What happened to the Freightcars Digest? It was run by Richard Hosker. It just disappeared around March of 2007 or so. They had archives at: http://sunny16.photo.tntech.edu/~richard/Freightcars/archiv

Regarding taconite pellets. After going to the process of extracting the magnetite iron from the taconite rock, that then mixing it with the bentonite and limestone to make pellets seems to be counter

Mark Plank wrote: "Yes. Not sure when diesel engines became popular in tractors (I'm sure someone tried it shortly after van/von Diesel built his first engine [in the 1880s? I'm away from research inf

Dennis Storzek wrote: "Thanks for posting the pix, especially those with the strong side lighting. There are some of us who have been watching this technology for years, but have always been put off b

I've noticed in drawings and articles that longer gondolas tended to be narrower than shorter ones. Was there a rule or a formula, written or otherwise, regarding the width of gondolas as a car length

Here's a great book. It's on the history of the Adirondak Division and it's history. Fairy Tale Railroad by Henry A. Harter Published by North country Books, Inc. quality volumes on the NYC. are seeki

If anyone is interested in infomation about the Big Inch and Little Inch pipelines take a look at this. http://www.culturalresourcegroup.com/pdf/inchlines.pdf The article has some railroad content. As

A question about grain doors, both wood and paper. Were they installed on both sides of the car or just the side they were loading? It would seem to me you would put them on both sides since wouldn't

John Stokes wrote: "My understanding of the term as it is used in reference to railroads, is that it refers to the Mid West farming belt states, including Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska and

I'm associated with a military affairs symposium and come in contact with a great many academics. It's been my experience that when a professor refers to a colleague as a "popular" historian, it's a e

In regards to the granger donnybrook, could a railroad's being considered a granger be determined by having a large percentage of it's income earned by grain haulage be the way of determining as to we

Martin McGuirk wrote: "So I decided this may make a worthwhile scratchbuilding project. So I dug out more photos and my official railroad freight car data sheets. All the cars in the photos have a len

According to the US Mint, pennies weigh 2.5 grams or about 11.34 coins per oz. Quarters weigh only 0.67 grams more than nickels, which weigh 5 grams, so that's an extra 20¢ for a 0.67 grams, so there'

I was thinking about rodents rather than insects. Eric Petersson Dennis Storzek wrote: "Lots of room between the steel sheathing and wood lining of the typical steel car of the era for weevils, roache

Armand Premo wrote: "Not just leak free,but also vermin free." There doesn't seem like there's a lot of space in a boxcar for vermin to hide, especially in a single sheathed or a steel car. Maybe in a

Shawn Beckert wrote: "If all the car needs is an AC&F underframe and appropriate detail parts to make the kit match a prototype, how is it that no model manufacturer or detail part maker has stepped u

Well that would depend on how many parts white can you add to black before it becomes identifiable as grey to the viewer's eye. Then subtract one. That would be your range of blacks. ;-) Eric Petersso

Avaste Matey, Your raising of the jolly roger has inspired me to stop procrastinating, do the same and splash those Westerfield resin kits and offer them to a limited number of list members as well. h

Funny you brought this up. I was reading Tamiya's magazine last night and they were talking about this product. It's called cast-a-coat. Here's a review of it. http://misc.kitreview.com/tools/castacoa

I remember that facility! It was visable from the parkway when driving to and from NYC. They had a PRR covered hopper of the H30 class (that's an H-30 for those of us who don't care how they did thing