Any Ideas for Hot Metal Loads?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

As you may have seen, I recently finished weathering a bottle car. (If you haven’t seen it theres a small pic of it in my sig.) Now I want to load it with something that looks like hot metal. So I want to ask if anyone here has any ideas for this. Tomorrow I may going to stop at radioshack and pick up some stuff to make a lighted one, but I"mm just asking here first. A good Idea may save me the trip.

Thanks,

Chad

2

Perhaps a cardboard disk cut to fit inside and painted fluorescent orange would look okay.

BTW, I enjoyed seeing photos of your bottle car.

3

I’d suggest getting some red ‘gel’ inserts like they use for stage lighting, and lighting it up with an LED in the car itself. Paint the inside of the bottle (?) with the chrome metallic paint so that it shines the light from the LED up through the red gel insert.

What about red tin foil?

4

I have some translucent orange PVC that would probably work too. It might be a tight squeeze getting lights batteries and a reed switch mounted inside the car with only a 1/2" opening to work through though. Sort of like building a ship in a bottle.

Thanks for the ideas so far and let’s keep them coming!

BTW - This is my 200th post! [{(-_-)}]

5

Theres a company that sells that detail

6

Do you have a link or a brand name? It doesn’t really help unless I know what to look for.

7

I have seen plastic structural shapes painted flouresence red , it look pretty good.

8

Painted structural shapes might work for billets or slabs while still hot, but the cargo in this car would be liquid. The car is like a big brick lined tank on railcar trucks. There’s an opening on top for filling and emptying the car through which a small area of the loads surface can be seen. That’s what I want to model.

Thanks,

Chad

9

I spent quite a bit of time in a steel mill. You could see the steam or hot vapors coming out of the hot metal cars. For obvious reasons, I never climbed on a car to peek inside to view the hot metal. It could be, however, that the vapors would not allow a person to see the load.

If I find my pictures of the bottle cars, I’ll scan and post. However, you did such a good job, there is no need for that.

10

In Dean Freytag’s book The History Making and Modelling of Steel there is a picture top veiw picture of a loaded bottle car passing under a bridge. From the picture you could see that the metal was glowing orange with a thin cracked crust of grey slag floating on top. I was thinking of modelling this with WS ballast glued to the orange PVC and drybrushed with the the right shade of grey. Those vapors would be hard to model. I tryed using teased fiberglass insulation but it wasn’t thin enough. It would probably take a smoke unit or fog machine to model them.

Thanks,

Chad

11

RMC??? did an article on Hot Steel on the Chicago area, and I seem to remember them detailing the inside of the HO car. but I coud be wrong. He used a small light. you could probably get a christmas light, or a light from a rr crossing replacement. I’m sure you don’t want to here this, but you could trim the top off to drop the light in, and reattach the top of the bottle.

BTW, technically your sig is wrong. you need cushions(read Flat car or gondola) between the bottles to protect them. But I’m rarely even good as a cheap knockoff for a rivet counter. do get pictures up!

12

I’ll probably pick up some LED’s tomorrow at radioshack and go that route. About mounting them in the car, I will most likely mount all of the electronics in a peice of 1/2" styrene tube and drop that in the spout. That way it will be easier to turn it on and off or change batteries.

As to the sig, I tried loading a gon in there but it came out floating higher than the other cars so I took it out. Let’s just say the cars are empties.

13

Oops, I thought you wanted red hot steel not molten stuff.
Molten cars were sold by Walthers, but they may not be there, and when I searched the site goofed with the you are not logged in excuse.

14

I’m thinking clear styrene on the inside, with some gray paint on the top, then scraping the paint off in some areas, with an orange light underneath it.

A small smoke unit might fit, and a small decoder or reed switch might fit iside the car.

I threw what was on top of my head here…

15

Chad,

One thing to watch out for before you pour alot of blood n’ sweat into that illuminated hot iron load, is to make sure the seams on your bottle don’t “leak” any light. Maybe lining the inside with painted aluminum foil would be advisable.

As for me, I’ll probably take the lazy way out and do what Acme Steel did with their over-the-road torpedoes: put loose-fitting sheetmetal covers over the openings.

16

Actually Flash, most torpedo trains that stay within the mill property look like Chad’s signature drawing. It’s only the mainline-operated trains - like those in the South Chicago area - that need spacer cars. This is done so that when they go over long bridges, the weight will be spread out rather than concentrated in one area.

Here’s a link to a photo of a torpedo train without spacers at Burns Harbor, IN:

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/todengine/vpost?id=2419905

17

I was going to build the load including light and electronics in a piece of 1/2" styrene tube which would be capped on the visible end by the orange plastic. The main purpose I had thought of doing this was because the tube would give me something to mount everything on and yet still be removeable later to make it easy to turn on and off. Having the light in the tube would probably also act as a light shied, especially if it was painted flat black on the outside and silver on the inside like I was going to so that the edges of the tube wouldn’t be visible and the light would be reflected out of the car. I’ll go check for light leaks anyway though. Might as well be safe.

The construction of the load will be delayed a little. At Radioshack the only part they had that I needed was the red LED. No reed switches or watch battery holders. Tomorrow I’m going to look though the phone book for a local supplier of those parts.

Thanks,

Chad

18

These are two of the N scale cars I built for my neighbors steel mill.

We researched the project with many trips to Granite City steel across the river. And just like Granite City Steel, no cushion cars between the loco and the loads.

19

I guess I won’t run an empty ingot buggy inbetween the loco and cars. It looks odd in pics anyway. It looks like there’s an empty space midtrain.

I think I have figured out what Im going to do. I’ll take a reed switch and atttach both leads to a 2-pin connector to it.The reed switch would then be taped or glued into the inside of the bottle with wires and plug hanging out. the battery holder and LED would be grounded to a brass tube (replaces original styrene tube) with their other leads going to the other half of the 2-pin connector. This way I can leave the load in the car and still turn it on and off but have easy battery changes. Just hold the car upside down so the load drops out and unplug it. The braas tube also simplifies wiring and improves the look of the car by letting the load take up a littlee more of what’s visible. It may seem confusing, but pics of the finished products will explain it alot better than words.

Thanks,

Chad