The November and December issues of the online Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine has prototype modeling articles by Jack Burgess and Tony Thompson respectively. Bill Welch

Ed When the basic structure is there (floor, center sill, bolsters, cross members, draft gear), the super-details can be (1) left off or (2) postponed. In other words, if you ever change eras

Abacus announced several models already on the market. Considering the excellent HO scale plans provided in Roger's articles in "Mainline Modeler" I wonder why more men aren't considering building

Chad I do a lot of Freight and Passenger car scratch building I try to put as much detail as I can into each car. How ever when it comes to Flat cars and Gondolas that have fishbelly sides that

Walt Can you see the center sill of a box car when it is on your track? I've seen a lot of layouts, and I'm safe saying that on 95% of the layouts, it cannot be seen by an adult standing at

I'm not sure if these Buckeye ends were made for that series or taller auto box cars but Red Ball had both cast metal & plastic ends and Roller Bearing had very nice resin ends. Ed Mines

Richard said, "In my opinion, it is pointless to model underframe details which are invisible when the car is on the track. . . ," NOT "it is pointless to model ANY underframe details." Certainly his

Tim, It is the designation as suitable for LCL service that is the key. The reply was fixated on the Parkersburg Branch, but there were other portions on the B&O that also had restricted

I had a different make and wore mine out also and now use kitchen gloves (the kind for dishwahing). Not as sturdy but a lot more flexible and readily available. Jerry Glow

WHAT??? I have more than a dozen saved emails from Jim Mischke, Dave Sieber, Pat Wider, Ken Braden, others, including direct quotations from B&O company memos, going back 8 years, saying circle T

Schuyler wrote I agree but a more basic question is, are these Kato Stewarts or the more recent home-made drives? I have a lot of Stewart F units, and I've never seen them bind up on a downgrade. But

Tony But that is EXACTLY how to interpret Richard's statement. Since the underframe on house cars is invisible from most viewing angles, it can be eliminated. That is what Model Die Casting did on

All I'm permitted to say, is that I know 2 manufacturers who between them are working on at least 4 models in HO. Patience. Pierre Oliver

Seems like they almost could have left of the bottom of the circle and let the T stand for Tunnel... Scott Pitzer

Jim-- Thank you for such a very informative post. Steve Lucas.

Obviously, those "first few cars in the train" were ALL steam-era freight cars . . . The usual fix is to place washers on either end of the worm gear in the trucks so as to reduce to a minimum the

Tim O'Connor wrote: That would be your sweeping statement, and I quote, "Your argument makes the case for the elimination of nearly all underframe details of any kind, including the underframe

Earl I suggest this wonderful Yahoo group: repowerandregear Tim O'Connor

Don John is at <jrpolyak@...> I bought a replacement pair last year... also a new bucket of grit :-) Tim O'

Tony What straw man would that be, exactly? Richard wrote: "... it is pointless to model underframe details which are invisible when the car is on the track" I responded to that. In my English