So after about 4 years of compiling freight cars for my first serious layout, I finally gathered enough courage to weather my first one. I started with an Intermountain 40' Modified 1937 AAR boxcar and then replaced the side and end grab irons with Kadee ones. It took about a few hours a day for nine days to do (yes I know that's a long time) but I feel it was worth doing slow and steady for the first try. Here's a photo of the finished result:

We're getting a number of questions about the Make it run like a dream series. Since we're offering this series as a pre-order and we're asking people to trust us for up to 18 months for final volume to be released, here's some questions and answers about this series and what doing a pre-order means you get.

So I just made a huge score on eBay. Got myself 7 undecorated National Steel Car 60' double plug door box car kits. I don't know if anyone remembers Hubert's Model Railroad Company but they had purchased all the LBF tooling when they went under. Hubert's is no longer around either. The significance of these cars are the fact that they are the only accurate model of the TBOX box car and they are undecorated kits! Three will be painted with TBOX. Two with old logo and one with new logo. The last 4 will be painted for NSC cars built in 2010 for DWC/CN using custom decals from Highball Graphics.

I grabbed a roof detail shot of BNSF GP39-3 2674 in Klamath Falls yard. I would be interested to know what the pipe like object is used for if indeed it is a pipe.