Mail Call! Railway Post Office, commonly abbreviated as RPO has rolled in!


Another RPO to post!

I stopped at the LHS on the way home from work tonight. I picked (2) 50' boxcars by Roundhouse New in the box old stock and one was built with an EOTD! Each cost 10 bucks! Nice little haul I think! I was surprised by the EOTD. Both were in the consignment section of the shop.

Roundhouse 50' Boxcar 1272 road number #610 Tidewater & Southern

I will put this together this weekend and change out the wheel sets to metal wheels and add kadee couplers.

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and

Roundhouse 50' Boxcar 1981 Dbl Door Western Pacific road number #381 with an EOTD

I need to add the brake wheel and change out the wheel sets to metal and add kadee couplers. I may paint the EOTD yellow as well not sure yet.


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So my Micro Engineering bridge track showed up today. $10.50 for a 3 ft section. Compared to the Walther's bridge track $39.95. It's a good alternative. It doesn't come all together like the Walther's track you have to install the inner guard rails. You also have to bend the ends of inner rails. No big deal with that. I don't like the brown ties. I'll have to paint them black. The normal color of bridge track. I ordered two because my bridge alley project in longer than 3 feet. Now if bought the Walther's product I being paying $80.00 instead of $20.00.

George

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My last order of bulk head flat cars came in today. All are by Roundhouse Products and the RR Union Pacific!

I was actually surprised that when I found these on evil bay that one, they were all together on one bid from the seller and two I was the only one to bid on these. The awesome thing about it was they ALL have different road numbers that I didn't already have. The other thing that surprised me was I have not seen Twin packs by Roundhouse Inc. packaged this way before for these cars. Have you guys seen these packaged this way before? This got me excited on bidding on them because of the different road numbers. I think these are great cars as I do have a quite a few of these now. For the money I think these cars have more than enough details for my layout and purpose. Not gonna say I am done on acquiring these types of cars. I am actually looking for the Atlas models that have the short bulkhead flat cars which are very hard to find.

So these are the numbers I got.

#215508 (UP Yellow)
#215611 (UP Yellow)
#215645 (UP Yellow)
#215678 (UP Yellow)
#215680 (UP Yellow)
#282151 (Brown)


Here are some pictures. I will be assembling these this weekend. This weekend coming up will be single digit weather. Cold Cold Cold. I will stay inside to work on these and other cars I got in the few weeks.

Here are the pics:

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Rico said:
Very nice James!
My all time favourite cars are the roundhouse flats and accurail covered hoppers above all!
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Thanks Rico!

I sometimes have a hard time spending or even thinking of paying over $50.00 for one flat car like Tangent or Scale trains or whatever. I feel these cars are sufficient and are fantastic! I am guilty however to splurge on an unusual car or pay whatever the cost but I really try to avoid that. It has to be a rare situation etc.

For these 6 cars I paid right at 100 bucks. So @ $16.67 a car not to mention NIB and all different road numbers. I think it was a great deal.

These cars are just great and and are good runners with a few mods like adding Kadees and metal wheel sets. A little weathering and adding a load as well puts it all into being an excellent rail car for the layout!

I have a number of Accurail cars as well, mostly 40' box cars some where in the neighborhood of 50 (all different road numbers) of them mostly Union Pacific. I used these behind my steamers etc. When I belonged to a club down in Florida I would pull them all the time. They have great details too.
 
Alco, You always mentioned that your layout is temporary and in the above pics I see layouts going down the sides of your shop; do you have several layouts by chance if you don't mind me asking ?
 
BigGRacing said:
Alco, You always mentioned that your layout is temporary and in the above pics I see layouts going down the sides of your shop; do you have several layouts by chance if you don't mind me asking ?
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lol good eye.....;)

Those last 2 pictures are actually from the seller whom I bought the cars from.

Yes it is true, my current layout is temporary. This layout is my 4th layout. I had 2 layouts in Arkansas. (1 was 10x14 the other was 18x12) In Florida I just had a shelf layout no scenery 10x2. I am hopeful that I may be able to build my garage addition this spring. We shall see what happens with the economy and COVID deal. I already have 2 different sets of construction documents/plans and will have to re-bid them.
 
