details – Page 6 – Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads

Workbench Update – August and September 2020

Yup, this report was filed late. Let’s catch up on a few models that have been moving along.

Truss Rod end freight cars

It’s time for another freight car resource file. Ray Breyer has compiled information on truss rod end freight cars. We think of truss rods supporting freight car underframes but they were also used in other applications. Ray presents lots of photos and data covering these uses in a handy document.

Ray’s resource PDF is available on the Freight Car Fleets page. We hope modelers find it useful to build early wood boxcars for their fleets. We have more railroad fleet data and details coming soon.

Many thanks to Ray for pulling the data and images into one document.

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Workbench update – May 2020

It’s been a busy hobby month, as travel beyond home has been reduced. I’ve seen many modelers share their recent work over the last month. I’ve snapped images of a few models that have been on the workbench recently.

Lettering questions

I’ve had a Westerfield Models HO scale Pennsylvania Railroad X23 resin boxcar kit ready to letter for several years. One of my 2020 resolutions was to finish this model. That’s when I found out the prototype lettering had several changes over a short period of time.

Not quite

In the last blog post, I shared an image of fine detail parts. I made those from thin strips of matte Mylar film. There were a few good guesses among the comments, but no one was correct.