Thanks for these, Garth. The bunk cars are really interesting, and your shots are very clear and definitive. Did you by any chance see the opposite sides? were they the same? Tony Thompson tony@signat

I'm pretty sure the buyer specified what they wanted for all such features, rather than GATC doing "what they liked to do." Tony Thompson tony@...

Ah yes, corn syrup, a familiar ingredient in A-B brewing products . . . Tony Thompson tony@...

Roger Huber wrote: Good point, Roger. I recall the retired PFE Chief Mechanical Officer telling me about the PFE representatives at manufacturing plants, who had to decide, on the basis of color drift

otto kroutil wrote: Richard did not believe the Santa Fe changed its Mineral Brown color in 1945, though he freely acknowledged that shop applications varied. Tony Thompson tony@...

Tim O'Connor wrote: Kadee does recycle sprues etc. into virgin styrene, but only ONCE. The excess from THAT batch is all scrapped. Then excess from the following virgin batch can be recycled once, and

Bill Welch wrote: This results from excessive recycling of scrap styrene moldings. Dennis can tell us much more about this if he wishes. My own approach might be to try and fill and smooth the cracks

Just use a Sharpy to add a shadow and it looks better. Of course YMMV. Tony Thompson

Bob Chaparro wrote: This builder photo is in my Volume 3 of the series, _Southern Pacific Freight Cars_ for anyone who may have the book. Tony Thompson tony@...

"Some produce didn’t need icing-just air flow. Potatoes, and I believe onions among the produce were so shipped." This comment is misleading. Every type of produce had a preferred shipping temperature

Ken Adams wrote (in part): A common misunderstanding. The word "automobile" on a car did NOT mean it was necessarily in that service. Until the early 1950s, the AAR defined an "automobile car" as a bo

Ian Cranstone wrote: Remember, the ORER didn't seek out anything. Each car owner sent in a report, as often as they thought necessary (some would remain unchanged, with original date, for multiple iss

I don't mean to contradict the summary by Dennis Storzek, but thought readers might like a summary of PFE practice. The earliest PFE cars, from 1906 to 1920, had outside board roofs (metal sheet sandw

Bob Chaparro wrote: Nice photos. The B-50-11 class, 800 cars, was entirely built by Ralston in the fall of 1916. The photo shown of SP 26159 exists in a much better version in the National Archives of

Nice-looking models, Bill! Glad to see some MW modeling. Tony Thompson tony@...

Ben Hom wrote: Also looks like a 5-foot door, which PFE did not build in steel cars. And I might add that the ice hatches are opened at a steeper angle than was possible on the prototype (the latch ba

Dave Parker wrote: As late as the first decade of the 20th century, posters, banners and notices of all kinds were attached to freight car sides, and I recall that those were banned (i browsed ALL of

I believe it was for moving trains. Obviously there was some slack, because often big loads had placards on them, giving the builder name if nothing else, but the routine attachment on car sides did l

A&Y Dave iwrote: Such banners were disallowed by the ICC early in the 20th century. Tony Thompson tony@...

The silver roof was as-buiilt. They got repainted within a couple of years. Tony Thompson tony@...