Thank you for the good word! I believe the thee-rod plug door was the original. Lots more moving parts on it perhaps led to a simpler design replacement door. Maybe done when the car was painted in

My understanding at some point they replaced the door with a more conventional plug door. Is the proto photo the original or replacement door? Fantastic model Ed! Scott McDonald

No historical context here, but on the Missouri Pacific (and subsequently the Union Pacific) the car scheduling system used "Yard Block" (YBLK) as a term since the 1960's. The classification of a

Dave Nelson <Lake_Muskoka@...> asked: John H. Armstrong in The Railroad What it Is, What It Does, 3rd Ed. Simmons-Boardman, 1990, page 169, says, "The next step in

I'm looking for advice on HO scale trucks that were used on these cars after the arch bar trucks would have been replaced/updated. This is for the Yarmouth Model Works kit #109 (link). I model 1946,

'Blocking' is also used as a verb, referring to the act of assembling cars in blocks. I think, without citation, that this is a very old railroad term. 'Lashup' could have been hostler slang, but

Many years ago MR published a very indignant letter to the editor castigating the magazine for using the term"lashup" and asserting that the only correct term was "locomotive consist." Why this has

From what I’ve read, and heard, “Lashup” is a model railroad term. Not used by railroaders IRL (In Real Life). Now, I don’t KNOW about “block,” but it seems to me to be a common term

Dave; “Block” is definitely a railroad term, and refers to a string of cars destined to an intermediate or final destination from which the block may be broken up or re-classified, like the

Anyone know when the term ”Block”, describing a set of cars headed to the same location, came into general use? Or whether that concept is in use outside of North America? Similar question

The mention of pulling up rails reminded me that I have several AFEs from the war years in which the C&S authorized removing various tracks to free up rail for scrap drives. Richard Townsend Lincoln

Here is an O scale model I built of it in 1987. My only reference at the time was a photo and brief description of it in the 1953 Carbuilder's Cyclopedia. Some hand lettering had to be done for what

Photo: B&LE Gondola 16331 With Scrap Load (1942) A photo from the Ann Arbor District Library https://aadl.org/sites/default/files/photos/N082_0380_006.jpg The World War II scrap drive included

Photo: SFRD Stainless Steel Reefer 13000 A photo from the Santa Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society

"Drawer of Disappointments" I like that phrase. Mine is more like a "Penalty Box" It is a shelf by the bench where I can place "those who do not cooperate" and let the subconscious work on

I've summarized a few recent projects in my latest blog post. Most are freight cars, except for a cool model of a 1918 truck. Here's the direct link.

It looks like pink would work and you can ignore my previous post.

Hi Dave, I would do a test run of the mixture before using it on a model. Back when Floquil was the "go to" paint I was looking for a way to get a faded appearance on some single sheathed boxcars in

Thank you Peter, you've laid my fears to rest. Dave Lawler

For example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/ATHEARN-5209-OSCAR-MAYER-REEFER-6871-KIT-HO-SCALE/383641293846?hash=item5952cd9416:g:2BsAAOSwSmJfFcpr Richard Townsend Lincoln City, OR