Ben I believe your pictures show single door rebuilds of cars originally built with double doors. As for the timeline of when the cars were rebuilt, I don't know but it might be revealed by examinatio

I think that 1028 is just faded -- all of the cars were painted (and repainted) the same way On 12/8/2022 11:55 PM, B.L. Griffith wrote:

Mike very impressive ! how much did you have to invest in a 3-D printer to get that kind of quality, if I may ask ? On 12/9/2022 9:40 AM, mlredden1 wrote:

On 12/9/2022 10:50 AM, Steve and Barb Hile wrote:

If you think the NP PC&F car looks like the FGE car... I guess it's possible to choose similarities but that's not going to cut it for a vendor like Tangent. Walthers, yes, but they already pulled the

I'd happily have one as a single stand-in using these old kits, if only the LETTERING were available. :-) On 12/7/2022 10:53 PM, Dennis Storzek via groups.io wrote:

Some city newspapers had a MILLION or so subscribers. Can you imagine what a million copies of the Sunday New York Times weighed? I recall reading once that the National Geographic magazine had 11 mil

Ed Small chance of that happening. The NP cars were different -- The BREX (Q) and WFEX (GN) cars were built in several batches (Q got 3 batches totally 100 cars , GN got five batches totalling 300 car

LOL -- anyone notice in Dennis's model photo the use of the rooftop exhaust stack is now attached to the side sill ? These old kits contain some very nice metal castings, such as a Royal F brake regul

The question is, WHERE did this car come from originally ? D&M 2600 to 2649 were 10-5 IH double door XM's with 4/5 (prewar) ends -- possibly with S-corners (?) -- and a Viking roof ! The cars were acq

Also I forgot to say that total US coal production in 1950 was around 600 million tons, but it doesn't look like your chart numbers add up to that much. On 12/7/2022 12:56 AM, Dave Nelson wrote:

Montana production was 2.5 million tons in 1950, but barely registers on your chart. I grabbed this PDF document (snapshot attached) from a USGS web site with the complete history of coal production f

And here's something to ponder for Southern Pacific modelers -- Because most SP gondolas tended to stay on the railroad most of the time (probably 90% or more of the time), and because box cars were m

Dave ??? Perhaps you have not heard of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, or even Arizona, or Washington ? :-D On 12/6/2022 3:31 PM, Dave Nelson wrote:

Doug People who don't model western railroads often think that. :-) In 1955 over 20% of the SP's freight cars were gondolas, mostly GS and Hart gondolas (which were classified as hoppers in the ORER)

One should distinguish between "bulk" shipments and "large" shipments. Bulk usually refers to unpackaged cargo of relatively low value like grain or chemicals consumed in vast quantities. At a local w

Not just coal, but coke too. On 12/6/2022 9:46 AM, Paul Catapano wrote:

A gondola can be unloaded almost anywhere -- and in long strings -- while a hopper car requires a below track level access of some kind, possibly with a conveyor to lift the cargo back to ground level

Yes, it looks like one of the versions. Greenville varied through the years. On 12/5/2022 7:40 AM, Chris Barkan wrote:

Uh, no, the Golden Spike (Pacific HO, originally) model was an FGE built car - very similar to some built for BREX too. On 12/4/2022 10:35 AM, Rich C via groups.io wrote: