Cotton Car by Dykstra Car and Foundry

This is a 3D printed car that was built specifically to haul cotton bales. The primary difference between this car and a regular house car is the door size, constructed to be larger for easier loading of bales. The full build can be found on my blog:

https://western-and-atlantic-rr.blogspot.com/2026/05/

DC Presents Updated Clinic

On Sunday, October 4th, 2026 at the Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modeler (RPM) meet from 9:00-10:00am, DC Cebula will present his updated clinic entitled Building Civil War Era Rolling Stock, 3K studies.  Presentation will include scratch building using elevation drawings, modifying ready to run, rolling stock, and images and known dimensions.  This event will be held at the DoubleTree Hotel by Hilton at the BWI airport. 890 Elkridge Landing Rd, Linthicum Heights, MD 21090.

“The Big Shin-Dig In Chattanooga” - The 2026 ACWRRHS Convention.

Back in July, the ACWRRHS participated at the NMRA National convention in Chattanooga, Tennessee as part of our annual meeting. Members participated at various levels, where we had various members provide presentations, bring complete models, historical artifacts and set up travel layouts. We all visited battlefields, museums, took actual train rides and paid homage to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their efforts in the Great Locomotive Chase. 

One of the most enjoyable parts of the convention was our society president DC Cebula’s wonderful idea of photographing fellow members in period outfits to create scale 3d figures for layout use. From those photographs, master modeler Bernard Kempinski (https://alkemscalemodels.biz) happily agreed to use Blender to make recognizable 3D models of our members which he can now 3D print. Overall, we estimated our public outreach at this event tallied in the range of 500 individuals at this convention alone.

While we had multitudes of education and fun, the jewel of the event was the after party in Memphis. Society members congregated at Charlie Tayler’s museum class layout, at which members participated in an extraordinary operations session that will not be soon forgotten. At which point the group finished out the visit with a sumptuous supper of fine southern barbeque.