Were Western Maryland hoppers ever painted black? There's a steam era photo in one of the all color books (Don Ball?) which shows a train full of these hoppers, some painted freight car red, some pain

I found this caboose offered for sale on E bay. It is listed as Ambroid but I know it isn't. I think it was made by AMB laserkit & sold by someone else. Look at the window on the left. It's tilted a l

Try bending Tichy wire with a hollow tube or pliers. I don't remember having any difficulty bending Tichy 0.016 wire for grab irons or 0.020 K&S wire for caboose handrails. I held the wire in a pliers

That rivet pattern is shown in Ted Culotta's spiral bound box car book

Found this picture with a Soo double door box car on e bay

!

Thanks Steve.

The owner of hobbies for men in Beacon, NY told me 99% of "craftsman" model railroad car kits are never completed. I guess the more expensive a kit the less likely it was to be attempted.

I've been using these carbide bits but when I bought them from e bay a few years ago they were much less expensive. They are brittle as h... and if they break off you better drill another hole.

There's a nice color video on you tube about dieselization on the New Haven taken around 1950 which includes some PFE reefers. The particular portion of the NH was the one coming from Maybrook where N

I've seen many B&W photos of long strings of PFE reefers on the Erie. Some cars are light colored; some are dark. Erie had at least one tunnel which would get very smokey with a steam locomotive. The

hope this went through

I don't know anything about green coal but there was blue anthracite coal. I believe the coal was sprayed while it was in hoppers so only the top layer of coal would be covered. There were little card

I subscribed from the second issue to the last; it was a wonderful magazine. I always wondered why Richard Hendrickson didn't like the magazine/Hundman.

I wonder if trainmen did walk through empty gons (or even loaded ones). I think the most common inside height of 40 ft. gons was 4'8". I wonder how many men could lift themselves up over the end, espe

how does that 31'6" offset hopper differ from the Ulrich car?

This is an easy part to coble together. I got the idea from an article in Prototype Modeler a long time ago. I made a door like this for a GN double sheathed box car. You have to guestimate the spacin

My recollection is that at one time Bowser (English's hobby) was selling Cal Scale AB brake sets but you had to buy a lot of them, maybe 100 sets minimum

They look a little pricey to me and I don't think they are any better than Cal Scale. At one time Bowser (English's hobby) sold Cal Scale brake components but I think you had to buy a lot of them (100

Tim, can you supply me with the ends to Intermountain's USRA single sheathed gon?