Category Archives: Upgrades

Tichy hopper upgrades

I was trolling around on a hard drive the other day and stumbled upon a Bill Welch blog post. Bill originally posted this in September 2019 to the Steam Era Freight Car discussion list. It came up recently on that list. Here’s Bill’s work on upgrading an HO scale Tichy USRA hopper kit.

A few years ago, the Boys at the Clearwater Car Shops built a few of the Tichy Train Group USRA two-bay hoppers for their favorite railroads. A few details were installed to upgrade the fine model.

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A tribute to Bill Welch

George Toman sent this along as a fine tribute to a man who inspire so many of us to push our modeling further.

My good friend Bill Welch received bad news in September 2020 when he was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer. During this period, I kept in close contact with him and we discussed many things about modeling, world events, and his beloved Dodgers. Bill was always challenging me to raise the bar and try new methods, tools, and materials.

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Gondola details

Bill Welch keeps our heads spinning with his modeling project shares on discussion lists. Here are his notes and photos covering some gondola details.

Ever since I saw the Greenville designed 52-foot mill gondola in Railway Prototype Cyclopedia (RPCyc) Volume #3, I have intended to build the SL-SF version discussed in the article. Since the FRISCO served Birmingham, Alabama, I consider it an honorary Ya’ll Road.

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Illinois Terminal class D drive

Sandy Goodrick photo from Mike Fortney collection, Class D south side of Morton, Illinois.

Frank Hodina, Resin Car Works chief minion, has been tinkering with a shelf queen this summer. Here’s his report.

I have several pieces of Illinois Terminal equipment that have been sitting for years. I got the itch to play around with a Class D motor to see what I need to upgrade.

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