How about a thread to show your cars. I'll start. It is a Reading Hopper that I have been having since the 1960's. I don't know who made it - there are no markings on the bottom. The bottom is diecast with diecast doors that open the hopper.
Yes, I was going to say Mantua, but back then Tyco was Mantua's RTR brand. It was designed as an "operating' or "action" car, which would dump the coal load out the bottom when spotted on an actuator. Not sure how it worked, I had a couple of them, but never had the trestle with actuator. Joe
Here's one of my favorite cars earning her keep. It's a Frisco sawtooth boxcar circa 1912 built from a Westerfield resin kit modified to have a door opened. Here it's being loaded with hand hewn cross ties at Greenbrier, MO in about 1918.
This is a model of one of three Ribbed Side cars that the Milwaukee Road sold to the WP for use in the Amana Appliance pool. The WP changed the door size from 6' to 10' and installed a Spartan Easy Loader. My model started with a Ribbed Side Car that I built, removed existing door tracks and installed extended door tracks for a 10' YSD that I pulled out of the scrap box. Lettered with Detail Associates Decals. Rick J
Crane car Unknown flat car mounted crane One of a couple of old cars that might make it to my layout when completed. Best part of it? The trucks aren't shorting out.
This is my favorite car, for now. I completed it recently with some decals I had found on eBay. I bought the decals actually before I bought the car, and then when I began looking for the car, I began to wonder if I should have bothered with the decals. There were no baggage cars to be found anywhere! A couple of months later, I went to my "local" hobby shop (225 miles away), and lucky me, they had one left, thought lettered for CNW. Close enough though, it was the right colors, which is what mattered. Now I've got a unique car for 844 to pull on excursions. I cannot figure out how to make the photo bigger, sorry.
Some really nice cars. The old Frisco is very interesting, and the ex-MILW WP car is a lot of fun to see.
A rode-hard-and-put-up-wet Frisco pulpwood flat, kitbashed from a Walthers GSC bulkhead flatcar kit. In real life, you found these cars in the southernmost reaches of the Frisco system- I saw a lot of them in southeastern Oklahoma (over 100 were sold by Frisco successor BN to the Kiamichi upon its startup, and almost all were converted to haul tree-length logs sometime later).
Great stuff Bob, I just got a couple Walthers GSC kits myself. I like your kitbash and weathering, looks like it has been in service for many years. I used to see a few of the 50' cars in and out of Quanah in service to the Wallboard plant at Acme. You dont see very many pictures of these. Thanks for showing us Bob.
I picked up this Life Like Campbell Soup Caboose of all places - The Salvation Army Store in the 1980's. I think it was .10 cents. I put it in a box with the rest of my trains and never looked at it for 25 years
I posted this one in a separate thread, but it's by far my favorite out the ones I currently own. Might be replaced with the new IM auto racks once they arrive and get dirty though... Brian
Can you remember who the seller of the decals was ? It's OK, I found him, does them for both Walthers 85' and Rivarossi 73' baggage cars. Doesn't post to Aussie unfortunately, but I'm trying to twist his arm.
Don't know why it could ever be replaced as a favourite, but just a heads up that M.B.Klien are listing the IM autoracks now.