Ed Mines writes re: Al Stauffer- Ed is of course correct, but in my mind I usually associate these books with the other author. The excellent book he did on NH steam power with Swanberg is a fine exam

The value in Stauffer's books is in the photos- which in aggregate are indeed hard to find most anywhere else without a lot of work. Far too often, Staufer had never a clue as where the border lay bet

For what it is worth, I have found the Accupaints to be some of the most forgiving of the fine model paints (ranking right up with Scalecoat), with similar coverage characteristics. My understanding i

Paul Lyons writes- Paul leads a charmed life, indeed, especially if he is referring only to one piece resin house cars. Out of the last five one-piece house car kits that I have purchased, two have be

One of the things missing in this thread is that although shellac is a good wood sealer, it is not a SANDING sealer (it contains no particulate matter to actually fill the grain). No matter how fine t

I have been gathering together a gaggle of kits preparatory to my annual episodic (Quixotic?) summer porch campaign to actually finish a number of resin cars. Because I will have limited access to a l

This Red Ball Western Electric flat car kit K-51 with cable reels is listed by Howell Day as being "1920" which may explain to some degree its absence from the usual ORERs. Hauling cable reels or tele

The majority of M.Dale Newton's Red Ball stock was lost in a catastrophic fire at his Medford, OR "plant" in c. 1943; the result being that production of so many of his original kits, printed sides, a

There are two types of wood or paper sealing, whether sealing for moisture protection, or in addition, also sealing to improve the surface for painting. 1) Simple application and re-application of any

No, making the presumption that the paint already present is functioning well already as an effective sealer. I do always seal the back side, however. One of the vexing problems with a lot of the pre-

Walter Clark's post on his Megow cement car made me smile, and his anecdote of fortuitously noting his future father-in-law's TRAINS magazine as a reliable bona fide that he was marrying into the righ

Tony writes- Well said. No one has either a moral or legal right to either demand nor expect anyone to provide someone else's work product to be provided for free, or even to be provided at all; and t

This thread reminds me of the oft-stated dogma that the VGN's battleship gons never left home rails. However, the VGN diagram book indicates that two gons #'s 19504 and 19326 were destroyed on the NYC

For what it is worth, during the years that I lived on a farmstead in northern Vermont, we heated the house primarily with anthracite from Pennsylvania (supplemented with gas [propane] and wood). Alth

Amongst a recent purchase of largely-derelict ancient HO freight car models is a neatly-built generally-presentable double-sheath wood 40' reefer D.I.C.X 115 "DRY ICE" REFRIGERATOR LINE. The body is w

There is nothing to substitute contacting the museums's librarians directly at <mailto:rrmuseumlibrary%40parks.ca.org>rrmuseumlibrary@.... They are truly there to serve you, and as they can m

Richard Wilkens writes- Richard has it exactly right, of course. Denny :-[

Bill Welch kindly refers to the "restored FGE reefer at the [California State Railroad Museum]". This fine 1924 ice wood reefer 35832 never actually needed "restoring" in the usual sense, and in fact

SGL comments- I do not know how many paper wheels are still in existence. However, a very well known instance in California is/are the tender wheels of the V&T 2-4-0 locomotive #21 JW BOWKER (1875) in

I recently purchased from a seller in Tallahassee, FL an HO c. 1946-7 Varney "Super Mikado", very nicely built and finished, and little used (this was the early sprung Mikado that used the same cast l