Frank Hodina asked if I would be interested in writing a monthly series of blog posts on planning, designing, and building my model railroad. I quickly agreed, despite the fact that my layout is still under construction, and it could be another year before it’s fully operational. Over the course of the series, I’ll describe the planning and execution of what is becoming the Burlington-Washington Subdivision of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.
New York Central Lines automobile box cars
Harold Oakhill sent a freight car update recently. He models the Ulster & Delaware Railroad in 1924, just before it was absorbed into the New York Central. Here are Harold’s latest freight car additions.
I just finished the final weathering of four New York Central and Michigan Central 40-foot automobile box cars (XA) of 1916 vintage. In addition to reflecting vintage prototypes, these are vintage resin freight car kits originally produced by Dennis Storzek in the 1980s.
UTLX Class X-3 10K gallon tank car
Eric Hansmann picked up a Resin Car Works HO scale UTLX tank car kit at RPM Chicagoland and built it to kick off a new year. Here are his notes.
I decided to push my kit building skills forward by building my first resin tank car kit. After building several box cars, gondolas, and flat cars, I thought a tank car should be added to my 1926 fleet. The image above illustrates the main kit components, including the decals along the right side of the photo.
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.