There are Jack Delano photos showing the older, larger charcoal heaters being lowered into cars in 1943. The newer alcohol heaters were smaller and required less work to load. Below are some photos

Thanks so much, Steve. Maybe more than I asked for but just what I wanted to know. I appreciate it. Richard Townsend Lincoln City, OR

I use Kadee’s coupler trip pin pliers to create various round shapes in HO, S and O. While the various steps don’t equate to an exact radius, it gets me close so that minor adjustment finishes

Nelson, I was refueling charcoal heaters into 1970. Lenny Ohrnell

John, Found the last one in the bottom of the caboose stuff drawer On the waaaay as artillery guys say Enjoy, Joe Binish

Jake, I have a good supply of curved grabs these days, but in the past I have used a dowel (1/2” or less) or coin (quarter) and wrapped a length of wire. Once the wire is curved, even if the

Found one of the jigs and instructions, yours if you want it Joe Binish

I took the test. Nope, I'm in the 20% that they can't help. RG7

Jim: Fascinating bit of research on your part. Thank you for sharing. On the Penobscot and even on Moosehead Lake, log drives continued until the 1970's, and the bark and other debris had long

According to Jeff Wilson's book, "Produce Traffic and Trains", charcoal heaters were replaced with alcohol heaters in the 1940. Alcohol heaters were thermostatically controlled and had a pilot light,

Jake, Just jig it. ;) By that I mean find something with the radius or near the radius you want and use that as a jig. Oh, and wire is cheap. So what if you throw away every other

The Monsanto car in St. Louis does not have a floor under its hood. A photo is attached. It is my belief that such cars, in general, did not have floors. The hood (shroud, etc?) often covered

Jim, What type heaters are you referring to? I would guess during this groups time frame charcoal heaters would have been the norm. FWIW I never ran across a charcoal heater installed the way you

Jake, Since I have a few (6)of those kits built up, I might have the jig for you. Send me your snail mail off line and I will send one to you Joe Binish

Let’s not forget fish! To my knowledge the New Haven shipped fish daily on BH-1 at least into the early ‘50’s. It was in fact called “The Fish Train”. Fish in Boston were packed in iced

There were some tank cars with shrouds (for insulation?) that curved across the top of the car and then went down vertically to the cars' running boards. Examples are on p. 18 of Jim Kinkaid's Tank

Richard, in my research reefers, reefer traffic, and on icing of reefers, and more to the point currently, of ice collection, there were two different types of ice "Potable" and "otherwise".

AMB put a jig in their MSTL caboose kit that allows bending perfect curved caboose grabs. It is made of clear acrylic, with a curved piece glued in place for forming the curved hand rail. See the

Anyone have tips for bending custom CURVED grab rails akin to that on the side ends of a caboose? My first attempts have been less than ideal. So much so, I've been thinking photo etched brass might

Understand, that was Maine lake or river cut ice. Up until the forties, the winter ice was cut in huge blocks and stored ashore in ice houses. The insulation in those buildings was walls packed with