I was wondering what is commonly used today in place of traditional canvas or tin roofing on wood-bodied railcars subject to extreme weather conditions, in this case a desert environment. I would prefer to go with something lighter than composition roll roofing, and would like to not have to re-roof every few years due to UV exposure, etc. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

J. Chris Allan

Seamless Rubber roofing - look for commercial roofing contractors in the yellow pages. It comes 10 feet wide, and can be laid without joints on an arch roof. If it should get punctured, easy to glue on a patch.

Unless a museum quality restoration is necessary, I don't know why anybody would use canvas for outdoor operation or storage in the 21st century. Do we need to build in limited life and frequent maintenence cycles?

dave

On the replica Pacific Electric cars in San Pedro, a Tremco rubber roofing product was used. It was glued directly to the wooden roof boards, and was then painted with a tinted elatomeric paint. It's holding up well.

I don't know how well this sytem would work on top of an older restored roof with uneven surfaces, etc.

If you go to the link below and scroll down you will find a picture of the material being installed. There is another pic on the next updates page as well.

http://www.railwaypreservation.com/Updates4.htm

Thanks guys! That is just what I was looking for. The previous administration at Joshua Tree had so many layers of composition on our SP caboose weight was becoming an issue. -Chris

Pretty cool, being white in color. Good for those light color roofs. The material also looks like it stretches well enough to do car ends (obviously, since they did it).

I've also covered roofs (though not on railroad cars) with the black 60 mil. (1/16") EPDM rubber sheet of the type used as pond liners and for waterproofing planters and bridge deck ballast pans. I'm not sure if this material can be glued; I just tacked it on the edges and covered the tacks with a batten strip. For railroad car use I would just use the standard two row staggered tack pattern in the tack molding, and the results would look exactly like canvas. I don't know how well this material will stretch on curved ends, but this shouldn't be a problem on a caboose. A quick web search turned up a 30' X 50' sheet for less than $800; what is needed is a source that will cut sheets to size. Brand name of what I found is Firestone PondGard.

With a little more digging, I find:

Firestone makes EPDM sheet as two products, PondGard for pond liners, and RubberGard for roofs. Both are available in 45 mil and 60 mil thicknesses; I've only had experience with the 60 mil. The PondGard is guaranteed not to kill your fish. Both are available in wider than ten foot widths, but the roofing is likely not easily available in small lots of wide widths, while the PondGard is, due to the nature of its use. RubberGard roofing is supposed to be less expensive, but PondGard seems to be more of a consumer product, and may be cheaper in small lots (a 10' X 40' caboose roof is a small lot, as roofing goes). Both can be spliced with the approved adhesives, and adhesive is made for a glue down roof installation, although I would be more likely to only glue the edges on a railroad car roof. Loose boards and gaps in the substrate will cause premature failure of either material.

For tech specs. on RubberGard, go here:

http://technicaldatabase.fsbp.com/data/current3824/101%20Non-Reinforced%20EPDM%20Membrane.pdf

We have two former Toronto Transit Commission, Peter Witt streetcars, #2424 and 2894, which were done in Dupont, Hypalon synthetic rubber roofing material in 1975 and 1973 respectively. TTC's last Witt car, #2766 was also done in Hypalon in 1973. The material on all three cars is in excellent condition, requiring only infrequent painting. All three cars are arch roofed and would have had good smooth surfaces when the material was applied.

Gord McOuat
Halton County Radial Ry.