You've hit the nail on the head. The libraries that hold these images really know very little about them, and cataloging is typically work for interns. The caption is really just a description for the

Interesting that they are all equipped with slotted knuckles. Dennis Storzek

It appears to have a full compliment of lever guides... I'd hazard a guess they wanted KC brake equipment, for reduced parts inventory for these captive cars, and decided to equip them in-house, using

That car has all the spotting features of a Mather car. Dennis Storzek

That offset body with the steering column running past the right side of the hood is the hallmark of the Farmall "Cub", which was sold as a light duty tractor for plowing the garden etc. Too bad they

Jim Ogden touched on this but let me add, it's more granular than that. It didn't really matter where the factory was - the factory could ship nationwide - that's why we see photos of tractors on flat

Ed, Don't let it get you down. I replicated your methodology and came up with a truck wheelbase slightly over 6-1/2 feet, and also really can't explain why. Two things come to mind: The journals and f

I went about it a different way... I downloaded the high res TIF, blew the area up, and reasoning that at that distance the adjacent hopper car is essentially the same distance from the camera, simply

That looks better. Note on the partial end view the nuts show at the bottom left corner of the casting, along with a call out for the bolt, which I just can't quite read, but looks like 1-3/8" diamete

Further discussion tickled the gray cells. Here is a photo of a boxcar built by the Pressed Steel Car Co. in 1901 for the Iowa Central that has similar trucks: https://www.midcontinent.org/equipment-r

Unfortunately, Ike's Southern design is about ten years too new; it has the drawbar carry iron cast integral. The USRA design used a separate cast carry iron attached with a large bolt, and indeed, th

Do you have any idea who built those cars? Somewhere deep in the recesses of my memory (or what's left of it) I recall that Barney & Smith had a fabricated plate passenger car truck, that from the sid

The better question might be, "Who thought it was a good idea to omit the fascia in the first place?" I ran into this issue years ago when designing the Accurail USRA car, and made the judgement that

I was going to mention, but Ed beat me to it, that the built dates span the production change of the roofs. Not really a big deal, as the panels (the whole component, not just the raised pressing) wer

It's photos like this that makes one wonder if the ends initially remained FCR, same as the roof. I know dirty red can be mistaken for FC color, but the white lettering and fascia don't look all that

A couple of things are not being accounted for in this discussion. Yes, metal shrinks as it solidifies, as does most things, water excepted. But in the investment casting process, the molds are at som

Those may well be my parts, I intended to sell part of the run to recoup some of my cost, but when Richard heard about it, he bought all I wanted to sell. Dennis Storzek

Well, we certainly have agreement here, don't we? Over the years I heard anywhere from "don't worry about it" to 7% shrinkage from pattern to investment cast part, although I dismiss both ends of that

Wax was used when the masters were being "spin" cast in rubber molds. For higher production numbers the masters are injection molded from styrene. Precision scale Co. plastic parts are the same; inves

I was looking at Ian's web site some more tonight, and have a few corrections: The resin kit is specifically the CC&F cars, CNR 500000-500223. It turns out Ian's roster has links to photos of some of