Old decals can be saved by

Old decals can be saved by spraying with your favorite clear coat and they should be fine. I've used ones from the 80s even now and they are fine.

Microscale 87-  and 60-463

Microscale 87-  and 60-463, 87-1163, and 87-193 include inspection dots. Also MC-5012.

More

Herald King decals have a durable film, so even old examples should be fine.  Microscale has some as well, included with set MC-5012.  *Edit* looks like I was typing at the same time as Joe.

HK

I have mixed results with old Herald King. Probably depends on how they have been stored. Some will show a lot of cracking when checked with a magnifier. Coating them with Microscale's clear decal film will usually save them.

Dumb question

Dear MRHers,

For those of us in the dark, what _are_ "U-1 inspection dots"?

Have heard them mentioned previously, but no visuals on what they are, or their purpose...

Happy Modelling,
Aiming to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

They were yellow or white

They were yellow or white depending on the condition of the wheels. The wheels that were inspected were older cast iron type.

Regards, 

What Huh...

In the late 1970s, some serious derailments were traced to defective 33" wheels manufactured by the Southern Wheel Company.  An inspection program began in early 1978 to locate and eliminate all of the suspect wheels.  Cars that passed inspection received a stencil that was supposed to be a 6" yellow dot on a 12" black square.  Cars that failed (i.e. they had the U-1 wheels) received a white dot, which was the be changed to yellow once the wheels were replaced with approved types.  Cars with white dots were severely restricted in how they could move in a train (speed, proximity to hazardous materials), and by the end of 1978 were supposed to be kept out of interchange service altogether.

The program was supposed to conclude by the end of 1978, but cars continued to receive the symbols after that.  I've seen cars built or repainted through 1981 that received yellow dot stencils.  The only cars that were supposed to be inspected were those with 33" wheels, but the occasional larger capacity car (e.g. a 100-ton hopper) would get the stencils too.  That was pretty rare.

The location of the stencil was supposed to be roughly in the same area where you'd also be likely to find the consolidated stencil as shown here (the car was decaled from a prototype photo).  Sometimes the dot would be applied over the black area on the consolidated stencil instead of appearing separately.  Sometimes they were buried within ladder assemblies (one common location was between ladder rungs).

Unless the cars received the inspection stencil when built or repainted en masse, locations varied quite a bit.

Even though this flat car is black, the black background for the yellow dot stencil still contrasts with the car because the original paint weathered first.  Layering weathering effects with cars like this can be interesting.  On this one the consolidated stencils are relatively clean too.

Type

See above.  Cast iron wheels were banned in interchange since around 1970 and the inspections started in 1978.  Affected wheels were all steel.

Sorry for the memory lapse,

Sorry for the memory lapse, my 71 years are catching up with me.

Regards,

Wow...

....Someone found something the Prof didn't know!!

Just joking!!

Highball Graphics

Highball in HO:

http://highballgraphics.com/FCD-WIP.htm

I also have like 500 from Champ

Scenery and Backdrop

Rob, I can't let this post go by without mentioning what a fine job you have done blending the foreground scenery into what a presume might be a photo backdrop.  If not, the painting and the perspective are excellent, as well.  I've been noodling around with taking panoramic photos for a backdrop and was impressed with what you have.  Cheers!  Michael

Re Michael

Thank you for the kind words!  Much appreciated.  All those backdrops are painted.

"yellow dots"

I hired out in 1976 for Missouri Pacific.  One of the first cautions given to us as we switched cars was to look out for "white dots".  I worked in Freeport, Texas, where most of our outbound cars were hazmat tank cars, many of them still with friction bearing axles, so it was not a casual thing to ignore these dots.  The thing I remember about these "yellow" dots is that, unless the car was freshly painted, or brand new, the dots faded rather quickly, so that it became difficult to determine if the dot was yellow or white.  Happily for us, the MoPac computer systems began printing out switch lists for us to use instead of hand written lists, and hazmat information was included on the computer lists, including car restrictions.  So unless you car is new or freshly painted, those dots should be a faded color of yellow, not a shining beacon!

That's interesting

Did no one realize that the yellow would fade? You'd think it would have better to make the one for bad wheels red and the one for good wheels green. It's easy to remember and it won't fade, and there's no way to have red or green weathering, while white or yellow dust is possible.

Anyway thanks for posting about that, I've seen the dots in pictures and wondered what is meant.