Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads
A hobby adventure
A month can disappear quickly. I’ve been keeping busy, just not posting updates. A few models have moved forward and I attended the St. Louis Railroad Prototype Modeler (RPM) meet since the last post. Time to catch up.
Continue reading “Catching up”
The Car Builders’ Cyclopedia of American Practice has been published through the years by Simmons-Boardman Publishing. Early volumes were published by Railway Age and the Railway Gazette. These have become valuable modeling resources to understand early rolling stock designs and the many assorted hardware elements that were applied. Later editions had a title adjustment to Car Builders’ Dictionary and Cyclopedia, as seen in the 1919 title page above.
Recent messages on some discussion lists included links to several volumes that are in the public domain. I created a blog resource page here to help modelers find these PDF versions.
I’ve often referred to volumes when building and detailing freight car models. Many of the freight cars and hardware details published between 1905 and 1925 remained pertinent in later years. I hope these publications inspire your modeling efforts.
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I’ve continued working on several HO scale hopper models. I posted my line up card last month that helps me keep track of the various work stages on eleven freight car models. It’s time to share a progress report.
Continue reading “Weathering progress”
The last post shared detail on a line up card I created to organize work on eleven freight cars that waited at the paint booth. A few models have been moving forward with decal application.
Continue reading “Decal time!”
After building a handful of freight car kits and detailing a few more, I had a traffic jam at my paint booth. I prefer to paint several models at a time but wasn’t expecting an eleven car pile up.
Continue reading “Line up card”