Got an easy to build open load you’d like to share? Take some pics to illustrate and join me here. This is a load of steel beams that doesn’t quite fit a 65’ mill gon, so requires the use of idler cars. The car’s drop ends allow the overhang, but the beams can’t sit on the floor and have to clear the folded ends, so I measure and cut 4 pieces of blocking to fit the width of the interior.
That and a dozen bits of scale 2x4 are about all you need other than some big beams, Plastruct in this case.
Sure, the crosssection is a little coarse, but this model is meant to be be layout quality – if it looks good at 3’ it’s all good. The secret to this is this elestic cord made for stringing beads.
Then you line things up. The end pair should go directly over the bolster, while the two in the middle should support things by being over a crossmember.
Glue the first beam on, keeping things as square as possible.
The second beam goes on the opposite side of the middle sticker.
I edited my previous post to ask a question, so in case you missed it, I will ask again.
Are those Plastruct beams?
Thanks again.
Dave
P.S.
Yes, I hope others will post their examples. One of the things that bothers me about the forums is the fact that you can have literally 2500 views of a thread and only 30 responses. Why don’t more people chime in? Maybe most of them are not subscribers. Who knows. Steven???
The I beams look perfect for loads although one of the companies makes much thinner ones I’ve seen at MBK in their parts area - I’ve thought about getting some myself for bulkhead flat cars - seen photo’s of the real thing on D&RGW freight trains in the 80’s.
Yeah, they could be thinner and look better for it. In this case, it was a find in the scratch and dent bin that was cheap, as well as enough to build two loads.
The cross section could actually work in your favor if used to make this load as prestressed concrete beams instead. Just use different paint and all of the sudden it’s an entirely different load – and perhaps even a better one.
In my case, I am working on building a steel train. Although the Four Corners Division is a fictional standard gauge Rio Grande branch that cuts to the southeast of Moab over to Durango and then down to Grants and into Albuquerque via trackage rights on the Santa Fe, I like to simulate the traffic it might carry if real. One of the big sources of loads is the Geneva Steel plant. That makes the route ideal for sending steel to Dallas/Houston/New Orleans, etc to feed the growing postwar economies there. Thus, they were done as steel, instead of concrete, but still “good enough” that once in aa train with other cars, the impression they make tends to overcome the “do I look fat?” end on view.[;)]
I also like the look of the ends of the beams; they look as though they were cut with a cutting torch by the look of the “silvered” ends. Did you give the ends a touch up of silver paint to create that look?
The ends were one of those things that just happened and I left good enough alone. The Plastruct was dark grey, so needed paint to look like steel. I made a jig from an old coat hanger, tied strings to it, then tacked each beam to the end of a string with CA. They started out at 24" long (THAT would make one heck of a load[;)] ) so once cut in half the four pieces turned into 8 more practically sized beamsin HO. The cutting via saw resulted in a similar appearance to where I peeled the strings off the end of the beams once the paint was dry.
I thought of touch up painting them, but decided they were good to go. This thread is also about easy. Sometimes you just leave well enough alone.[8D]
Nice looking load. I have used Plastruct beams many times but I do agree that Evergreen have a finer cross section.
I used to be involved in high/wide load clearances in the real world so these kind of loads are of great interest to me in model railroading.
One thing I do when I have a load with idler cars is to cut the trip pin off the coupler so the idler can not be accidently seperated from the loaded car. In real life we wired the pin lifters down so the cars could not be seperated.
For operational interest you might consider running a high and wide train for excessive dimmension and speed restricted loads.
PRR/PC had so much of this traffic out of E St Louis we ran one East 3 days a week and Avon (Indianapolis) ran one to us on 3 alternating days. This was back in an era when there were a lot of double and tripple loads of poles comming of the connections at St Louis. In addition local shippers like Nooter Corp and Combustion Engineering were always sending oversized loads East of of St Louis. Most of those cars had a 30 or 35 mph restriction. A lot of roads forwarded this traffic on local trains but our local out of Terre Haute was too busy to handle this in addition to their regular work. Besides, by running this traffic on alternating days, there was less chance of conflict on double track.
Remember this was back when the former PRR had so many clearance restrictions that even high cube box cars and auto parts cars that exceeded plate C dimensions required special clearance and were considered high/wide movements. The further East you went, the worse the problem got to be.
Interesting recollections, Charlie, and now we’ve stumbled into the “Small World Dept.”
My mom’s family is from Terre Haute, so very familiar with the town, but didn’t get much interested in RRs before I no longer spent much time there. My great grandfather retired as a clerk from the PRR after starting employment with the Vandalia Line in 1910 IIRC. I have his retirement papers around somewhere, but likely before your time He passed away around 1980 and worked as a ticket clerk at the movie house after retirement. Koester was the family name.
My granddad, who I don’t really know beyond a pic of hom holding me having died of a heart attack when I was 2, worked as a passenger conductor for the PRR until the Depression. He moved over to firefighting and was an asst fire chief in Terre Haute until his untimely death.
My dad was the farm kid who came to town and swept mom off her feet at teacher college. He did some part-time work handling baggage for the PRR at the station during college before going off to do secret stuff for the Air Force. His other connection to the RRs there was that his frat house was Eugene Debs’ house, the many time failed Socialist Party candidate for president and among thhose who led the Pullman Strike. He didn’t exactly brag on that one, with his security clearance. In fact, he drove us by it one time and proudly noted that he’d slept in every room in the place and that the owner at one time had been a presidential candidate – but not for whom. Took me a few years to figure that one out[(-D] Great museum there now if you like labor history, but you probably know that.
Thank you. I presume you are talking about the Lehigh Steel on the beams in the first photo. That is from a decal set I had made by Rail Graphics. I also have Beth and US steel. The flat plate and pipe loads are early versions. I now put the manufacturer’s names on those too. I have a different set of names for the pipes.
All of the other markings are done by hand with a white drawing pencil.
Here is another very nice load. It was made by a member of the club to which I belong. Unfortunately he passed away last year and is missed. His inspiration was a photo he found in, I believe, a Reading Railroad book.
