GACX 73137 Updates
Jerry Jackson of the Protoweathering Forum helped me understand the weathering pattern for the rusty wheels on the GACX 73137 covered hopper. He commented that when the car would go through a wheel retarder, such as found at a hump yard, it rubs the old rust off the face of the wheel rims. Jerry [...]
Our new book: Ready to go!
I’m happy to report that the book has been uploaded to the shopping cart and is now available for purchase and immediate downloading. Just look under “Our Books” on the menu bar and click on Modern Freight Cars, Vol.1. Regards, Mike Cougill
New book series coming later this week
We will debut our first digital publication later this week. Our new Modern Freight Car Series is designed for modelers by a modeler. So how did this series come about? Actually, it was simple. I had a hard time finding good quality photos and information for specific modern era cars that I wanted to build [...]
Where did it go?
In preparation for the release of our latest book, we made some changes to the navigation menu bar. All of the product description pages for Detailing Track and Pieces of The Puzzle are located in a new category called “Our Books” (original huh?), located next to Home. Next to Our Books is another new category [...]
Changes at Brookville
Some track changes have taken place at Brookville in recent years. One of two leads to the old enginehouse has been severed and another turnout has also been removed. I suspect both moves reflect some economizing on the part of the railroad. The photo below shows the enginehouse tracks as they used to be in [...]
Some remodeling to the site is coming soon.
I wanted to let everyone know that some minor remodeling to the site is on the way. Most of the changes will be to the menu bar in order to simplify things. We’ll be adding new product pages and categories to the site and listing everything on the menu bar would make for a lot [...]
Roberts Mill
South of Brookville stood the remains of an old feed blending mill built in the late 1920s and operated by a gentleman named Cliff Roberts. Opened in 1930, the Great Depression eliminated any chance of business success despite Mr Roberts’s valiant efforts to save his operation. I only have two or three very poor photos [...]
Towing the line
In Pieces of The Puzzle I wrote about the way the railroad was built on the towpath of the former Whitewater Canal after it went bankrupt from rampant flooding of the Whitewater River in the late 1840s and early 1850s. With the river never far away, spring flooding is always a concern when the region [...]
Why
Why did I switch to quarter-inch scale from HO? Only one reason really: The track. I’ve always been fascinated by prototype trackwork, especially the downtrodden branchlines and lowly sidings that are past their prime. For as long as I’ve been in the hobby, I’ve tried to model such track with increasing attention to the details [...]
Bolster your modeling
As I get more involved with studying modern freight cars, I begin to see the differences that distinguish them. As with the steam era, there are both major and minor differences in the basic designs and details of the major car builders. Thirty years ago we began to understand that the so called common forty-foot [...]
