Paul, attached are color photos taken by Jack Delano in Chicago circa 1942-43. The cars are immediate predecessors of the 6000 series. The major difference was the application of steel ends on the 600

The NYC reefers shown were not true reefers but were more like express reefers without provision for icing. NYC serviced a huge milk shed in upstate New York and they had been built to carry milk cans

Does anyone have prototype photos of SUNX tank cars circa 1950 or earlier that they would be willing to share? I have searched online and the only ones I could find were models offered by manufacturer

Tim, 1942 is correct. Attached is a slightly blurry photo of DL&W 51000 built in 4-42. Tony Wagner

Ah, Wood St yard. Worked many a shift there as a yard clerk in the early 70s. The yard handled almost entirely potatos and onions. The brokers would slice open a random bag of produce and then cut one

I'd guess that ventilated box cars, which were well represented on various southern roads, were also commonly used for shipments of all kinds of melons and other produce not needing refrigeration. The

Another two cents worth. Normally I use a single speed Dreml tool with a Dreml speed control to slow it down for drilling grab iron holes etc. In plastic or resin a very low speed is mandatory, even w

Nelson, I generally paint my underframes and trucks either burnt umber or raw umber or a mix of the two. It is my observation that freight cars quickly loose the new look even nowadays and I'm sure it

If anyone has a photo they are willing to share of Pere Marquette 10' IH 40' double door XMs in series 91000-91499 or 91850-92349 totaling 769 cars on 1-1-50 I would appreciate it. I am trying to dete

Looked everywhere I could think of for photos of the subject cars - no luck. If anyone has a photo of SOU 17500-178197, 287000-287999, or 315700-315949 series gondolas circa 1940s or 50s that they wou

Folks I've hit a wall. Does anyone want to share photos of Southern's 40' double door double sheathed box cars. In 1949 my ORER shows there were 4647 of them in four number series but I can't find a p

Hey guys, or girls, anyone have photos of D&H 36' box cars? Post war is preferred but any showing the various end upgrades will do nicely. Looking to do a mild upgrade of a pair of Accurail cars and w

Ron, Look up Atlantic Petrolium Co in Wikipedia. Hq in Philadelphia PA later became Atlantic-Richfield, still later Arco, and finally part of Sunoco. Part of Arco was sold to BP. Conoco was Continenta

Ron, I'm guessing but I think advanced age and inadequate cubic and weight capacity doomed these cars. By the late 50s 50 foot box cars were becoming the norm, often with 70 ton capacity, so older car

The attached is a nice table of the X-28s. As you can see there were still almost 3000 still in service in 1958. I worked for the C&nw in the 1970s and saw plenty of PRR cars still in the CK paint sch

Ron, I too have built PRR X-31s from Bowser kits and the results are actually pretty decent. Not contest quality but quite presentible. The hardest part of redetailing these cars is removing the hand

Armand, I'm with you but this is not for casual modelers since it requires a significant amount of research. I have developed a modeling roster for the PRR in the Williamsport PA area circa 1949 using

I agree with your thoughts that there were probably many FGEX and WFEX cars in those trains. Both reporting marks were freely mixed by Fruit Growers and both also still had truss rod cars in service t

In 1950 PRR had "only" 5623 G-22 gons plus another 258 in container service. For modeling purposes simply remove the containers and substitute a load of steel shapes or some sort of crated load. As ha

Brian, I can not supply a photo but according to my 1-1-50 ORER the only all steel 50'6" IL MILW box cars with 15' side doors and full end doors were in number series 15500-15749. There were 249 cars