Ken, That a lever handbrake, and it works just like every other lever handbrake. Lift up the lever, push or pull to tighten the attached brake chain. A ratchet mechanism allows the tension to be

Interesting car and interesting what the photos reveal about it. I was struck by the heavy demarcation between boards the side sheathing of this car. The three quarter angle view is particularly

Can anyone describe the "brake wheel" mechanism on GPCX 259? How did it work? Ken Montero

Tim, Red Caboose must have made more significant changes to the tooling. The Front Range 8’ door car had somewhat narrower panel sizes than the Red Caboose version of the car, so the Front

Wowzer Bob, you and Charlie set the bar awfully high Good looking build Fenton

Bob Great looking model! Glad I helped to breakup that sea of red. -- Charlie Duckworth Omaha, Ne.

First, a shout-out to Charlie Duckworth for his recent post and fine modeling of the BL NWX reefer. With a stash totally bare of unbuilt resin kits and a layout already overpopulated with red boxcars,

Here is a car I have not seen before, Case Threshing Machine Co. flat car No. 503. This photo was taken around April 1924 after Pacific Car & Foundry had built 3' gauge box car No. 1202 for the

Bill did not own Red Caboose. He ran it for a non-involved owner whose directions to Bill was simply "don't lose money". When that rule came across these losses RC was bleeding, the decision to cut

I dunno, Bruce. As in most things, I think it 'depends' on what is being modeled. Large numbers of 8,000 gallon and lesser numbers of 10,000 gallon tank cars ARA III/ICC103 were

Andy OMG it wasn't the trucks so much as the wheel sets! I'm fairly sure those also were a Front Range legacy, since I have some Front Range kits with those horrible

On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 02:48 PM, Eric Hansmann wrote: Neat cars. I see US Safety Appliance stencils on both cars. This lettering requirement was eliminated in 1925 GPCX 259 has a builder stencil on

Rich Oh, WOW, I never noticed that !! Yes, the panel sizes are incorrect on the Red Caboose 8 foot door cars because the original Front Range tooling had the wrong

Adding to Bruce's observations, I discovered a tank car detention report for Port Chicago from November 1944 in the San Bruno branch of the National Archives and wrote a blog post about it in 2012.

Bruce mentioned a train of boxcars with a stairstep effect and here is one on the SP&S:

Neat cars. I see US Safety Appliance stencils on both cars. This lettering requirement was eliminated in 1925 GPCX 259 has a builder stencil on the frame above the left truck: Built 2 (or 8) 1918 by

Chris The artwork you sent shows two PC&F cars. Easily recognized by the roof overhang on the ends! Your photo shows two New Haven PC&F cars. Bryan

Clarence, I would disagree with you on this. Since "modern day" (for this list is 1959), we'll only talk about this and backwards. Tanks cars in petroleum service ranged from 6,000 to 12,000 gallons,

Bill told me that the economic hit the on-the-ropes Red Caboose got was from the money spent upgrading the former Front Range 40' box cars. The sales were way below expectations and I would wager that

Besides building new freight cars Pacific Car & Foundry also rebuilt numerous cars. In 1927 they cleaned and painted 5 tank cars for General Petroleum in Seattle. Here are photos of GPCX 203 and 259.