Arguably the greatest American OO layout was that of Carl Appel (more info here!). Photos show he had quite a roster of coal hoppers, but there was more to the layout.

The car we have today is this stock car.

First up, this comparison photo. He used the same decals as on the hopper, but arranged differently with no weathering.

One quirk I’ll note right away, the brass boards that the main decals are on, they are painted a slightly different color. My guess is perhaps he lettered it originally for some foreign road, and reworked the car for his N&O. Perhaps part of the upgrades which I’ll note shortly.

As the model exists now, only one side is lettered. This is the other side:

This photo shows also the other main damage, the roofwalk is missing.

Moving on from that, you might have also noticed in the first photo that the model is on Schorr trucks — and those don’t normally work on Scale-Craft “flat floor” models, there is not enough clearance for scale wheels (S-C wheels being undersized). What Appel did to solve that problem is make a new floor! It sits higher in the body. The frame casting is Nason, and the truck mounting bolsters are the plastic ones that came with Schorr trucks. This car sits on the tracks great, rolls great, and I need to think about duplicating this setup on an upcoming model.

Finally, here it is on the layout. It has the early style (pre-1960) Kadee couplers and operates perfectly. It was a really sharp model and one that can still be enjoyed like it is.