Both of these gondolas are recent completions/restorations, eBay purchases, and both are riding on Graceline trucks.

The car in the front is visually identical to a Graceline car, but actually it is Transportation Models, the successor firm. They are essentially identical models, but apparently Graceline when they left the market sold the dies for making their castings to Selley (or Selley had always been the supplier, and Transportation Models did not continue with them), and sold the residual wood and cardstock parts to Transportation models. The Transportation models version has a wood frame, and different metal parts.

In either case these are not common and I am pretty pleased how it came out in terms of look and with the NYC decals. I used Eastern ladders on it and tweaked a few missing details. Graceline sprung trucks are a bear to fix, but I have a group of them set up to use on appropriate cars, and this was one. The only big issues remaining are it needs a load (what you see inside the car is the top of the wood block body that the pressed card sides/ends are glued on to) and as originally built up the car tips to one side. The original builder did not put the truck screw holes in square. Noting however that the car also needed a huge stack of washers to be at the correct height, I glued on wood extensions to the bolster and redrilled the holes. It is rolling properly down the line now. The load eventually will probably just be a sandpaper insert, I’m still exploring options.

While the Graceline car came to me unpainted, this second car came to me painted and essentially finished – but with no lettering. I did tweak a few things and put on a fresh coat of gloss black. I think the builder may have struggled to find decals that would work, otherwise they could have finished the car. I struggled too but finally spotted these decals, both cars being lettered from the same set of Microscale decals actually intended for USRA hoppers. But with searching for gondola photos online I think I arrived at two pretty accurate schemes.

This car itself is scratchbuilt. The frame is a mystery. I can tell you what it is not: it is not Selley, Nason, or Hoffman’s. It is a little large to be a HO cast frame and it seems to be of a harder material than soft metal so it is a mystery, as is the brake cylinder casting. The ribs are very clunky looking, but also reflect some nice craftsmanship being built up from wood and cardstock with pressed rivet details. In any case, the black paint scheme helps the look of the car (hiding the somewhat clunky details) as do the nice sharp decals. The early 20th century vintage of the assumed prototype car seemed suited to my eye to the oversized Graceline Andrews trucks, and this car is a good operator for when I run vintage style cars.