Category: Freight Car Models

Harold’s Pennsylvania Railroad box cars

I am in the process of moving to Texas, so I have a guest blog post!

Collaboration and communication with other modelers who have similar interests can spur progress on a number of projects. My friend Harold Oakhill is modeling the Ulster & Delaware Railroad in the heady days of the early 1920s. We regularly discuss developing an era-specific freight car fleet. Of the many details, paint and lettering are frequent topics. Harold recently wrapped up a few HO scale Westerfield Pennsylvania Railroad XL box cars, which were the backbone of the huge PRR box car fleet in the early 1920s. Please follow along as Harold discusses his concerns and methods in the finishing steps for these models.

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More Hopper Madness!

Six B&O USRA hoppers

I started assembling and upgrading a six-pack of Accurail USRA hoppers a couple of months ago. These are destined for a club layout in Morgantown, WV so the extra detail has been kept to a minimum. I downloaded a PDF file of an old pamphlet from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Historical Society that features detail and images of hopper rebuilding in Keyser, WV. This came in handy when building these models. The prototype hopper cars seemed to receive new AB brake systems in a late 1940s rebuild, but many kept a vertical staff handbrake and wheel. It’s this detail addition that I will focus upon.　 Continue reading “More Hopper Madness!”

Upgrading Accurail hopper cars

NYC Hopper Upgraded

This post began as six separate email updates with a few friends to share upgrade ideas and techniques for the HO scale Accurail USRA hopper models. Since everything worked out pretty well, and the images are decent, I thought I’d share it here. Most of the images on this post can be seen in a larger size after clicking on them.

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