The newer F&C one piece castings seem to me to be as good as any. Problems with their decals. They look like they're from the 60s-70s. I used the recommended NSC decals on this model. I covered the resin sill steps with ACC, hope they stand up to operations? If not I can replace them with DA ones...Which I'm not fond of. Picked the trucks out of my 'truck drawer' don't know who made them.
The kit came with both wood and Allen Wood running boards. Looking at the photos in the instructions it appeared only the DT&I car had the AW boards, so I used the wood one. When I asked on this list about better decals I was given a link to PRR specs. There it said it should have the AW board. I happened to look at the label on the box and it said X37b w/ Allen Wood running board. So...I popped off the wood one and replaced it with the wood one  ;  ))
Clark Propst 

1-48 was a guess.  Fuzzy in the image, my bad interpretation.  Thanks for the correction.

Schuyler

Schuyler, look again, 1-48 was the built date. These cars were the first group of C&O PS1 cars & the first use of the C&O for Progress herald. 

Schuyler, look again, 1-48 was the built date. These cars were the first group of C&O PS1 cars & the first use of the C&O for Progress herald. 

Corey,

I do not see a full email address to reach you.   I would like to get a pair of the peaked end kits.

thanks,
brad andonian 

Tim O'Connor wrote:

It's definitely an optical illusion -- Up close on a cloudy day, or once the car is dirty, you'd
never notice it. I have photos of the same cars that appear this way in one photo, and look
absolutely flat in another photo. Trying to model it makes your cars look like they have the
mumps.

Tim is right. The glossy new paint magnifies how you can see the waviness in reflections. A dirty car will be far less evident. The PFE engineer I interviewed told me that when their first welded cars were made, they insisted that a few were re-done to try and eliminate the wavy look. It’s hard to do, and they then discovered that as soon as the car got dirty, it was difficult to see even if you looked.

That said, better welding technique can certainly do better than that C&O car.

Tony Thompson

tony@...

A lot of this extent is from the lighting, which is directly down, making long shadows very prominent.

Photos shot either earlier or later in the day would show much less graphically.

Skilled workers can weld sheet metal carefully to avoid the heat stretched warping, but that takes more time.

-Andy Carlson

Ojai CA

On Saturday, March 25, 2023 at 10:57:29 AM PDT, Tony Thompson <tony@...> wrote:

That C&O car is a superb example of wavy car sides! Pierre Oliver has had a go at modeling this, but not to such an extent!

Tony Thompson
tony@...

Has anyone ever made a 12 panel PS-1 kit or have suggestions on modifying a 10 panel car. 

Could this be done with a decal or something similar? 

Attachments:

• CO-15121.jpg

Tim, it is already being done. Dan Shepard from Australia has been working on a C&O H7 2-8-8-2. It is on par to the latest brass models. He is doing it as a labor of love because I am sure he has more hours at $1 an hour than what it would cost to purchase a top of the line brass one. I have also seen several N-scale shells for converting existing movements to other prototypes. Another gentleman has done an On3 shay for the Mann's Creek Railway. The resolution on the latest round of printers now allows for prints that are on par with injection molded parts. 

Dave