A Good Day At The Swap Meet

I had a particular goal in mind when I went to the Simi Valley swap meet this morning: I was hoping to find some Roundhouse gravel cars. I've gotten more interested in the kind of equipment that runs on industrial railroads, hauled around by diesel critters and steam tank locos, and it occurred to me that the Roundhouse gravel cars are just that sort of thing. Ebay prices seemed out of line when I checked. I was inspired especially by one that a Montana modeler, Chet Zaiko, did and posted a photo of here (it's the one lettered for the Logan Valley). Lo and behold, I ran into a guy who had three of them that he was letting go for $2 each.

They have Kadee couplers but missing parts, and I'll need to strip them, repaint them, and weather them heavily.

I have sort of a list in the back of my head of other possible cars I go for if I see them. One is the AHM 6-dome Roma Wine tank car. I found two of these at 50 cents each, one will be fixed up, the other kept for parts.

Here's a photo of the prototype:

It's sorta-kinda. Tony Thompson is pretty hard on it in his blog, but it depends on what you're after. There's a part of me that was, and still is, delighted at some of that 1960s AHM stuff. The car needs better trucks with metal wheels and mounted with screws, frame mount Kadees, weight, and paint touchup, but the alternative is the $250-plus Precision Scale brass car, which I just don't see the point of.