Hi all,

I have an Accurail 40' stock car kit with letter boards for GTW. Accurail's pic:

[attachment=5619]

However, the kit comes with additional (blank) boards - 2 each of:

2'9" x 2'9" ~ 5 boards high
15" x 10' - 2 boards high
9" x 4'9" - single board

Does anyone know the correct placement of these, or are they redundant?

Andrew

The railroads used "tack" boards on their cars before the advent of computerization. They would use them to tack messages to the cars. It could be a switch list or instructions for the yard hostler telling him what train to put the car on, or it could be a note telling whomever that the car needed to either go to a rip track for repairs, of be forwarded back to home for more extensive repairs. In many cases it could be either a note to send the car to the washout track before using, or in the case of a reefer it might list the customer the car was going to and that it was pre-cooled and iced. I can't imagine anyone needing a note to tell them either that a stock car needed cleaning or that it was already cleaned and ready to go! I don't know exactly where they would go on a stock car, but on SFRD reefers, they had a medium sized tack board and a large tack board on each door and the smaller ones on each end, if I remember correctly.

Thanks Russ. The model has small tackboards on each end. I guess I am just a little puzzled by the size of the "extra" boards. Most of the ones on the models I do have are well under 2 x 2 feet.

Andrew

Problem solved with an email to Accurail. They advise that every stock car includes all possible sizes of tack boards for all roadnames, so some are redundant in some kits.

Into the parts box they go...

Andrew

spare parts are always good.