I recently returned from a week-long trip to Tunisia where I spent some time working with the U.S. Embassy and the Tunisian Air Force.  I spent the week in Tunis, which is near the ancient Roman city of Carthage.  When our work was done the embassy hired a tour guide for us and we got a first-class guided tour of many ancient historical sites around Tunis and Carthage. Above.  We were honored to visit the North African American Cemetery in Carthage a few days after Memorial Day.  This is the U.S.’s only WWII cemetery in Africa.  The man in black … Continue reading No. 108: Freight Car Projects, Nov 2018

I’ve been working on a couple of New York Central ARA hopper cars off-and-on for a couple of years and finally finished them prior to traveling to the U.S. for St. Louis RPM last weekend.  These two cars started as Kadee models and were finished with decals from Resin Car Works. Through the 1950s New York Central was the second largest operator of freight cars in the U.S.  In the 1950 Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) for example, Central reported 132,957 freight cars of all types, second only to the Pennsylvania Railroad which reported over 193,000 cars that same year. Compare … Continue reading No. 94: Modeling New York Central ARA Hoppers

It’s been 40 days since the last post on Railroad Prototype Modeler.  Since mid-May I’ve only been able to spend about five hours modeling.  My modeling time has been devoted to other priorities, like yard work, vacationing, working overtime, spending time with kids, and watching the World Cup. Meanwhile, yesterday my wife and I sent all our kids off to Bible School in Switzerland and we spent the rest of the day on a just-me-and-my-wife day-trip to Koblenz, Germany.  Among the many things we did was take a cable car over the river to the Stolzenfels Castle Fortress.  I took this … Continue reading No. 92: New Builds, May, 2018

In 2014 I finished a pair of HO scale USRA 40-foot, composite gondolas for the M&StL.  I collected photos and material for a magazine article, and just about the time I was done my buddy Clark Propst published an article on the same cars in the CNW Modeler magazine.  Clark covered the cars thoroughly, but I thought I’d post my material here. The Prototype In 1920 the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway took delivery of 250 composite, high-side gondolas, Class GX, series 27001 to 27499 (odd numbers only), from Magor.  These M&StL gondolas were painted black with white stenciling.  The last of … Continue reading No. 89: M&StL USRA Gondola Modeling

The New York Central USRA single-sheathed box car project was completed last week along with the ACL ventilated box car.  Here’s a wrap-up post to close out the project. NYC received 1,000 USRA single-sheathed box cars, NYC Lot 376-B, from Haskell and Barker in February 1919.  After WWII most of them were rebuilt into stock cars.  According to Pat Wider in RP Cyc #17, approximately 25 cars were still on the revenue roster in July 1951.   I model 1950, so I can still legitimately have one of these cars on the layout.   I began building the model in late 2015 during … Continue reading No. 88: New York Central USRA Single Sheathed Box Car Modeling

The Sunshine Models ACL O-17 ventilated box car project is complete.  This post wraps up construction and finishing of the model.  The Sunshine model, released in the early 1990s, represents the ACL O-17, 36-foot, 40-ton ventilated box car from ACL series 17000-18999 and 19000-19175.  2,175 cars built in 1922-23 by ACL at seven different company shops.  The O-17s were all wood with a steel underframe, wood ends with two Wine Co. Ventilators on each end, and two doors on each side (one solid and one screen).  The cars had wood running boards, KC-schedule brakes and a staff brake wheel.  Trucks … Continue reading No. 87: ACL O-17 Ventilated Box Car Modeling

C&O had a few small classes of covered hoppers, rebuilt from coal hoppers, that I have always wanted to model.  I finished my HO scale model of a C&O 300-class rebuild covered hopper this week and wanted to write a post to wrap up that project. The original cars were two-bay coal hoppers that were delivered in 1937 to C&O by General American, C&O series 118000-118999.  C&O rebuilt 50 cars with new peaked roofs, rebuild interiors, and new hoppers and gates in 1937.  The new cars were called “Dry Bulk” cars and were assigned numbers 300-349.  C&O rebuilt them again in 1951.  … Continue reading No. 86: C&O 300-class Rebuilt Covered Hopper