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Kit Profile - Walthers 75' TTX Flat Car (3950)
This kit profile is for Walthers 75' TTX flat car (Walthers 3950). The kit was produced in the early 1990s. It is now out of production but can be found after some searching on the secondary markets....
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Kit Profile - Yarmouth Model Works 101 (CP 223950 Series Plywood-Sheathed Box...
When I started this series my intent was to take a look at some of the earlier injection-molded styrene kits (they all seem to be "earlier" now!). Even though a number of these kits are out of...
View ArticleHMs with 30' 6" IL
On the STMFC regarding the USRA twin hoppers, David Thompson wrote in part:"The inside length of 30'6" was also uncommon, and is a good way to spot them in ORERs."This list is all of the cars in...
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Recent Car Competition and Selection Puzzle - 1
IntroductionJim Dick recently started a thread on the STMFC that involved a car competition and selection puzzle. The statement of the puzzle can be found in STMFC 124063, three supporting documents...
View ArticleRecent Car Competition and Selection Puzzle - 2
This is the second part of a two-post series discussing the recent car selection puzzle posted by Jim Dick. In the first part of this series (previous post) I discussed some of the reasons I think car...
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Car Competition and Selection - Questions and Some Answers
I've received several proposed solutions to the Port of Milwaukee car competition puzzle I posted recently. I'll discuss them in an upcoming post toward the end of the week. Just as important to me...
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NKP 765
I took these photos of NKP 765 on the south side of Goshen Ind. about 1:30 pm as she steamed up from Warsaw north to Elkhart. View is to the southeast on an overcast day. This is the first time I...
View ArticleVendome Tank Car Co. - Where Did They Make Deliveries?
In STMFC 123938, Bill Welch wrote: "I am trying to make a decision about how to decal one of my Southern Car & Foundry's Standard Steel Car model. One option is a car for the Vendome Tank Car...
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Vendome Shipments - Part 2
In the previous post I collated some information that was consistent with the working hypotheses that:Vendome leased its tank cars to shippers of refined oil products located in the...
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Pipe Shipments in the 1950s
There's been a thread on shipping lengths of pipe in open-top cars on the STMFC. That prompted me to take a look at the ICC 1% Carload Waybill survey to see if I could address some basic questions...
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Grain to Export Elevators
Andy Laurent and I share several common modeling interests; one of them is that we both are modeling harbor areas. Andy's new layout, set in 1952, features the Port of Green Bay, while mine, set in...
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Background for Prototype Rails 2014
This post contains background information for my Prototype Rails presentation in January 2004. It deals with the general problem of printing white using a laser printer with an emphasis on the...
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Background for PR 2014 - Addendum
John Barry writes"Charles,Thank you file pioneering this technique. I had also spent some thought on the problem but had not gotten this far. I had planned to replace the black curmudgeon an inner with...
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More Background for PR2014
This post contains background information for my Prototype Rails presentation in January 2004. It deals with calibration of the white laser printer. The purposes of calibration are to find color...
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Commodity Flows of Portland Cement
I was was prompted by some correspondence with Brad Andonian to look into the commodity flows of portland cement in the 1950s. Brad has graciously agreed to collaborate on this post by providing some...
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Cement Flows Part 2: The Wisconsin Scene
In an earlier post (http://cnwmodeling.blogspot.com/2013/12/commodity-flows-of-portland-cement.html) Brad Andonian and I looked at the commodity flow of portland cement with a focus on the eastern...
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Wisconsin Cement Flows (Continued)
This post continues the previous post on the commodity flows of portland cement in Wisconsin in the 1950s. In the previous post we looked at several facilities in Racine and Milwaukee. We'll pick up...
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A Prototype Waybill - 34
Introduction:This post starts the discussion of the waybills for the August 29, 1962 Ahnapee & Western train. There were 15 cars in this delivery from the Kewaunee, Green Bay & Western via the...
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A Prototype Waybill - 35
One of the things I like best about prototype modeling is the interplay between theory and observation. Of course the ultimate principal behind prototype modeling is to rely on observation, but it...
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A Prototype Waybill - 36
This waybill continues the documentation of the August 29, 1962 shipments to the Ahnapee & Western at Casco Junction. It was scanned from the A&W Waybill Collection by Andy Laurent. The...
View ArticleFGEX Reefers - January 1958 ORER Transcription
This transcription is from the January 1958 ORER. It was sorted from most numerous to least numerous items. PageItemMarkingAAR MDTotal#Start#End#FlgILIHDWCuFt (Gal)Capy...
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A Prototype Waybill - 37
A couple of posts ago we looked at a waybill that documented two shipments from Canada in Canadian rail cars (blueberries from Quebec in 8-hatch overhead bunker reefers) that turned out to be a very...
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Canadian Rail Flows of Fertilizer Materials
In an earlier waybill post (http://cnwmodeling.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-prototype-waybill-37.html) we discussed the commodity flow of newsprint from Canada to the U.S. I remarked that it was the...
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A Soo TOFC Commodity Flow
I recently got an eMail from Bob Sterner regarding an interesting TOFC commodity flow on the Soo Line:"Here's an unusual situation. According to an article in The Soo, in 1959 (my model year) the Soo...
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A Prototype Waybill - 38
Tonight's waybill from the August 29th train is for a tank car load of gasoline, shipped from a bulk terminal facility in Green Bay to a local distributor in Algoma. Andy Laurent provided the scan...
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