Or, I sure hope I don't fall off this icy roof! (balance, balance, balance) Todd Sullivan

Hi Eric, Thanks for your note and the links to your blogs with examples of your techniques. I will experiment with your techniques on that PRR X31, once I finish painting it (the roof and one side wer

Eldon, I thought your weathering of the X31 in coal tar chip service was right on. Somewhere, I found a photo of adingle door car tht had weathered right down to bare rusted metal, with that bluish pu

Yay! Go Bill !! Todd Sullivan

Hi Clark, Yep, that's resin's siren call to many of us. Hard to resist. Fortunately for me, most OOP resin kit prices are beyond my limit for modeling expenditures, and they don't compete well with ot

Thank you, Tim, for adding more insight to this conversation. Todd Sullivan

Hi Tim, Hmmm. I appreciate your warning, but I have not had any problems with this. Perhaps I've been lucky. I do use quite small amounts of contact cement, usually when gluing roofs to body sides and

Bud, If you apply Barge to the two surfaces to be joined, let it dry, then press the two parts together, the joint will be very strong, but you have to get placement of the parts aligned correctly the

Yes, becaue that is the nature and characteristics of petro-based contact cements. However, I have found that Barge Cement is less prone to 'string'. I usually use a toothpick to apply the cement by g

I have used Barge Cement (blue tube) for several years, and really like its characteristics. It is a useful member of my 'glue team'. I found mine by ordering at an ACE hardware store. Todd Sullivan

Hi Ken, When I am drilling holes in anything, I brace my drilling hand and/or the pin vise with my free hand. I'm right handed, so I brace with my left by putting some fingers on a solid item (workben

Bob, The Red Caboose 42ft flat cars with their 'fishbelly sides' are either the USRA cars or pretty close. The only two RRs I know who had them are the NYC and the MILW. The NYC cars are fairly common

Sam, Great piece of information. Thank you! Tod Sullivan

Another wrinkle in this whole freight car handling thing is that a) A RR's customers could demand certain car types and even cars from foreign RRs for loading, based on availability from lists of empt

And Bob, I was the guy who did that presentation. Just to add what Ken said, - Home road cars could be used for any load. - Since foreign cars cost the RR money in the form of per diem (daily) charges

Bob, Car Service Rules governed most of this, and they are in every copy of the Official Railway Equipment Register. There also have been several discussions about this on the STMFC groups.io forum an

Charlie, Goat effluent tops the list for retaining a strong smell. Fortunately, most real and model railroads don't service goat farms. ;-) Todd Sullivan

Charlie, What intrigues me is the old 1930s-40s herald on that GN USRA (or USRA copy) boxcar ... in 1956! Todd Sullivan

Charlie, I heartily agree. In fact, the whole PGE was a tough piece of railroading. There's a great soft cover book about the PGE and how it was built, plus the trials and tribulations of keeping it o

Hi Tom, At the bottom of the emails in this thread, there are words to the effect 'View or Reply Online'. If you click on that link, it takes you to the most recent message in the thread, and under th