But Tim, Didn't C&BT shops do at least one of the SFRD Mechanicals, or were they just plug door rebuilds of earlier classes? I bought a couple of their swing-door cars before Long's had Intermountain

Lester, The character of Phoebe Snow as a promotional mascot dates from about 1900: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_Snow_(character) . DL&W received series 51400-51749 from AC&F in November 1944

Bob, IIRC somebody, probably Red Ball, offered a Stillwell oyster car back in dark ages. Likely a wooden block with paper overlays and real lead parts. Yours Aye, Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge

Guy, Thanks much for the clarification. Looks like IM got this right. I will leave the symbol on my car. Yours Aye, Garth Groff 🦆

Friends, Right now I'm scanning up the last of my photos and negatives from the Nelson & Albembarle Railway and its parent Virginia Soapstone / Alberene Stone Corporation. I thought you might enjoy th

Guy, The IM Deco boxcar has the circle with a horizontal bar across only the center of the circle. That doesn't quite seem to fit any of the signs you describe. Yours Aye, Mungo Napier, Laird of Malla

Friends, Before we get lost here, my original question was about the circle with the bar on the door, its meaning and whether there was some special assignment for these cars. The rest of the informat

Bob, The photo was probably from the 1919 CAR BUILDERS' DICTIONARY, pages 253-255 (also in the Gregg TSC reprint #35). These pages also include detailed drawings. No other information is there. Yours

Friends, I just received my Deco end C&O "For Progress" car from Ted Schnepf (Thanks again Ted). It is a lot better assembled than the NS car I bought elsewhere a couple of years ago, with its running

Todd and Friends, If you have a Mac you will find that the machine compresses the thumbnail title. The information is still there, but represented by ellipses. You can, of course, read it by right cli

Todd and Clark, In the distance is what appears to be an L&N PS-1 boxcar, probably 5141. These were delivered in March 1952. Hope this helps. Yours Aye, Garth Groff 🦆

Friends, I am in need of some Eschelman turnout links. I have three and need three more, but would gladly take extras for future projects. If any of you have any of these kicking around in your parts

Clark, Both the HC and the N&B were chiefly cement carriers, so having their cars on your Iowa railroad would be like sending the proverbial "coals to Newcastle". I won't say it couldn't happen, but i

Eric and Bill, I've never had a problem adding jpeg images, but it didn't work with tiff format. Yours Aye, Garth Groff 🦆

Jerry and friends, The unusual Pullman-built Hercules cars are shown in the CAR BUILDERS CYCLOPEDIA during the late 1930s in Pullman's ads. I have a photocopy and it is marked as page 329. Since the H

C&O 9500-9500 were very short. The height over the running board was 13' 3 9/16", which is a pretty picky measurement, but that's what is on the GA drawing in Shaver's book. My 1959 ORER gives the IH

Richard, Please allow me to add to the other suggestions that this car (series 9500-9999) is covered on Plate 37 of FREIGHT CAR EQUIPMENT OF THE CHESAPEAKE & OHIO RAILWAY, AUGUST 1, 1937. The reprint

Friends, That has to be about the ugliest boxcar I've ever seen. Way cool! Yours Aye, Garth Groff 🦆

Friends, Though what I noticed was beyond our period, I remember that some WP 50' DD PS-1 (which were delivered within our period) ended their days carrying spent automobile batteries out of West Sacr

Friends, Ed Bommer said (in part): "The Duryea design reduced much of the stress from rough handling on the car body and its framing by isolating and spring-loading the center sill. A major problem wi