Russ, I read your response with great interest. There were many different practices, and I think we are closing in on the array of options which modelers can choose among for their own railroad. It

As a UP brakeman, we would bang on the sides of covered hoppers to see if they were loaded or empty. Some would try to mess with green crewmembers by seeing if they could get them to check boxcars

If a cement plant bags some of it's products it will have and internal scale. When they are loading bulk they can use this scale and will know exactly what they have loaded. For the RR to weigh it

I didn't realize springs got depressed. But I suppose life is pretty dull for them... See ya at Naperville! Tim O'Connor

Not accurately, but it has its uses. My daughter, of all people, is a CPA with a major firm, and in her early years with the firm had to go on-site and conduct physical inventories when the firm

Earlier, I had posted thst the IRM Pullman Library contains Middletown Car Company original tracings, as yet still uncollated, and was there any interest in copies from the drawings. Since then, I

Apart from my resonse to Russ, which will follow shortly, I'd like to mention how our club simulates empty car waybills. We have quite a number of waybills which are removed from the car pocket

Cleveland Car Specialty Co. pressed steel arch bar truck, in which the conventional steel bars of the arch bar design were replaced with pressed steel U-section frame members. Richard Hendrickson

I once watched a cement truck loading from a rail car. The driver had a measured stick on a stand that he placed under the truck. As the truck was loaded, the body of the truck lowered slowly until it

Archibald & Darnall, purveyors of concrete block and precast shapes, was a likely recipient of carload cement in Bloomington from the plants up north on the IC's Charter Line from approximately 1910

Surely you've seen the I.M. Pei hoppers.? They're ugly, an insult to the hoppers around them, and they don't work for their intended purpose. Richard Townsend Lincoln City, Oregon

Fact: The local local cement plants covered hopper loads were and still are weighed, each and everyone. Appreciate your insight Larry Clark Propst out hoppers. plants RRs

FYI Not all cars were weighed. The shipper and the RR would work out an agreement Where the RR would accept the shippers word on the weight. If you had ever seen any of the waybills you would know

A few points that I haven't seen addressed explicitly in this thread. a) Looking at a 200 mile radius, here are some marks that you would have a good chance of seeing on cement cars in

Brad, I recall very little cement traffic going south from Dixon and Lasalle/Oglesby. One or two cars to the various interchanges most days. Modahl & Scott redi-mix at Bloomington also received

We don't see too many models of box cars in Aerial views of the yards at the cement plants in Mason City in during our time period are full of box cars. Lots more than covered hoppers. The bulk

Chet, What impact did that generally north- and/or east-ward shipment of cement have on the southern end of the Amboy? I seem to remember Bill Dunbar writing that the first section of 372 was

SNIP>White cement. Medusa was one of a few manufacturers of cement (especially the white) there may have The local plants brought in white cement and resold it just for special orders. It came bagged

We've had several new folks join STMFC so for them, and as a reminder to the rest of the membership, here are the STMFC rules: The purpose of the group is to discuss all aspects of North

Tony, That's part of why I asked, because at various layouts I've operated on, none have had scalehouse or operations relating one so I've never seen something like this in action. Granted, i'm