor. Some are hung from metal straps connected to metal cross braces. Sometimes resistor banks are hung directly in the center of the car. When hung this way the resistors have to be hung low enough to clear the brake rigging of the car this includes the brake cylinder, air lines, and the piping from the brake cylinder to each truck.

On page 10 the interior and underbody of the Illinois Terminal (IT 404) lightweight car are shown. The underbody parts are mounted directly to the wooden floor. In the interior besides the seats are the controls in each end. Wagner included his trolley rope retriever mechanism.  

This order sheet was stapled into the center of the booklet between pages 12-13.

The balance of Truck Book #4 will be the topic of the next Post.

Cheers,

Ed