Elden,While I have a large number of resin cars I do have a fair share of "Stand Ins".Some of these cars with be super detailed by adding new under frames,ladders,brake gear,grab irons and the

Richard Townsend wrote: A faintly dishonest comment by Alcoa, because while aluminum has about a third the density of steel, it also has about a third the stiffness of steel. Thus to get the

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE That's very interesting, and may explain the PRR's big move to corrugated panels (instead) during the early 60's rebuild campaigns for gondolas, but not for

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE Armand; You may be past this point, but given my lack of actual consists, I had to use photos, limited special reports done on car numbers by location,

Is it a long report? BTW, that 1943 Alcoa ad makes the same point you did regarding thickness: "Aluminum is naturally resistant to corrosion. Its use permits conservative designs, because lightness

Richard Townsend wrote: Alcoa sponsored several hopper car projects in aluminum in the 1930s. The material was terribly expensive and it's no surprise that nobody built any additional cars

Gatwood, Elden wrote: As railroads also found with stronger and thinner steel in box cars, this is a structural trap. The weight savings really aren't very big, a few thousand pounds, and the

Eldon (or anyone else, really), Do you know of any discussion with respect to PRR 740279? This was a GLc hopper built or rebuilt with aluminum, in 1932, I think. I don't know if there were others

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE Tony; That is about what I expected, since the bulk of PRR correspondence on the topic of failures, at least post-war for sure, is about things they

As the new president of the New York Central System Historical Society, I am delighted to announce that the Society has established a Yahoo group for the free exchange of NYC-related information

Gatwood, Elden wrote: Looking through railroad industry journals such as Railway Age in the first ten or 15 years of the 20th century will show numerous articles and letters to the editor about

Armand Premo wrote: I agree with this idea, and have done something similar. I am meticulous in replacing in any train a "distinctive" car, such as a depressed-center car with load (or any

Not to belabor this issue,but I just checked a whole month of wheel reports to see what the correlation was with the Twenty Largest railroads.The results were not really earth shattering.However,while

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE It would be interesting to know how geographic/regional this issue was, and how it evolved over time. I recall seeing discussion on effects of

This amounts to assuming that the cars in your consists are representative of those in your modelled territory. Given a large enough data sample, that assumption may be good, although some pitfalls

Hi, The flurry of responses has started to wind down. They are all well thought out and great. Thanks. So here's an update to my suggestion: The major 'flaw' in my suggestion is that if you

Al Brown wrote: bar trucks, and Youngstown replacement door. > Looking at the photograph and the drawings again, it appears that this Reading boxcar also has a replacement roof. It looks like a

Hi Joe, Thanks about the correction regarding the tower at Marion. I know practically nothing about the Erie Railroad--it is one of those very interesting roads I have always wanted to study, and now

Al Westerfield did patterns for these years ago. They went to Walker model Service, and thence to On-Trak Models when they bought Walker's line, and recently to Wiseman Model Services when Paul

I couldn't find it via Google, but it's available at: http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032183216