Jeff; I don't think you are full of it at all, and indeed, your theory would partially explain why two X29's painted at the same time could look completely different 5 years later. If X29 #1 took a

Garth If you want 70 ton trucks, the best RB ASF A-3's are made by Kato and Kadee. The Kato has rotating caps and so they don't roll all that well but they are pretty.

Truly rusted out looking, bad paint, illegible lettering was -relatively- rare in the 1950's but was not unheard of -- and a car that is only a few years old could get pretty cruddy in the steam era.

Do these comments about regional weathering apply only to certain types of cars (e.g. hoppers)? I would expect that free-roaming cars (box cars) would not show regional weathering because they roamed

Jim; You bring up a very interesting subject, and one that I have done my own looking into, for my area and era. I would say, based on memory and photos of equipment and yard photos (even more

Jim, Weathering is very subjective, as it relates to the person doing the work. As always, the best way to determine what you want to represent is by working from photos. Even b&w prints will

Jim: The photos I have from the 50s and earlier show grimed over lettering (they were behind steam engines after all)to the point that they look faded. Tank cars are the worst with spilled oil

Ben Hom wrote: "Nice try, but the sides of most older boxcars are WAY too thick (the same reason why most model wreck-damaged cars are unconvincing). A bunch of old Globe metal sides would be a

We see guys selling stuff on eBay that have rust blowouts, repaint bleed thrus (especially after an ownership change), paint patches, spray can grafitti, etc. ... what I'd call "heavy weathering".

--- In STMFC@..., "Fred in Vt." <pennsy@s...> wrote: Without fail, you toss it out, and 3 weeks later an article appears which uses said dumpster fodder as the starting point. Rather

Garth, These are what you need: http://www.discounttrainsonline.com/Athearn-Genesis-Trucks-70-Ton-Roller-Bearing-Trucks/item141-4598.html Hope that helps some... Stefan Lerché Duncan,

Friends, I am building a WP 29' coil gondola (series 6401-6500, built by Greenville, 1953). These came with ASF-A3 roller bearing trucks, the first large-scale application on the WP. I have a hard

How about all those hulks of real railroad rolling stock rotting away in museums? With those Ulrich cars it's remembering what they once were. Those WWII gons vere really something when they first

Me too. The HO layout I half built when I was a teenager was left for dead at my parents house 35 years ago. When it came time for my brothers and I to clean out the house a couple of years ago,

Put it in the trash. Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA 2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com (510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937;

Tony, That being the case, what did you do with the brass, fiber tie track? Fred F

I may have a solution to our problem.Let's swap stashes.I may have some stuff that someone else might want,etc,etc,etc.Simply put, I too have more than I will ever need and yet keep adding to the

brakes. tank train I have noticed the same thing- I think it reflects where the train pipe crosses the center sill. The old MCB recommended practice was for it to cross near one of the trucks

Brothers, Some of you guys need to be more mobile. All it takes is one cross-country move to realize that keeping dead projects isn't worth the cost of the move. For that matter, they're not worth

Fellow Listers, Did the Santa Fe ever produce a freightcar diagram book for the 1950's, or any other time period, for that matter? Obviously Mssr's Hendrickson, Jordan, et.al. got the material for