It was good eyes and thank you, mainly as you know watching your layout as it is so close in size to mine. I have been learning a lot from all you as you know. I hope that your garage comes for sure, but also hope that prices drop a little as they have gone up quite a bit this year due to Covid for sure.
 
Ok so I have been a bit busy at work but have time to browse on evil bay. ANyhow I have not got much accomplished in the train room as of late but I do need to do an update which I intend to do this weekend coming up.

So I was checking out lumber loads and found this guy had few nice examples that were quite simple and reasonably priced. Low enough cost for me to sample and try to copy/emulate. So here what I got and it came in today. Not too shabby.....

Here is the description:


JD HO Scale Lumber Loads Georgia Pacific 72' Centerbeam Load #20 PUTT Version. PUTT is a loosely used term in the lumber industry that means Paper Under (or On) Top Tier - an attempt by mills to protect unwrapped units of green lumber from rain or snow to prevent or retard the formation of mold on the lumber after the EPA drastically weakened the effectiveness of Anti-Stain Treatment Chemicals in the mid 80’s. Mills would apply 6 mill plastic or chemically treated heavy craft paper to the top of units to be loaded on the top tier(s) of the load when they went through the bander/banding station. This is a beautifully crafted lumber load - ready to load on your car - no cutting, gluing or assembly required - auction does NOT include car -picture shows how the load fits perfectly on a Walthers Hampton 72' Center-Beam.

Here is what was attached to the description:

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And here is what I got in the mail from USPS today...... I got 2 pieces one for each side.

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Here is what it looks like on one of my Walther's centerbeam cars.....

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Whacha ya'll think?


I know I can try to copy/make this and I think I can do a bit better than this but nonetheless I think it still pretty darn good. Better than the plastic replicas I have seen for sure. I am satisfied. So I have something to work with and improve a bit more.
 
So as mentioned in the coffee shop this morning that I was going to the LHS for lunch today....here is my small haul!

(1) 50' single door box car SSW Cotton Belt Roundhouse Inc. model #1204 Road Number #30169 (this came with metal wheels and kadees installed)

(1) package of metal wheel sets from Intermountain 33" size

(2) Caboose Industries 101R ground throws

(1) package of #29001 A-line Stirrup Steps Style-B

(1) package of Tichy Train Group Stirrup Steps #3042 Angled Offset Bottom Mount 10 pieces


and one freebie magnet calendar from the LHS. ;)

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Alcomotive said:
So a few weeks ago I mentioned in the coffee shop about starting a thread for "Mail Call" a few of you thought it would be a good idea so here we go!

View attachment 113459

This thread would pertain to any Model Railroad related items you ordered and received for your MRR or other.

So include your picture and tell us about it and even give your review or reasons for obtaining the item or items ;)

Thanks for your future participation!

Edited by Bob - added RPO image for thread promo.
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In 1965 I started working for USPS. One of my early assignments was working with a group of “Old Timers” who were RPO clerks until they shut RPO down. I think their run was from Houston to Denison. I know Denison is correct, but not totally sure on the Houston part. They were a very interesting group of characters who knew the State of Texas exceptionally well. Thanks for your photo that reminded me of them.
 
Rico said:
That or one four axle and one six axle car I guess, a twelve pack makes more sense.

James, do the caboose throws come with instructions?
Seeing people push them right to the ground is a pet peeve of mine.
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Rico,

When I get back home I will check the packaging to see if these offer the instructions or not.
 
Good afternoon from Wisconsin. I ordered a few things last weekend and finally they have started to arrive. 2 day priority USPS, yeah right.

A pulp wood car from the Walthers Gold line products. I am very happy with it. They are going for 40 plus shipping on eBay. This was received for $29.00 total, has Kadees and steel wheels. It will hit the paint department hopefully tomorrow. Found on HOswap@groups.io

TomO

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