Tag Archives: details

Improving Brake Details

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Bill Welch returns with an Xxtreme Modeler update. Here’s his latest!

The Xxtreme Modeler (a.k.a. “The Reluctant Weatherer”) has gone off the deep end as he attempts to build 1/48 models (O Scale) in 1/87 (HO). For him this means trying to improve the “fineness” of his models by reducing the cross section of the parts he uses to detail his models.

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Resin Car Works boiler load

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RCW boiler load built by Frank Hodina.

Blog manager Eric Hansmann steps in to share his latest build.

I picked up a Resin Car Works HO scale boiler load recently and decided it would look great on a Tichy Train Group flat car in service on my Wheeling Freight Terminal. The boiler castings follow a prototype Kewanee stationary heating boiler design that was produced for a few decades.

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RCW 1941 Soo Line square corner box car

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Lester Breuer returns to the blog with a recent freight car kit build.

Once more I am pleased to be able to share my work with you here on the Resin Car Works blog. The build this time was a Soo Line box car, square-corner design, offered in July. Nice photos for the build are in the kit “Prototype Data and Modeling Notes.” If photos of greater clarity are desired you can find the same photos with additional data in the captions in the Soo Line Freight Equipment and Cabooses book by Kenneth J. Soroos on pages 16 and 17.

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Grain bins on the NKP

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Photo by Tony Koester.

There’s a slight breeze but the air is hazy with humidity on this August day in Metcalf, Illinois. A dull cicada chorus surges to drown out other noises as we await Nickel Plate timetable train 49 to pass. A B&O switcher has paused to obey the signal in anticipation. The grain bins will be full soon as another local harvest approaches on the calendar.

A distant whistle pierces the air as the westbound blows for a crossing east of town. It’s time to move down to the tracks with the new Leica and capture a Berk on the mainline.

This is Metcalf on Tony Koester’s HO scale Nickel Plate Road, Third Subdivision layout. Metcalf is a town on the east side of the state just north of U.S. Route 36 where NKP’s St Louis line and B&O’s Indy/Decatur line cross. In the northwest corner of the crossing were located dozens of standard size “Butler” grain bins. Tony’s modeling the scene using several of our grain bins. As of now the bins aren’t painted. They’re in the natural grey casting color. We have plenty of these bins in stock on our Scenery Stuff page.