Richard chides me:

Damn, Shawn, the glass is only half full...

Yes, I know...I'm the quintessential Baby Boomer.
"I want it all - and I want it now." Living here
in La La Land probably has had an influence as well.

We've already talked about the Tichy/IM kitbash to
produce models of the War Emergency USG-A class
cars; I know this works because I've already done
one.

I somehow missed this exchange, so I'll have to bug
you for a crash course on how to do the kitbash. I
seem to recall there's a way to turn this combination
into one of the SHPX series of tank cars as well?

Athearn's "chemical" tank can be shortened(getting
rid of the grotesquely oversize valve casing)and
made into a tank for an insulated ICC-103/ICC-104,if
a suitable insulated dome is fabricated for it.

Now this is something I'd like to see happen. I bought
more than a few of the Athearn kits back when I had no
idea there was no prototype. I'd like the opportunity
to salvage at least part of my investment on those. The
tank length I can probably find out with some serious
research. Cutting the tank down to size would best be
done with a mitre box, no?

What needs to be done for the dome? Without pictures in
front of me, I'll guess it needs to be somewhat larger,
maybe 60", and have an edge or "lip" around the top. Can
this be done to Tichy's dome from the detail pack? Or
maybe accomplished with a wrap of very thin sheet plastic
around an existing dome. I imagine the next step would be
to fabricate the correct safety valves and associated
hardware. Hmmmm, I can see myself seriously pursuing this,
since I've got the raw materials sitting in the closet.
More updates on this as events unfold....

Shawn Beckert