Nice pictures! I noticed that URTX 2050 has indented dreadnaught ends for the top half, regular (outward) ribs on the bottom half. Was that standard for the group or a one-of-a-kind? Tom Casey.

Andy, You best bet is to take a flight at a non popular flight time, and be willing to forego non-stop flights. Tom Casey

You could consider XM's that had been reassigned to MOW duty. To make it clear the car is in MOW may require repainting, a change in reporting marks or class markings. Some road didn't completely repa

And then there is that Duyea U/F, and beefy looking crossbearers (thinker & wider flanges than usual. Tom Casey

Drew, Definitely SFRD! GTW's Elston yard had direct connection to the south end of Santa Fe's Corwith yard. I grew up next to the GTW main just south of there and blocks of SFRD reefers were common on

Rob, . Rocket Express make two neat looking single sheathed box cars that are exactly accurate cars. A good start to find RI prototypes would be the Fallen Flags website, from there you could determin

I notice heavy duty screening at each end, perhaps a quick conversion to ventilator service? Otherwise a non revenue usage comes to mind. There appears to be some type of wheeled cart on the far side

Those roofs resemble Mather Stock car construction. Tom Casey -----Original Message-----

Bob, The Rr-21's were SFRD's first all as built all steel body,ice reefers, and all had Duryea under frames until scrapping. These had the earlier Duryea under frame, with cross bearers having and ope

The date for that paint scheme is OK, however, using the classification of Rr-21 with a USRA underframe isn't. The Rr-21's all had early Duyea underframes. Tom Casey -----Original Message-----

Paul, Bob, I bought a print of that photo at one of the Naperville RPM's. It's a chalked on "logo" on a 57' ACF wood side express reefer. It's clear from the photo that it was not painted on but done

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These were "dual service" stock & coke loading. Which is why they also have Caswell operating drop doors in the floor. Tom Casey -----Original Message-----

Great find Bruce! I wonder if those loads of wheels are exported scrap metal going to Japan. Behind that is a Cotton Belt DS box car. Under the shadows of the overpass there is a gon with a load of ar

Santa Fe had thousands of 40' Caswell gons and there are photos of strings of those in Colorado & New Mexico loaded with coal. They also had small numbers (100's) of steel offset side two, three and f

Just wondering, wouldn't this be due to the higher proportion of wood burners? There also seemed to be an explosion of various cinder catching smokestack designs that disappeared with the switch to co

HUgh, I don't know if there's a parts suppler ofr these, however, I wonder if you'd have better luck getting an older second hand parts souirce in the form of a used/EBay/train show loco. Some of thos

Marty, You're right about the prescribed material having to deep of a relief. One method you could try playing with is to lightly shave a small champher along the bottom corner of the boards, just eno

Jared, Gee, Perhaps you're having "clinic withdrawal" symptoms from the Wichita convention! Tom Casey -----Original Message-----

Marty, Bob & the group, One of two things is likely to fall out over time. The Verizon/Yahoo merger has to be paid for somehow as cost cutting can only cover so much. That will lead to the intrusion o