By popular demand, the All Nation “brass” 40″ Steel Box car is once again in stock! Back in 1969, All Nation Line brought out the first of new series of “Steam Road Era” box cars. These were the 40 ft. steel box car that depicts the steam to diesel transition Read more…
The Chicago Great Western purchased stock cars from The Hicks Stock Car Company, of Chicago, Illinois. In 2017, I embarked on a scratch building project to develop a particular type of Stock Car in the CGW fleet. I had several criteria for wanting to try such a project. First, the Read more…
A very common practice and a rather fun activity to do as a kid, perhaps in grade school or at home, was to start a scrapbook. However, historically, it was not uncommon for adults to have scrapbooks, too. Many scrapbooks turned into photo albums when snapshot photography became affordable for Read more…
Machinists are extremely creative and clever individuals. Where there is a need, they can figure out a tool to make it happen. Here is another gadget video where we have fun trying to identify the functionality of this intricate piece of equipment. As you will see in the video, it Read more…
Welcome to another All Nation Line blog, Part 3 of our video series to scrounge parts for scratch building a Reading Railroad Bean Car. Previous videos, Parts 1 & Part 2, introduced the project embarked upon to create a unique 40′ steel box in the Reading Railroad to transport beans Read more…
Back in the day, as many of you may remember, there was a phrase, “keep your powder dry”. In this modern day and age there is a new take on that phrase “keep your filament dry”. More and more model railroaders are getting into the craft of 3D printing. As Read more…
Freelancing: In the September 1947 issue of Model Railroader on page 703, John Page wrote an editorial comment in the column “at the THROTTLE” titled “Freelancing – A Lost Art?. Written 77 years ago, the question remains the same today in our hobby. The gist of the editorial is around Read more…
In this hobby, it seems like the imagination can take you down so many interesting paths of enjoyment. I was curious to explain why our 600 HP Switcher is such a nice operating model, from a slow and gradual startup to the same upon coming to a stop. It is Read more…
All Nation Line is introducing a new concept of 3D printed mock-up cars to develop higher standards for scratch building in brass. This prototype concept has never before been offered to the 2 Rail O Scale hobby. One of the ways I typically go about building something from scratch is Read more…
An unusual box car caught my eye and became a candidate for creating a scratch building project with a series of future videos. Scratch building means exactly how it sounds: building something from scratch and not from a kit or bashing a ready to run model. Scratch building is the Read more…