Hello group,
With the recent mention of Ted Cullota's series Essential Freight Cars. I was wondering if their is available any type of compilation of these articles? Or is the only way to obtain the information ,is to get all of the back issues of RMC? I'm grateful for the information in the files section and the spread sheet. Thanks Barry

Thanks Clark, as a coincidence I was just re-reading your articles in Vol
one of Ted Culotta's Prototype Railroad Modeling magezine. Good stuff and
very inspirational. I sure wish Ted could have continued this magazine.
Thanks for the nice thoughts,
fenton

There are fewer single-sheathed box cars than I would have expected. Since the majority of box cars appear to be Santa Fe, to the extent that such a determination can be made, what does that say about the Santa Fe box car fleet?

Did the Santa Fe have fewer single-sheathed box car series?

Had the Santa Fe replaced most of their single-sheathed box cars with all-steel, double-sheathed cars by the time of the photo?

Gene Green

Pierre, recognizing that you truly need no advice from me or just about anyone else in how to build models, Bill Darnaby's post on this list some years ago (#20484) and Ted Cullotta (#36207) on building this great car kit were, and still are, gold standards as to how two great modelers approached and completed successfully this extraordinary kit. I also contributed some working notes on the same kit in a post about three years ago (#86281 November 4, 2009).

The most important piece of advice that I learned from Bill, and then slavishly copied, was to deep-six the multitudinous brass wire tank bands, and the clunky process required to bend them, in favor of using nylon monofilament fishing line instead (easily secured with ACC). Although I used some line of the proper diameter found serendipitously wrapped around the propellor of my old ChrisCraft, I determined at the same time that lines of the same weight can have different diameters; so be careful (c. 8-13 lb. line, if I recall).

A broomstick does indeed work in shaping the tank wrapper- for me much better than the PVC pipe included in the kit.

Checking available prototype photos of these cars, the number of tank bands in the kit directions are fewer than the prototype. The ease of using the nylon line allowed me to replicate the correct prototype number.

I substituted PSC handrail clamps for the ones supplied in the kit.

The cast urethane "clamps" for the tank bands in the kit are also crude at best, but still presentable. If I am correct, however, I believe that Tichy has much better bands, which I would have used if I had known about them. The latter "may" also be predrilled, which if so, would void a lot of drilled finger tips.

Denny


Denny S. Anspach M
Sacramento







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Many posts cover car construction and where and how dry ice was made. Unless I missed a post, the question still remains of who received dry ice and for what purpose (other than Crystal Ice in metropolitan areas). My model RR is set during mid-WWII, 1942 � 1944. Do I need dry ice service cars?
Thanks, Bill J