Tag Archives: Rock Island

Rock Island 158000-series box car

All photos by John Golden, except where noted.

John Golden tackled a neat HO scale box car project recently. He shared the following details and photos for the blog.

Earlier this year I purchased a custom set of HO scale resin freight car parts from Westerfield Models to assemble a unique Rock Island single-sheathed box car. Modification and assembly of the parts is simple and any modeler could create a similar car with a little time and patience.

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Workbench Wednesday

Duryea cushion underframe installation

George Toman shared his latest workbench update. He’s upgrading a kit with Duryea underframe parts.

The Duryea underframe is a cushioning device used to reduce damage. The center sill can slide about 12 to 16 inches to cushion impact when coupling. This requires different mounting than the more conventional AAR underframe. National Scale Car has captured the Duryea underframe in great detail using resin castings and photo etched parts in their MK 106 kit that upgrades an Intermountain 1937 Modified AAR boxcar model.

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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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