The easiest to make jig to bend consistent grab irons is simply a hole drilled in a length of .060 or .080 styrene strip. Drill a hole to fit the wire the width of the grab iron from the end of a stri

In recent months I have received emails requesting me to write a blog in which I show and describe the various pliers I use for bending wire grab irons, ladder rungs, uncoupling levers and adding deta

Placards Hazardous materials placards with their UN numbers came in after the time frame for this group. But was there a phase-out of other paper placards such as “Unload Other Side”, “Do Not Hump”, e

The long standing paint for Santa Fe refers has been ACCUPAINT New Haven Harvest Yellow. Tru Color now has this paint in their line. The attached were done with the original Accu Paint. Bill Pardie Se

Could some one here offer a brief tutorial on the size of tank car domes? This query comes from a recent comment about wanting to 'cut down' domes to shorter size for specific cars, related to car cap

Hi, I model the SP but am interested in having at least semi realistic models of other road’s cars in my trains which led me here. I hope that I can pick the collective brains about models that are av

When Rapido announced they were going to make the USRA SS boxcars RTR two Westerfield kits showed up on eBay for $20 each. I built one as a Milwaukee Road and the other for the Ann Arbor. Just complet

I have three questions about U.S. Army tank car USAX 11225. I have an image taken in 1958, and next to LT WT 40900 is FIN 8 49. Where was FIN? Lettered on the right side of the tank is EMERGENCY USGA

I'm decaling a tank car and will be airbrushing it with a clear flat coating to kill the gloss. I've used Model Master clear flat acrylic, but it results in a slight milky look, especially over dark c

Having been a lifelong Southern Pacific modeler I have witnessed many incarnations of PFE models. Early Silver Streak kits had prepainted sides. I don't recall anyone questioning the color. Varuous ma

I’ve had this RTR car for a while and just corrected its most serious flaw. Only 5400 had the black doors; the remaining cars in the series doors matched the sides. I mixed up some TruColor CB&Q BCR w

Photo: Railroad Yards - Minneapolis, Minnesota (1939) Photo from the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017718495/resource/ Good assortment of period freight cars. Bob Chaparro He

I am watching more mid-WWII videos on you tube, and made notes of the reefers in the film “LIFE LINE OF THE NATION AMERICAN RAILROADS IN WWII Carl Dudley 70892”, at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH

Hello everyone, I have the following Sunshine kits for sale: 8.2 Double Deck Mather Stock car 25.3 PFE R-70-2 reefer 28.4 Santa Fe Rr-29 reefer 39.24 Louisiana & Arkansas Howe Truss boxcar with Superi

Looking for more colour images of freight cars, and this film looked useful for immediate post-WWII PFE reefers starting at 5:29:1940’S SILENT HOME MOVIE TRIP TO PHOENIX BILTMORE HOTEL, NOGALES AND PI

As mentioned yesterday, I have posted some additional comments about PFE orange, in prototype and model form, in my blog. If you’re interested, the link is below. https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/20

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

Photo: Tonopah & Tidewater Boxcar 130 (1940) Photos from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas https://special.library.unlv.edu/ark:/62930/d1jm23m03 Photo can be enlarged. Bob Chaparro Hemet, CA

Hi there, I'm working on a Red Caboose R-30-12-9, and its time for paint. If any of you have landed on a Vallejo mix for a faded PFE orange, I'd appreciate hearing what colours you used. Rob

I was going through the paint section in my local hobby shop and I came upon a rattle can of TCP-4011 Dark Primer. This was new to me as I had no previous knowledge that TCP was making any primers. My