Category Archives: Models

Rock Island 40-foot Automobile Boxcar

George Toman shared details on building a Rock Island car from the 161000-161349 car series. The model is inspired by the 2015 Prototype Rails Shake-n-Take project. Here’s George with the details.

When I saw a photo of the Rock Island 40-foot automobile boxcar from the 2015 Prototype Rails I knew that I had to try to build one. The original instructions can be found on the Shake-n-Take discussion group. You must sign up as a member to view and download.

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Western Pacific 50-foot Automobile Box Car

Fred Jansz sent along photos and details for the recent Virtual RPM model collection, but we thought readers might want a little more info on these models. Here’s Fred with details on upgrading HO scale Western Pacific automobile box cars.

Triggered by a 1995 Mainline Modeler article by Page Porter, I wondered if I could build one of the lesser known Western Pacific freight cars. Their 50-foot, single-sheathed automobile box cars were built by Pullman in 1929. The WP rebuilt several of these cars in 1937 with as 15-foot wide, two-and-a-half door cars renumbered 19201-19250. A prototype picture of such a car can be found in the WP equipment book by Jim Eager.

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A Milwaukee Road Automobile Box Car with Chad Boas Resin Parts

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George Toman has kept busy with another freight car project. Here’s his latest work.

This project started with the intent of building a Milwaukee Road automobile box car that I had seen on display by Chad Boas at the 2015 Collinsville RPM meet. Little did I know at the time that there were at least four versions of these cars. I chose to build a PS-1 and a GATC version. Here’s a look at both prototypes, with the PS-1 on the left and the GATC car on the right.

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Owens-Illinois Duraglas covered hoppers

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Eric Mumper joins the RCW bloggers with an upgrade on an HO scale brass covered hopper.

The Owens-Illinois Duraglas covered hopper cars have been a bit of a fascination of mine for many years. My layout has the Streator, Illinois, bottle plant as an industry and Chet French found many of these cars coming in on the Wabash hauling soda. Where they were loaded would be great to find out.

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