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

Tim & others, FWIW, I tend to trust Kadee on their painting and lettering. I looked up NYC 40ft PS-1s on their website, and the 170000 and 180000 series cars, built in 1951 and 1952, respectively, had

Bruce, That's really interesting. Why Pocatello,ID? Todd Sullivan.

Nice progress, Clark. Still looks like a very clean build. Todd Sullivan

Hi Clark, Persistence pays off! Sometimes we have to just take the bull by the horns (or the car by the sides or ends) and go for it. Congrats on getting it apart with totally destroying it, and best

Interesting. I have been washing my flex track by soaking it with Dawn or other dish-washing liquid in the bath tub for 30 minutes, then drying it and airbrushing it with tie color craft acrylics in a

That was an amazing operation, and there was a similar regional breaker at St. Nicholas in the Mahoning Valley. The business idea was to centralize the anthracite 'refining' operations at two regional

Hey Schuyler, This isn't about a pickle car per se, but there was a Bloch & Guggenheim pickle works on the PRR Elmira Branch at Seneca Castle, NY. It was still there in the early 1990s when I was rese

Claus, That's a great write-up on how a mine and coke ovens operated in the early to mid 20th century. I have friends who have models of such arrangements on their layouts, and there were similar faci

Ben, It is most likely an ICC 105W300 class tank car of approximately 11,000 gallons capacity. Similar models in HO are made by Kadee and Atlas. One other capacity is the 6,000 gallon model made by Br

Scott, Another way to answer your question is that the white stuff under the door opening is not typical weathering for this kind of car. You could weather a model with all the other aspects of protot

Hi Scott, From photos that I have seen of NP "green hide" cars, only one was a 50 footer, and that was an old single sheathed single door car. NP 6536 in the photo may have been hauling bagged cement,

The problem I have had with most putties is that they shrink as they dry. So it's like doing drywall (sheetrock) mud work: add some, sand some, add some, sand some ... repeat. I used to use something

Hi Esther, The CV updates look fine. I think it would be good if you could line up horizontally the topic headings ("Studies Applied for" and "Certificates") with the information you provided. Otherwi

Hi Jim, I have used Polly Scale acrylic or a craft brand of acrylic: the color I have used is nearly black - mixed as black with a bit of brown or dark red added, and I blend it outward from the switc

You can open a Word document, click on Screen Capture and capture the image that way, then save the Word document. Todd Sullivan

There used to be a wonderfully entertaining book called "Oregon Geographic Names." Not sure if it is still in print. You can add Riddle, OR to your list, Brian, and Arock and Lone Rock. I also like Sp