Hi all, I made a study of "flat car stakes" - using photos - because I was researching how to do lumber loads. Here are my conclusions based upon that study: 1) Logging RRs used "what ever piece of wo

Eric, Very nice build! Shouldn't the rails be essentially the same color as the ore cars? I've read that all the houses along the right-of-way had rust-colored whites - didn't matter what color is was

Jack, No, but I might pay to ship 10 tons of water in order to ship 30 tons of salt - if it made loading and unloading and moving the salt something you could pump or transfer by flowing/pouring? I do

Third picture, tank car, probably Tyco. Note horn hook coupler between it and the car in front of/behind it. I'm guessing the "train" is placed in front of a photo of the building (photo backdrop?). -

Rich, That does look like a former GN car. That pic, according to the details, was taken on the McCloud RR ... but there is some connection with the Lane County Historical Museum (which is in Oregon).

I -knew- that guy in the light hat ... his name was Fred Rinso ... and he was a son-of-a-bitch to work for, you could never work fast enough or long enough to get a single word of praise from him for

Claus, I love the guy in the light colored hat who is looking directly at the camera! I noticed that the 'crews' at the individual cars that are unloading all seem to be food/household goods. And that

Hi, The ex-GN hoppers on the Sierra that are used for ballast service are the early ones from the Mesabi range. The GN replaced them with cars more suited to their Ore service and sold them off to who

I don't know if they were popular/unpopular with the brakemen but the coupler pin pulling equipment on this car sure looks simple and straight forward. - Jim

Bruce,Tony,Who Ever, That color looks a touch too red for my tastes. I assume you will be weathering the cars - correct? I'm not an "SP modeler" but I know a lot of them and have seen a lot of their w

Hi all, When I was in H.S. I worked in a salmon cannery. Our cans all came to us fully made up (no lid) in large cardboard boxes of perhaps 1000 cans at a time. The box was the size of a pallet on the

Gene, The work is so good that I kept expecting you to "April Fools" us and tell us that it was a pic of a prototype. ;-) - Jim

... plus 3 steamers, a caboose, a diesel and no less than 18 guys ... nice photo! Anyone know where in Texas this ATSF location is? - Jim

But it will be popular with the grand kids and will sell ...

Elden, And why would you expect your operators to be any less human than the guys on the 1-1 RRs. *G* Your operators probably said "If Elden put it in the train it must need to be delivered somewhere!

I thought there was some 'action' in the Aleutian Islands ... ???

These spammers/hackers -often- "harvest" a real email address (not necessarily by hacking the owner's computer/email) and use that as the "return address" on the email. The real scam is in the active

Hi, When looking at the make up of an individual train or cut of cars - we shouldn't pay too much attention to the mix of cars from a particular road. Most of the time the yard clerk assigns cars base

Ken, I don't know what that widget is either. I was surprised by the built date for the car - and the fact that is is Cor-Ten steel. - Jim

Eric, Thanks for this link ... excellent coverage of how to info for the hardware. - Jim