Hi Andy, That is a very steep incline for a railway car. Could they have pulled the car up with a cable. I cannot see any cable in the photo, but it is possible. Joel Holmes

The 70 ton trucks on these 47'-21/4" 1922 Pressed Steel gondolas also had two brake shoes per wheel. The cars were used on the DRGW to Los Angeles run to supply the Pacific fleet with coal until it

And I have photos from 1970-ish of open loads of what seem to be 2x4s, on the RI and MP in Kansas (meaning near their destination rather than origin), especially noteworthy for having been set out

The photo also is in the Billboard Reefers book and the BRHS's Burlington Bulletin on billboard reefers. I suspect it has not been digitized yet at the Denver Public Library. Richard

Richard, I would say that they were an early version of a Buckeye 70-Ton truck. I used to see an updated version of this type of truck beneath Bessemer & Lake Erie triple hoppers when I worked as a

Hmm... file down or just replace with some square styrene? Andy

That's a conventional 70 ton AAR cast steel truck with a spring plank. What makes it look unconventional are the horns on the side frames outboard of the journal boxes for the clasp brakes.

No locomotive necessary, Andy - and no locomotive could ever have climbed that grade in any case. Cars were towed to the top of the coal dock with a cable (not visible in the photo) operated by a

Andy Harman wrote: As you will see in Vol. 1, the prototype had a square operating shaft. The Ulrich is indeed oversize, but Challenger using a round rod was wrong also. I would recommend

Careful! The shafts on the Ulrich sides ARE too large, though they can be filed down (tedious, but it doesn't really take all that long). However, they're supposed to be flat, because the shafts

Cars were pulled up to the top of the coal dock with a steel cable. Rufus Cone Bozeman MT

No locomotive in sight... car just sitting there halfway up the ramp. Probably was a posed shot. Andy

They don't like split links... some sites if you post half the link, you get an error but it leaves the half-link in the url bar so you can paste the rest in. This one you have to open the browser

What kind of trucks are those? Outside hung brakes - not familiar to me at all! Andy

Five guys hand shoveling a gondola load... in 1952. Cool. Andy

The Ulrich has the ends and floor as a one piece casting but the sides are separate, which should make it easier to make modifications. IMO the Ulrich's biggest weakness is the thick and flat looking

I just placed my order.... That's probably going to be my next order in a few minutes. Undec kits in stock. The Challenger cars I have are a G50-9 and -12. Andy

Roughly? All-steel GS gons lasted on the IC from 1912 to about 1985. The last time I saw one with shiny wheels was in 2006 (part of the KB&S' MOW fleet). They were renumbered numerous times, and

Gentlemen - I am trying to determine the year that the NC&StL's ventilated boxcars (3000-3249 series) were converted to XM boxcars. Unfortunately I only have a 1941 ORER which shows the cars were

I'm reading my email backwards but now I see you beat Tony to the punch plugging his own book. I often don't know what I have and I thought hmm, maybe I already have it. But I guess not - I have