Model Train Journal

Thank you for the complements on the layout. I'm a frequent reader here, but not much of a poster.

You guess correctly Bob it is a PSC import.

I use the MDC coupler along with a few Protocraft. I have what I need, but if you don't hear from someone else, I will gladly take them. Mail zip code 79505.

Charlie Morrill

Also no photo of the left side. Looks like the 3rd Rail mogul though.

Athearn used what you describe in their box car kits to support the steel sides. I don't think All Nation did so.

Charlie

This SR auto box I think is the oldest Zimmer pre-All Nation kit I found, because the only drawing included with the instructions is this hectograph printed sketch. What I assume are later kits had very nice multi-view drawings drafted by R. Price although the instruction sheet was still hectograph ...

I'd like to know more about the Zimmer kit history myself. I only have a few of those kits, but I thought of them to be a little bit above the norm for that time.

One more Mullet River built up kit photo for Rufus attached.

Charlie

It is not real obvious. In all the years since I built this car, I had not noticed the miss shaped Yin Yang till I posted the photo.

Charlie

Finding the same error in the lettering on this Zimmer reefer kit, removes any doubt to me that your box car sides at least are from a Zimmer.

Charlie

Jim,
My guess is that is a Zimmer kit with the nice preprinted sides. Probably for simplicity of construction, the builder left off some of the details that would have been included in a Zimmer kit like the end lumber doors, roof ribs, and truss rods under the side sills.

Charlie

True. They were not mass produced plastic. But, they are kind of fun to build if one were into that sort of thing.

Charlie

These Mullet River kits build up quite nicely. Unfortunately, they are no longer available.

Charlie

Having visited a machine shop with everything run from belts going to overhead shafts, this 1940's shop doesn't look too bad. But the guy spray painting the tender with the trucks attached seems a little odd as well as unhealthy.

Charlie

Bob,
Since you asked: Athearn catalog attached ---- I hope!

Charlie

Maroon sent me an Adams mechanism. It was (and is) kind of rough. The drivers were Athearn, with truly wide rims - see Jim’s photo below. Athearn made O scale drivers? Please do continue on.... I don't know if Athearn actually made the drivers, but he listed them in his 1940s catalogs along with lo...