Re: Need some help with DRG Class 1 cars

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Randy Hees
The word drawbar is used indiscriminately to designate both the old link and pin drawbar and the modern automatic coupler. There has been an effort to confine the name drawbar to the old link and pin type.” (it goes on to scold the MCB standards which use the term drawbar for height of the MCB automatic coupler….)

I have to note that this effort was apparently a failure (maybe less-so for the various RR accounting dept's). I hired out at a time when there were still prior- and prior-prior-rights people in a location where there were people from about 9 different RRs. Depending on the RR, couplers were called drawheads, drawbars, knuckles (not referring to the actual knuckle), links, nose/bullnose, probably several I can't remember anymore, and a couple I can't repeat here due to modern PC standards. Very few old heads actually called them couplers at all and I got several contemptuous stares and inquiries as to whether I was an FRN when I called them couplers myself.

Quote
Randy Hees
No 1-90, flat car, (Sloan’s class 1 flat) 12” long, 12 ½” per B&S, (14’ long over draft gear) 7’ wheel base

I have the original version of Sloan's C+10, which has the Class 1 flats, 1-90, as the 17' cars and the 501 was a 14' car. Was there a change in the revised second edition or is there some other corrective info somewhere? I could buy that the 17' cars might have been listed as 16 1/2' as I haven't done a shift measurement yet. But intuition and prior experience suggest it's 17' over either the side sills or sill straps - there's only about a 19" deviation from the front plane measurement with the camera at a moderate angle. The so-far comparison drawing looks like this-