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.

Take me back to Tulsa

I recently attended the 2022 Layout Design and Operations Weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I signed up to operate on three layouts and to present on Prototype Inspiration for Manageable Size Layouts. I had a blast!

Painting wheelsets

“How to you paint your wheels?” That’s a frequent modeling question. I see it posted on internet forums and hear it at events. Many techniques and tools have been suggested in the model press, on YouTube, and in discussion forums. Here’s what I do.

Vintage vehicles – 2

I took a break from building freight cars after an odd issue appeared on two boxcars when I applied a flat coat. I started building a Jordan Highway Miniatures 1923 Mack dump truck kit. After building it, I built another. I’ll need several vehicles for the future layout, so I kept building those kits. Oh, and I did solve the issue on the boxcars. Those details are in the previous post. Let’s take a close look at these Jordan kits.