Actually, the platform in question was in the Craig Valley at New Castle at the confluence of the Johns and Craig Creeks in the flat flood plane. There was a manual-turntable, water tower, sand house

Thanks Dennis, The one I was trying to get a feel about was on level ground and had no secondary side track to "feed it.". Must of shoveled it out of a gondola and then into tenders as needed. Al

Great! Al

Folks, Has anyone photos of steam loco re-coaling platform like those used on branchlines. From the C&O Officers, Stations and Agent books in 1902 and 1932 there were many coaling platforms to re-coal

What percent historians versus modelers?

Ed, Built along with C&O hopper cars? Al

The C&O/PM used used Ore Jennies in captured coal service in a pinch. These cars, designed for higher density ore, had extended sides for carrying lighter coal loads, and they refueled the Lake Michig

Versatility was an issue. As labor costs went up, you could rationalize the cost a trestle and dumping coal via hopper doors . . . . or getting a crane with a bucket. Power plants began to seriously u

It was "gondolas to the Lakes AND hopper cars to Tidewater for the C&O and N&W railroads up to WW One. Their Tidewater ports had high high-piers with side bunkers to dump coal in to load the coal boat

A Roy C. Long, from Hinton WV, wrote about a lot of those stories on the C&O railway . . . a conductor shooting a railroad exec for accepting advances of a flirting female passenger . . . that he was

Did they use cast iron brake pads on steel or wrot iron wheels? Al Kresse

Thanks guys, I forgot that railroads didn't like their new steel coal cars getting all beat up by iron ore and re-assigned old wooden body cars for captured service between the mines and local blast f

Hey folks, I am looking at a small branchline operation that ran from 1890 thru 1961 -- the C&O's little 26-mile-long Craig Valley Branch in Botetourt and Craig Counties in Virginia, built to haul iro

Tony, My insights came from an Alcoa Automotive Sales Engineer in Detroit who worked as a junior engineer at the midwestern plant that made the sheet. The post-WW2 C&O Office of Research & Design in C

Tony, Mentioning Alcoa. After the Second World War they had an excess of aircraft alloy aluminum. That is what they were pushing in 1947. Today's aluminum car bodies are made of marine alloys with muc

Check your CBC's. There were suppliers selling lots of kits at one time. Al Kresse

Did the War Production board control a fleet of flat cars from various railroad, but independent of the railroads? The PM was allocated 70-ton flat cars during the war . . supposedly to ship armored v

For historical subjects, like branchlines or specific operations being serviced, or a bracketed group of freight cars, I've found 60-65 slides nicely fills a 55 minute presentation and interrupting Q&

Folks, My co-authors have reminded me that there is still a possibility of doing small-batch (50 or 100 copies) offset printings . . . if we get the layout work done somehow. I believe that is how the

The N&W and VGN cars were well documented in technical journals of the times. CBC's have very detailed general drawings of original cars. As rebuilt cars are less documented as to details. Modeling 6-