After spending some time in England, I returned home with a few old-fashioned European-style four-wheel boxcars (or goods wagons), which I then discovered in the 1888 Car Builder's Dictionary had also been used by railraods in the United States during the nineteenth century. I removed many of the characteristic British (or European) details, such as paired buffers at the end of each car, added American couplers, laminated wood planking to the roof, and on top of this I put a walkway; I also added ladder rungs and a brakewheel. This bit of kitbashing became the subject of my first long photo-article — "Only Four Wheels?" which appeared in the March 1975 Railroad Modeler. [Click on images to enlarge them.]


Miniature Worlds Freight Cars