Eric Hansmann

Roadtrip finds

My lovely wife and I hit the road recently to visit our kids and grand kids, and my parents. We drove from middle Tennessee to Buffalo to celebrate a second birthday with a grandson. The Heritage Discovery Center was holding an open house, so we dropped by for a visit the day after the party.

Catching up

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.

More resources!

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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Weathering progress

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.

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.