Having been awed by the Hunters Point Navy Yard Gantry crane since first seeing it in 1952, I have also been very skeptical over the years that despite comments to the contrary, that it could actually

Oops! I had not seen Bruce's post on the Pocatello assignment of these flats. The assignment of the Milwaukee flats to Pocatello is interesting. Why would the Milwaukee have built these flats to let a

Perhaps I have missed something. What documentation is there that these flats ever visited Hawthorne, San Francisco, or Bremerton; or ever went off line to the west coast at all? In the back of my min

Although I seem to know that in bridge engineering a Pratt truss is inherently lighter than a Howe, and thus in practice, the Howe is relatively rare, how does this play out in boxcar design? Does the

Tony writes- H-mmm. From glue originally improperly piled on thick like Ambroid and then contact closed improperly before its time? But from "fumes" wafting around for years in a closed car body?? Oh,

As has been discussed thoroughly for some time, and presuming both tape and cement have been applied properly: Sticky tape is just fine except that no one knows exactly how long these sticky foam tape

I never met nor communicated personally with Tim, and I do much regret it. His posts to this list, always great examples of clear spare straightforward analytical thinking, always prompted me also to

Well, my freight car music is on the order of Brahms, Beethoven, Dvorshak, Grieg, and Puccini; and is unlikely ever to change. Any choral music gets the nod, but Wagner in any form does not. Meredith

The evening sun is shining off the lake (my granddaughter: "Fire dancing on a silver stage"); The ancient oaks on the broad magnify the long shadows of evening. The whoosh-whoosh of the paddle fans ge

Philip Dove comments- Heh, heh! Well, Philip is so right about the cost of weights. I have a number of cars weighted down with Belgian francs, Russian rubles, Polish zlotys, and Thai baht, as well as

Another interesting instance of a signature boxcar of one railroad being acquired by means of a wreck to be subsequently "rebranded" and used by a second railroad is related in Sunshine's PDS liner no

A comment has been made about the difficulties experienced in transferring sufficiently-minute amounts of Barge Cement with a toothpick or wire. True enough; and it illustrates well an essential point

Well, I certainly cannot deny your observation, Tony, but I strongly suspect that the cement might possibly have been applied so thick that although the surface came into full contact mode, the center

My esteemed colleague on the coast, Greg Martin, inquires- The answer is a qualified no. I have used it on occasion to steady the Accumate Proto small coupler box (which seem to be made of acetal or s

I hesitate to answer for Bill Darnaby, who for the most part is quite happily "off the internet grid" for the summer, but he fabricated all of his own parts. These are detailed in one of the Kalmbach

Barge Cement is the brand name, and you can buy it most commonly in a 2 oz. tube, but also in larger amounts into the gallons. The maker, Quabaug Corporation, is also the US maker of Vibram shoe soles

As at least some of you are familiar, I have been somewhat of an enthusiast of Barge Cement for some years, and I continue to continue to consider it as one of my most valued bench "tools" for selecti

The idea of modeling the freight cars of railroad "A" acquired "by accident" by railroad "B" is a thoroughly attractive one. I suspect that different railroads had different policies about these matte

Before the Tichy/Gould tank car became the most recent Freight Car du Jour, I had been barely aware of its existence; but I have to admit that the discussion certainly has piqued my curiosity. This af

I dunno, you guys. Be aware that WHAT you say can be totally misunderstood by HOW you say it. Lest we forget it, no matter how much we as modelers earnestly yearn for and try to replicate literal prot