Friends, After a long break for other interests, I have returned to trains and rejoined this group. It will be great to become reacquainted with old friends, and make some new ones. So I'm sitting her

Tod and friends, This is the Walthers tank car in question: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/910-1001 . As some people have pointed out, this is similar to the 1950s Varney tank car, later Lif

Tony, Very interesting. Yes, it does look better. I am still holding out for the Walthers car being completely new tooling over the Varney/Likelike examples (though scaled from the older models). I re

Friends, Can anyone give me an idea when the Southern shifted from black to red paint for their open-topped cars? I have a few photos of Southern flats and gons painted FCR, but in MOW service circa 1

Friends, The U.S. Borax Company originally used their famous wagons to haul Borax out of Ryan in Death Valley. Later this was served by the narrow gauge Death Valley Railway. Around 1927 a new open pi

John and Friends, Can you still get the old Walthers wheel sets (110 only), the ones they used to supply with the pot metal trucks? These were really heavy, and I got some a few years back to add a bi

Jim, Thank you very much for this answer. It was just the sort of information I was looking for. Just hours after I sent my question, my copy of RPC 28 arrived. Pages 10-11 have drawings and a photo o

Friends, Another acrylic product that might work is Minwax Polycrylic sealer, which comes in gloss and matte. This stuff thins and cleans up with water. It is a milky white, but dries clear. I'm not s

Friends, I was preparing a lot of Sunshine and Westerfield kits to sell at a local train show since I know I will never get to them before my eyesight and hand coordination are shot. This all is new o

Andy, Here's what's left after the feeding frenzy: Sunshine ($45 each) 42.2 B&O M-53 wagon-top boxcar, 13 states decals 30.2 ATSF Ft-I or J 40' flat 41.1 Milw. 1939-40 horizontal rib boxcar, Hiawatha

Friends, Sorry, but the last post was intended to go to a single person. I also must apologize for all the band width spend on folks who responded through the list. It was my intention to keep all thi

Friends, I have to admit, I was a big fan of the T-M cars. They were something different from the usual Athearn and Roundhouse boxcars. I probably owned over 100 of them at some point, boxcars especia

Andy, Originally TM cars came with spring trucks. Their detail was much better than those from Athearn or Roundhouse, and arch bar, Andrews and "Bettendorf" types were offered. I don't remember one-pi

Bill, See WESTERN PACIFIC COLOR GUIDE TO FREIGHT AND PASSENGER EQUIPMENT by Jim Eager (Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books, Inc., 20010. On page 62 there is nice 3/4 view in full color of WP 75656 ta

JP and friends, As a former journalist, I often cringe and the poor usage I see on web posts. It makes me wonder if everyone was asleep in English class. Then I reread some of my own posts and see the

Friends, Many years ago I picked up a box of English model sewer pipe castings at a train meet. I think these were intended to be English O-gauge (7 mm) accessories. I don't have the packaging anymore

Tim, I'm surprised you are not familiar with the old Front Range PS-1 boxcars. Both the 6' and 8' door kits represented the pre-1950 cars with the blank roof panels on each end. I know these cars leav

Friends, How much would a Duryea Cushion Underframe add to the length of a car? I know the Santa Fe had some boxcars with these. I'm looking photos of some Duryea-equipped D&RGW 68000 and 67500 boxcar

Friends, My 1958 ORER shows D&RGW Duryea-equipped boxcars in the 67500 and 68000 series as having a length of 42' 11". Compare this with WP non-Duryea boxcars in series 20201 with a length of 41' 9".

Friends, Tim is correct about the SP moving lots of rice, but other grains as well. That was one reason they built the Sacto-Yolo Port in West Sacramento. Full-sized ocean going ships were loaded with