Clark, Another nice build in progress. You have been "cranking them out" recently. A trick I've used to cut in a line of color up against another color is to do it in several applications of thin (not

That damage to the roof was probably caused by a fork lift going just a bit too high while inside the car on some prior load. Nice catch, Dennis! - Jim

Roger, Good logic - but probably not needed? It seems unlikely that loading any product in those canisters would ever reach the load limits of the gondola. - Jim

Eric, Thanks for the wrap up! Some great models in those pictures - gets the juices flowing. - Jim

Dave/all, Molasses It the 30's thru the 50's a large percentage of homes/apts/etc. had a jar of molasses for cooking. If you take the population of Oregon and the southern third of so of Washington an

Allen, The banning of billboard paint schemes was based upon "equal access" to advertising. Billboard companies felt/argued that the moving billboards of the RR cars were "unfail competition" not so m

Lester, Excellent car/build! Question - why did you install the uncoupler bars so late in the process? I'm not saying you did something wrong but I noticed that all of the other detail parts had been

Ray, I don't think you are taking the date of that article (1906) nor the source (Leavenworth Times, a newspaper) enough into consideration. I do not know what color the GN cabeese were in 1906 but, t

George, Simply put the coupler "up" and apply a few drops of water and the glue will soften and you can "fix" your mistake. Let the water sit on it for 15-30 minutes - or "as long as it takes". It wil

Ralph, In the Coast Guard we called zinc chromate "green death". The drill was Chip, Paint, and Soogey. Chip off the old paint until you got down to bare metal (using a chipping hammer), paint it (zin

OK - we all agree that the paint called "red lead" wasn't very red. Done. But this thread has been entirely hijacked by those posting - correct information that isn't exactly "on topic" ... the OP wan

Hi, Although not directly related to the topic of this list - I have no other good place to ask ... If you have a cement plant and it is shipping bagged in box cars and bulk in hopper cars ... how did

Bob/anyone, Cattle will eat/chew on anything in their reach. Were these cars successful or were they later reworked to remove the 'rubberized' coating? - Jim

Clark, What is the white square, oriented as a "diamond", on the door of this BAR car? - Jim

Hi all, I made a study of "flat car stakes" - using photos - because I was researching how to do lumber loads. Here are my conclusions based upon that study: 1) Logging RRs used "what ever piece of wo

Eric, Very nice build! Shouldn't the rails be essentially the same color as the ore cars? I've read that all the houses along the right-of-way had rust-colored whites - didn't matter what color is was

Jack, No, but I might pay to ship 10 tons of water in order to ship 30 tons of salt - if it made loading and unloading and moving the salt something you could pump or transfer by flowing/pouring? I do

Third picture, tank car, probably Tyco. Note horn hook coupler between it and the car in front of/behind it. I'm guessing the "train" is placed in front of a photo of the building (photo backdrop?). -

Rich, That does look like a former GN car. That pic, according to the details, was taken on the McCloud RR ... but there is some connection with the Lane County Historical Museum (which is in Oregon).

I -knew- that guy in the light hat ... his name was Fred Rinso ... and he was a son-of-a-bitch to work for, you could never work fast enough or long enough to get a single word of praise from him for