Buddy, My January 1938 ORER (effective October 1937) shows the following information: "XM Box #3000-3249, 237 cars included in this series: "VA" Ventilated, steel underframe, 13 cars - See Note

Buddy, the July 1933 ORER lists all cars in the series as ventilator cars of AAR class VA. The July, 1935 ORER shows 102 cars in the series as ventilator cars and 147 as plain box cars of class

Andy I still have the pocket watch my grandfather found in a gondola load of coal he was shuveling out at his father in law's lumber and coal yard in eastern Colorado. Jeff fry

Rio Grande's GS gondolas were covered in the vol.1, #2 issue of The Prospector. That's the Rio Grande Modeling & Historical Society's magazine. In there it is stated that these were Vulcan cast

The prototype M-26 photo posted in the "B&O Door" folder shows a six panel Superior replacement door. The door that Chad is producing in resin is a five panel Superior door. It is not yet clear the

Gary, I love these photos. There are several more in the collection that show the tenders. The locomotives are Baldwin built USA class S160 2-8-0s headed for the Soviet Union via the Pacific.

More likely it was being winched up. -- Thanks! Brian Paul Ehni From: Andy Harman <gsgondola@...> Reply-To: STMFC List <STMFC@...> Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:37:44 -0400 To:

I saw the link was split and copied and pasted the whole thing when I got the error. Tried three more times and gave up. Today, the same process worked fine. Go figure. -- Thanks! Brian Paul

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