There was a mix... for a long time. Both valves are compatible, but the AB equipment has more features; a separate supply of air for an emergency brake application, for one. This was not a government

I'm sorry, I missed the second part of your question. No, no angle. D bits (also known as single lip cutters) work by the straight edge formed by grinding half the diameter away scraping a tiny chip f

Dremel tool with an abrasive disk, same as used to grind the flat. Someone mentioned Tichy phosphor bronze wire. I never tried it, but I bet that would be stiff enough and stay sharp long enough. Denn

Most hobby grade twist drills are long enough to reach in from the end of the car to drill through the body bolster. I use either #72 (.025" dia.) or # 71 (.026" dia.) to give a bit of rattle room. Ca

Nice varnish. It appears to work much like Dullcote and Glosscote USED to work, many years ago. I'm surprised Gene Deimling hasn't spoken up about some of the weathering work being done in Proto:48. T

Blackall hand brakes were common on USRA hoppers, can't see why they wouldn't be used on the gons, too.. These are not "pump" style brakes, but rather rotary, with an internal ratchet inside the cap t

And I'm sure that's where it came from, an unambiguous way to describe a defect in need of repair. The MCB system for freight cars is one of three the railroads used, all from different origins but fo

Might be something useful here: https://www.irm.org/gallery/IC40285 This looks to be the same class of car with the door opening expanded, but I have no idea when. Dennis Storzek

A lot of the hardware on that Indestructible end looks familiar... If re-working an Accurail car it would be well worth saving the end sill just for the polinf pocket castings. Unfortunetly, the NYC u

That photo of the Hutchins end with two pressings per panel is a new one on me... learn something new every day. Hutchins must have bought a bigger press before they were forced to end production. Den

Rob, where did you find a reference that shows two pressings per panel? Any drawing or photo I've seen shows only one, and lots of separate panels combined to make up the end. Dennis Storzek

Be sure to include examples of Alonzo's patents. His patent for a "Flying Machine" is a classic. Any company that could build a skyscraper in Chicago's Loop district might have been scrappy, but was h

Lester, You mention grinding the stiffening rib off scalpel blades to get them to fit an X-acto handle. There is another way. I've had little use for X-acto blades over the years, but at one point at

Not much plywood production in 1900, that had to wait for better glues. Meanwhile labor was cheap, and even stacks kept the boards from twisting as they dried. This is classic air drying before planin

Tom, that's the classic double board roof used by lots of roads in that era. Milwaukee Road was another big user. The rabbets milled on the face of the board are actually intended to act like gutters,

But that point is moot because the FRA wasn't created until SEVEN YEARS after the cut-off date of this discussion group. Yes, in our era the ICC could make force of law rulings, but only in areas wher

I recall it was a few years later than that... I married in 1975, went to work for the transit authority later that year, and it was in my early years with the CTA that the age limit on UF's was insti

Someone should mention, so I will, that most items "banned" from interchange service were about parts inventory rather than safety. The AAR interchange agreement anticipated that most defects were to

Why is everyone missing the fact that the two cars have "X" car numbers, which is a clear indication that they are in some sort of company service. Many RRs marked their work cars as to function, bunk

The car is just one long tube, which originally had tracks to guide the containers and a winch to pull them off the truck chassis. I suspect the side doors were to keep an eye on the progress of the c