John, Thanks for the stuff on Hills Brothers. I had the pleasure of touring the factory in the 1960s. My girlfriend and I were more interested in using the factory as a set for a MAN FROM UNCLE

FYI - According to Symbols Of America, Austin and Reuben Hill moved from Maine to San Francisco in 1873. In 1882, the two brothers bought a specialty grocery store (Arabian Coffee & Spice Mills)

FYI - John

Nick and friends, A partial view of one of the Hills Brothers' cars can be seen at: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/FindingAids/dynaweb/calher/strike/figures/I0015605A.jpg It is the car on the extreme

I you get a chance I wouldn't mind a scan and would even pay for a reprint of those photos If Bill is going to produce one. Sign me up, it's one of those cars that just has curb appeal, even if you

Damn shame, I guess this one gets added to my (2 year old) daughters collection. I would still like a scan of the photo to see what the cars actually looked like Thanks for the answer!

Has anybody out there seen this piece of crap that Eastern Car Works just brought out? It looks like the tooling was cut in the 30s or 40s, even before N&W built them. Somebody please send them

Nick, It's a real car. I have several photos which are out of reach at the moment so I can't describe the car to you, but don't waste your time with the TM model. I've never seen one that's worth

Uh, Nick, are you sure you want to go there? For some obscure reason, Hills Brothers of San Francisco owned two box cars numbered 161 and 162 which were stenciled that they were built in 1930 but

I know I am going to regret this and will probably end up tossing it in my pile of things that I chop up and use for other projects. But I couldn't resist it. The car is a Train-Miniature Hills

Just noticed the Accurail version of the B&LE USRA hopper is black, not their distinctive brown. Were B&LE hoppers ever black, or were the USRA-type cars in a special service and so painted? (I

Guys, In my collection are several pictures of Cotton Belt wood sheathed boxcars built in the mid-1920's. On the upper right side of some of them is stenciled the admonition "Post No Advertisements".

Mike and all, Can't keep track of what list I posted Yahoo problems. It turned out that things wouldn't work because I didn't want to give them information in their little fill out form. When I

Richard Hendrickson writes: No doubt the tinplaters (forerunners of today's train set The term "bozo" is an approved and acceptable term for use on the STMFC....except when used to refer to me...even

Richard - I did a little more research. It wasn't until '34 that Socony-Vacuum combined the Socony horse with Vacuum Oil's Mobiligas brandname (so it wouldn't be much help to look at a '32 or earlier

John Nehrich writes: John, I've puzzled about where Walthers got the idea for these decals for many years. The decal set dates back at least to 1941, as I have a Walthers O gauge catalog from that

"tgmadden" <tgmadden@...> wrote: Indeed, the consolation for those taking two nights from the west coast is that both routes from California stop right in Naperville. While the

I'm looking at a flyer from MDC on 6 versions of the express reefer in HO painted for GN. While I know (or think that I know) that the cars were somewhat similar, they did have a saddle-type freight

Tom, it's often possible to buy extra tickets at the door. In any case, the slide shows are devoted almost entirely to more modern subjects these days, though the swap meet often yields some

Aidrian Bridgeman wrote: It took me a couple of days to get around to it, but I finally took a look at the photos I have of USRA hoppers and clones, and where the right side of the car is shown, they