I have been in and out of the hobby since the days when (probably) every class 1 railroad in the US had steam powered locomotives in revenue service. My previous efforts ceased in the early 70’s with the arrival of daughters. Grandchildren have now appeared and lo and behold they think that gran-pa should get his trains up and running again. Well, I’m all for that.
eBAY is a wonderful thing. I just got a yellow box Walthers kit for a Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Combine. The kit was inspected on August 3, 1946. It appears to be complete; the paper envelopes of parts were still sealed, the tissue paper dunnage in the box was unwrinkled. There is a 8 page instruction booklet that was written by a hobbyist, not a marketing major. He also assumes a reasonably high degree of skill on your part.
Some of the metal parts have oxidized over time. The detail on the metal sides is not as good as on the kits I built in the 70’s. Assembly is differrent. The wood parts appear to be pine or fir rather than basswood. But, remember that WW2 had been over for less than a year at time this box was inspected. Mechanical fastening or soldering is indicated rather than gluing in most instances.
Now to my problem and plea for help. In the instructions on the first page is the following sentence, “The general body assembly follows the same procedure as Walthers HO passenger cars so we have included (the) instruction booklet for passenger cars which will be of help to you in building the MU cars.” And then there are references scattered throughout the next 7 pages to this booklet. But that booklet was not in the kit. The kit was open. My guess is that someone who was unfamiliar with this situation decided sometime in the last 60 years that the general passenger instructions didn’t belong in this box with an MU car and removed it. I have the instructions for p