I haven't accumulated a large series of photos of individual cars. But that might get rather boring anyway. Here is a shot of the track shelves I built in my train workshop and some of the cars I've collected over the past 3 years or so (as of 2015). I currently have enough log cars to make up a decent logging train, enough passenger cars for a nice passenger train, and enough other cars for a couple of general purpose and freight trains. All of them will be pulled by steam engines.

I have made a number of purhases on eBay, and especially like looking for things others have customized. The working caboose pictured here is also noted on the weathering page where you can see the "before" example. The caboose started as an off-the-shelf item that was weathered and then some detail added. The crane was built totally from scratch. The only way things like this end up on the market is when somebody retires to the big train depot in the sky.

But there are exceptions. There's an old guy named Lothar (inset) who calls himself "The Diorama Man" and builds highly detailed and weathered cars like this horse logging car, just for sale to guys like me. Lothar says "I'm a 60 year old German Master Craftsman specialized in repair, refinishing, and restoration of antique furniture. I ran my own furniture restoration business for 40 years in Germany and in the USA." He currently lives in Washington state, and I think the only thing he does these days is build really cool model railroad cars.

This is the Lothar version of a steam donkey car. When you buy a car from him, the package comes with an assortment of imported German cookies and candy included in the box. The cars come with everything pictured including the people.

This is The Diorama Man's rendition of a blacksmith. I also have several of Lothar's log cars that you will see on the layout when the logging train is running, in addition to the log cars that I weathered and customized myself.

Somebody went to a lot of work to scratch build an old steam snow blower. I'm now the proud owner of this nice piece. It needs a little bit of restoration work, like put back the missing stack on the top front, but overall, it's in pretty good shape. The internal workings are in disarray, but the pieces are still there for making the blower actually spin under power of an internal battery operated motor.

This tender is pictured along with the Sumpter Valley Mallet on the locomotives page because it is wired to run with that locomotive (running as the battery car). I added it to the cars page here so we can talk about what a tender really is.

Most pictures you see will have the tender loaded with coal, and for a long time, I thought it was simply the "coal car". But where does the water come from to make steam? Well, that's in the boiler, isn't it? Guess what... it takes 7 times more water than coal to make steam. So notice the empty tender pictured here. That little hopper is where the coal goes. The rest of the car is a giant water tank. And that is what all tenders consist of - big water tank, little coal hopper.

The saddle tank Mallets have their water tanks strapped to the sides of the boiler, and the coal hopper is hung on the back right behind the crew cab. This eliminated the need to have an extra car just for coal and water.

One other note about the tender here. That little doghouse looking thing on top is called exactly that, the "doghouse". The train usually had both a head-end brakeman and a brakeman at the rear of the train. Often, there wasn't a lot of extra room in the cab. The fireman didn't always like to share his seat with the brakeman and there wasn't really enough room to stand without getting in the way of the fireman. The doghouse was added to give the brakeman a place to get out of the way and out of the weather.

I like to run multiple trains simultaneously on my outdoor layout. Even though I clean and inspect all the loops before running, there’s nothing to stop a squirrel overhead from depositing an organic decoupling mechanism on the track while trains are running. I haven't found the pause button on that prolific maple tree either. Since I’m often distracted visiting with guests, I sometimes don’t notice that a train lost a few cars until the loco loops around and smacks into its own caboose. That’s when somebody will finally yell something.

So here is my solution...