Hi Bill; I agree with Dave. The two hoppers I bought will be repaired if need be (the Reading war emergency hopper needs a couple of diagonal braces replaced), but not changed. No uncoupling levers, no train line piping, no air hoses. They are what they are, a homage to a man who made wonderful models that captured the effect of what he wanted to represent. In the case of the hoppers, Frank published an article on the different hopper types in the Herald. A couple of years later after the Herald ceased publication, Frank wrote an article for Dispatch or S Gaugian showing his models of most of those cars! That article mad a big impression on me, and I am happy to have two of those cars, and a third clearly inspired by the article (a PRR GLc hopper purchased on Ebay).
For the pickle cars, they have GATX reporting marks, so you can just claim that Doxie Pickles picked up the lease when Von Allmen returned them to owner General American, and there wasn't time to re-paint yet. Pieter E. Roos ________________________________ From: David Heine <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 1:41 PM Subject: RE: {S-Scale List} Frank's cars I bought Bill, Since you asked, and I currently am the caretaker of several of Frank’s cars and buildings, this is my philosophy. I will do maintenance and repairs including touch-up painting, but I won’t reletter them. Fixing loose decals I would consider a repair and I own a Spiral Hill 4-6-0 that has that problem. The pickle cars I would leave as Frank lettered them. After all Doxie Pickles could have bought out Von Allmen. Actually Frank’s hoppers did have loads in half their trips. He used live loads in hoppers of plastic HO coal and his one tipple would actually load his hoppers. Loading hoppers may have been the last thing Frank actually operated on his layout. Other guys would operate (or do maintenance) weekly, but they had Frank load the hoppers at the mine. Part of the reason may be that you had to operate the train from inside his layout and if you got Frank to operate the tipple, you didn’t need to crawl out and back in again! Note: At an earlier time, Frank used actual coal for live coal load, but it made too much dust. If you own one of his steam locomotives, the coal load is real coal, but glued in place. Frank liked glue, especially Duco cement. Dave Heine Easton, PA From:[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Lane Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2013 11:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: {S-Scale List} Frank's cars I bought [4 Attachments] [Attachment(s) from Bill Lane included below] Attached are the Frank Titman cars I bought at the convention. There may be some more in my future. I was trying to go for unique hand built cars that would stand out on an S layout for S visitors. Ironically I had to talk Dan into buying some and ½ of what he bought were SHS cars because they were weathered! Franks “don’t get buried in the minutia” philosophy is how he got so many cars built. The hoppers have an AF car buried in there someplace. I am likely to fluff them a bit. Frank loved Floquil paint which does not decal well. I am going to settle in the decals better and probably Dullcoat them. They are going to have coal loads to give more weight and hide the A F interior. But for me the buy of the day is the bobber caboose – especially for the price! I had a conversation with Jamie the other day. We were both sad that 40+ years of some of the best S modeling in history is getting scattered to the 4 winds. We both have great respect and reverence for what Frank is/was in terms of a modeler and S icon. I have called Frank “the number one god of S Scale” for many years. “Built my Frank Titman has meaning – to the point I wrote it on the boxes I made to store these cars in. So do you keep everything just as it was – just as Frank made it? It is probably not going to happen but I would not mind painting the hoppers again. I have 2 of the pickle cars, both of which have Von Allmen on them. But if I make it, my pickle factory is going to be “Doxie Pickles”. So it could have a name change for the Frank built pickle car. What would YOU do? (:->) Thank You, Bill Lane
