Freight Car Models – Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads

Carmer uncoupling levers

*End view of DL&W 44317 on Pier 2 at Jersey City/Hoboken, NJ, ca. 1927. William B. Berry, Jr. photo from the NPS Steamtown collection*

Uncoupling levers are found on all freight cars on North American rails. In my 1926 focus, these levers would pull a pin from the top of the coupler to allow the knuckle to open. One version that was common on many early freight cars were the Carmer uncoupling levers, as seen in the DL&W box car in the lead image. These were a two-part design with many variations. Let’s review some basics and installation of these details on a few HO scale box cars.

Canadian Pacific automobile box car

Here’s an HO scale resin freight car kit that took me longer than expected to complete. It’s a 40-foot, Canadian Pacific (CPR) automobile box car that was offered by Yarmouth Model Works.

Fixing a finish

There are few things more frustrating than arriving at the end of a long term modeling project only to have an issue arise with the finish coat. That’s my opinion at least.

Decal time!

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.

Iron Range cars

Bob Hanmer sent several photos and details on a few neat projects that he recently completed. Here’s his story.

I spent last summer working on older, pre-1920 cars for service on my HO scale model railroad. The DM&IR continued to use some of these old boxcars and ore cars into 1958, the year I model. Since Dan Holbrook’s Signature Press book, “The Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Equipment: 1883-2004,” came out at the end of 2019, I was able to find information and photographs of the equipment and complete the projects.