Eric Hansmann

Data

Prototype modelers love data. Sifting through the details of an Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER) can offer insight to many different in-service freight cars. A few months ago, I went through a 1926 ORER and tabulated data on car types for each railroad. It wasn’t as difficult as it sounds.

1926 B&O freight car fleet – 3

B&O class N-12e 322841 is a 1921 product of the Pressed Steel Car Company.

Do you recognize this coal hopper? I know you recognize the railroad name, but do you recognize the car design? It looks similar to many hoppers used in the first four decades of the 20th Century. The B&O had more than 1400 of these N-12e class cars listed in the October 1926 Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER). There were 14,364 overall N-12 class cars. Are you surprised?

What’s Next?

After wrapping up the Westerfield Models B&O M-15b and M-15d boxcar kits, it’s time for something new. Like many modelers, I am not lacking for a new project.

Updating a Bowser GS Gondola

Bob McGlone shared an interesting model update on a discussion list earlier this year. He added drop bottom doors to a Pennsylvania Railroad gondola. Click on any image to review a larger size.

I’ve always been interested in circa 1900 steel freight cars. I find them fascinating but there are few plastic models commercially available. One model is the HO Bowser GS gondola which follows a Pennsy prototype with 32,700 cars built starting in 1903.

Contact cement

Contact cement has been used as an adhesive for decades. One of the most common is rubber cement. I recall using rubber cement to assemble plastic dinosaur models in the late 1960s. The eight-year-old modeler did not do a neat job at all. Walthers Goo and Ambroid cements are also contact cements. I had poor experiences with those when assembling models in the 1980s. In each case, I don’t think I was using the adhesives properly.