Mont;

I have also heard the second half of the story on the Gould tank car, and
there are some that swear that there was a car in SoCal "back when" that was
used to verify measurements off the USRA car plans; either way, we will never
know for sure, something I have learned over many years of watching real
railroading and finding photos that proved my assumptions incorrect over, and
over, and over..... I also saw a photo (maybe even yours?), a long time ago,
that very closely matched the car with the larger dome, also in UTLX paint,
so I did the same thing; painted it for UTLX and call it close enough. There
appeared to be some very minor differences in the underframe, but it looked
like an early AC&F car in many ways, including the stub sills.



In any event, the car was a pleasure to build, and I will also look for
opportunities to use parts from that kit for kitbashes of other cars, when I
get back to my tank car fleet (I am pretty busy with some cars for TKM, and a
few others I just had to finish).



BTW, with all this talk of the Athearn tank cars, I went back and found the
issue of Mainline Modeler that had the car in it I used to kitbash the
Athearn 3-dome. The real car appears to be an early GATC around 10k car with
very short, fat domes, and matches the Athearn car in almost all ways except
being about a fifth shorter (I measured the Ath car, and it roughs out to
about 13k). I cut the ends off an Athearn car at the bands, shortened the
whole thing similar to what Richard did, and it is a VERY close match. I
plan on adding better relief valves and walkways and such, but I have pretty
much finished the underframe detailing, and it looks pretty good. We have to
do something about this lack of good tank car models, and I am working on it
any way I can.



Thanks again for the input!



Elden Gatwood







________________________________

From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of Mont
Switzer
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 10:36 AM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: RE: [STMFC] Re: Tichy kits



Elden,

I know I probably will incur Richard's ire with this, but I photographed a
UTLX tank car in the late 1960's that sure looks like the Tichy tank car. I
still need to do a lot of homework on it as well as compare details as I
build the Tichy car, but it sure looks close TO ME. UTLX had a few strays so
I might get lucky. That project is in the top 1/3 of the "to do" pile.

Mont Switzer

"Gatwood, Elden J SAD " <Elden.J.Gatwood@...
<mailto:Elden.J.Gatwood%40sad01.usace.army.mil> > wrote:
Thanks for the good perspective, Mont and Tim; and for the info, Ben and
Richard. I do enjoy building kits, and was planning on doing that car with
Ted's beautiful NYC/P&LE decals.

I also really enjoyed constructing their tank car kit, and I run it even
though it has no currently-documented prototype, simply because I enjoyed the
construction so much, like the looks of it, and appreciate the 4-course tank
in a consist of otherwise similar AC&F prototypes.

Much appreciated,

Elden Gatwood

________________________________

From: STMFC@... <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com>
[mailto:STMFC@... <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of
Mont
Switzer
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 8:26 AM
To: STMFC@... <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: Tichy kits

Before you buy Tichy RTR give yourself the pleasure of bulding one of the
kits. They are extremely enjoyable to build and easy to modify IF needed.
Everything fits so well and the styrene is easy to work. Most relaxing.

Mont Switzer

timboconnor@... <mailto:timboconnor%40comcast.net>
<mailto:timboconnor%40comcast.net> wrote: