Friction bearings required lots of oil. I can remember early in my career barrels of journal oil being distributed across the yard, with car inspectors dispatched to insure each journal was filled

That all being said, you'd think the repack data was the freshest painted item on the car.... Jerry Glow

Brian Carlson notes: The funny part of this is that it was true...although the dirt/sand covered the entire bottom of the side...for awhile. I noticed in some steam era videos that the ballast was

Tony, I couldn't agree more, like the friction bearing/Bettendorf issues.   Rich Christie

Since I model ca approx 1953, I usually do shop dates accordingly. Since most of my decals are printed to orders, I can change a few things for extra fare. It's going to be a waste for repaints, but

Both comments are correct and I fixed the locations in my illustration. Of course, placement on the model is up to your info and photo you're following. BTW the "Flour Loading" stencil to the left of

Mike Brock wrote: A perfect opportunity for an easy summer project, Mike. Overpaint those pesky dirty reweigh areas and fix 'em with Champ or Sunshine decals. Easy to do, looks great, AND it's

Mike: You need to get one of those History channel or Discovery Channel shows that investigate UFO's and other strange phenomena. Maybe you have some strange energy vortex down there, it might also

Brian Carlson says: I have noticed a rather strange phenomenon apparently associated with cars traveling over Sherman Hill and possibly other areas in southern Wyoming. The reweigh dates seem to get

Jerry, From photos I have, all pre-"Main Line of Mid-America" cars, plus most Main Line slogan cars with lines above and below the reporting mark and car number, indeed do have the Illinois

Tim; Read the information in the Champ packs. All the RR covered in the pack are listed with their symbols. You are correct the specific location isn't given but if I want to know I ask the list.

I think most rolling stock has some amount of camber that can be seen best when the cars are empty. I recall a few years ago when Walthers produced some correctly bowed Amtrak passenger cars

If you say so Richard, then I believe you. But since the dates and symbols come in separate packages, and the symbols are simply a jumble with no identification about which railroad uses which (except

Rich Christie wrote: I wasn't in much doubt about which arrangement, but we already have a word for this, "reverse," so I don't see the need for another-- and flipped could mean a couple of

Tony, Reversed, "flipped" is modelers jargon that I have seen in gondola articles.   Rich Christie

How so the reweigh sets contain the shop date and the separate date allow one to pick whatever date they want? The are not as bright as I'd like but weathering helps that. Brian J. Carlson,

I'm not sure what you mean here, Tim, but the Champ reweigh data sets were based on photographic evidence, as well as input from several members of this list, and contained for most RRs (including

The bow almost seems exagerated in that photo; there's another builder's photo of a car from the same series on the Wikipedia articlel for MDT which I beleive is also from the Detroit Publishing

Gene, Soory about the miscue; here's the poultry information for fresh, not frozen poultry. Additionally, the AAR information is circa 1940. During the latter part of WWII and into 1947 the AAR

Gene asked: Gene, I don't know how much the following might help, but here is a bit of information. The AAR's Freight Claims Division Rules used the USDAs average freezing points of fruits and