Last night I asked John Young, who worked for Pepsi for 30+ years, about how the bottling plants handled materials. He said that in the 1950s, only Coca-Cola was shipping pre-mixed syrup to its bottli

I lived about six blocks from there in the mid-1980s. Fingerle Lumber was my supplier when I was making food, book and hobby money building lofts for the students living in the dorms those years. Fing

I've been trying to find a good photo of a gon load of tankage so I can make an outbound load from a meat packing plant. My most recent effort involved a block of balsa with a layer of white caulk tha

A couple more pickle car photos that Phil Shuster sent me about fifteen years ago. Both were taken in 1961. The first (FINX 203) was taken in Lakeview, Michigan, on the C&O's former Pere Marquette, ne

Richter Vinegar had four of these, painted school bus yellow, from the late 1960s until about 1980. They cycled between an apple processing facility in Scottville, Michigan (about ten miles east of Lu

Johannes has it right- The Oriental Limited and Funaro & Camerlengo models are not PM cars- they have radial roofs, where the PM cars did not. For the casual observer, this is somewhat complicated by

That looks fantastic, Eric! I love how this is turning out. - Fritz Milhaupt

Woe betide the man who accidentally sends this car to a grain elevator for loading... -Fritz Milhaupt

If the 7200-series Accurail car this is designed to fit has a 9'2" IH, then a Pere Marquette 86000-series double-sheathed boxcar becomes a reasonable project, using these ends, a Hutchins roof and hom

I got a copy a few weeks ago. If you have David Leider's book on the pickle industry around the Great Lakes, you'll recognize the layout immediately. In addition to a general history, a good portion o

There is no other word for Smokebox Graphics' PM freight car and caboose decal set than "excellent". It contains lettering for PM flat cars, covered hoppers, 40- and 50-foot boxcars, 40-foot gondolas

Black ends surviving the first repainting seems pretty uncommon among C&O and Pere Marquette boxcars, from most photos I've seen, and recollections of friends who frequented yards in the '40s and '50s

I am finding the bit of "scope creep" that was added to the first release last night, the CGW, L&N and PM/C&O auto boxcars, to be very welcome. See https://www.prototypejunction.com/2020/01/project-1-

Here's an earlier version of a water tube boiler on a flat car, from Saginaw, Michigan in 1895. The Flint & Pere Marquette was one of the predecessors to the Pere Marquette, which owned the second fla

Thanks guys! I've ordered a few sets. -Fritz Milhaupt Pere Marquette Historical Society

Bill- That's really nice work. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how you continue with this- I need to build a number of these cars in their earlier Pere Marquette and Manistee & North Eastern p

I'm very interested in these ends-- I've wanted to model a number of the Pere Marquette's 85000-series boxcars, but have put that off for lack of ends. These cars had an interesting history, having be

If anyone ever makes the PM style of these ends, I'm in for at least a dozen sets, since the PM had a thousand cars equipped with them, in the 85000-85999 series. Built as auto cars, they were convert

Since the BLI 6K tank cars have hit the streets, I'm curious to hear the reaction from anybody who bought the Hooker Chemical four-pack. I came across a set at a hobby shop yesterday. At first I thoug

While talking with Lee English at teh Bowser booth at Trainfest yesterday, we got to the subject of him running the F30 flat car as an early Trailer Train model. While he was interested, he said that