George Toman has been busy working on a neat new model. He shared notes and photos of his work. Here’s George with more.
At the October 2025 Naperville RPM, I picked up an HO scale CB&Q resin kit of an XA-9 class automobile box car.
Continue reading CB&Q XA-9 class automobile box car
Aaron Gjermundson has been busy working on a few models. He sent information illustrating techniques to make a common detail.
While building an HO scale Sunshine Models CB&Q XA-11A boxcar kit, I was unsure how I wanted to mount the lateral running boards. After looking at prototype photos in Railway Prototype Cyclopedia (RPCyc), Volume 12, I noticed they were similar to those on a car I had photographed at the North Dakota Railroad Museum in Mandan, North Dakota.
Continue reading Running board details
George Toman sent photos and information on his latest model. Here’s George with the story.
While attending the 2019 RPM Chicagoland, I caught up with Jerry Hamsmith who showed me the latest resin kit he and Ed Rethwisch produced. I was fortunate to get one of the three kits remaining for sale at the RPM Meet. Ed Rethwisch made the gorgeous patterns and the parts were cast by Westerfield.
Continue reading Building a CB&Q FM-11 flat car
Jerry Hamsmith sent an update on his growing CB&Q freight car fleet. Here’s his report.
I thought I might share some of what I have been working on in terms of rolling stock for my circa 1955 Chicago Burlington and Quincy – Beardstown Division layout. This division linked the southern Illinois coal fields with the major metropolitan areas in northern Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, among others. In 1955, the Q coal hauling fleet, consisting of 2- and 3- bay hoppers and composite drop bottom gons, was still about 40 percent gons.
Here is another group of drop bottom gons I am currently working on. I do them in batches as I need a large number of them and that speeds up the process. Both steel end and wood end cars are in the current batch. I currently have a total of 33 finished composite gondola cars on the layout.
Here is a photo of one of the already completed cars on the layout. Jerry offers kits for these CB&Q coal gondolas. A PDF of currently available kits and decals can be found on the RCW blog Helpful Links page.
What’s on your workbench?