Garth, They are the original Front Range cavity inserts. 7075 Aluminum holds up well, so long as it is treated gently. Used where it won't close on parts, or drools, or flash stuck to the mold parting

I was going to state that, but Paul beat me to it. Over the years a LOT of model railroad tooling has been "soft" tooling, because it's cheap. The choices are, in order of increasing hardness/durabili

Could be... That lot of Clarkson Coal Mining cars were built as composite cars (steel frame, wood sheathing). The entire lot of 500 cars went to the Soo Line in 1927, who rebuilt them with nine panel

This appears to be a Haskell & Barker proprietary end. Only used on a few series of cars, all built by H&B, the H&B drawing collection in the Pullman Library of the Illinois Railway Museum contains mo

It looks like it's captive to the powe plant already. To the left it's coupled to a Plymouth industrial switcher; on the right to an interurban freight motor or other work car. Note the radial drawbar

Those are actually truck chassis. The last image, link above, shows just a bare frame behind the firewall, and you can read GENERAL MOTORS TRUCK on the side of the hood. Dennis Storzek

To give Bill Gould his due, the fact that the drawings showed a car with a four course tank is what made the project possible in the first place, because the four course tank made it possible to do as

I agree the dark car in the 1952 photo is likely an early version of the bright red scheme, using the old style lettering and lacking the white fascia of the later cars. What it doesn't have is any in

There is one argument against this theory; there IS black (or at least dark) lettering on the car side. Look just to the left of the third from the bottom grab that makes the side ladder, and you will

It might also be a mailbox for the local depot, if there is one right out of the picture. Dennis Storzek

Bob, Steve Hile gave a more complete answer since he has viewed the P-S drawings and I have not, but it's my impression that the 50'-0" IL was a Pullman Standard thing, since the 50' P-S cars with 6'

They've also done business for years as PF&S Railway Supply, as both a distributor and retail shop. I agree, good people. Dennis Storzek

The modern term in car building is camber; TTX flats are built with a camber. However, I can see where in our agrarian past comparisons to the shape of a hog's back could become common terms. Dennis S

As far as I know, while the cars were marked "AUTOMOBILE" because the AAR lettering standards said they were supposed to be, the cars were actually built for paper loading. The paper mills liked the b

Errr, Tim, ABS is Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene. Here's a brief explanation from Wikipedia: ABS is a terpolymer made by polymerizing styrene and acrylonitrile in the presence of polybutadiene. The p

I've done extensive modification to some American Limited diaphragms some years ago (don't recall if they were gray or black) and was able to use solvent cement, but I suspect they are ABS and the acr

A few rambling thoughts on strapping vs. banding vs. wire... Are banding and strapping the same? I think not. Banding is the general term for a much older product, which was soft mild steel. Back in m

Thanks Tim, I don't have a pic I can post. It does appear to be the same design car, the spotting feature being the little pressed flange on the bottom edge of the stub side sills. There is a builders

I'm going to have to check pix of Soo Line cars; they built some all weld nominal 40 footers in their own shops in '48 or '49 that had the angled bottom of the side sheets. Dennis Storzek

But the roof was painted (and it looks freshly painted or coated with car cement, as does the end) yesterday, or the day before, before it snowed. The angle the guy is working from is automatically go