I am currently building up my layout, and I thought it’d be neat if I had a diesel shuffling around a couple of hopper cars filled with ballast while I am ballasting the roadbed. Some open hopper cars have ‘plugs’ manufactured for them that imitate a certain load (coal, gravel, etc), but plastic plug looks corky and unrealistic. So, I thought I’d fill an open hopper with model ballast. But would it be too heavy for a loco to pull?
Thanks.
I doubt it as people use real coal as loads. if your not sure use the plastic plug and glue ballast to that makes it look better.
Gav[2c]
If you wish too…cut a plug from stryafoam , then rough form the mound then glue your ballast to the top of it, reinsert it into hopper and it’s very cheep to do. just my 2 cents…John
Ha! I haven’t thought of that option. Thanks!
If you stick a couple of nails into the styrofoam, parallel to the top, you can lift the load out with a magnet, thereby keeping fingerprints off the weathering.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I have a question: on steam locos, why do companies have the tender full of coal. Not 1/2 full not empty, not 3/4 full, or 1/4 full?
Yes, that works well. It does however raise the car’s center of gravity. You may want to weight below the foam and make the load above it thinner to compensate.
Karl
Unless you have an exceptionally weak loco you can fill several ballast hoppers with scale ballast and pull them around your layout. But you will have a mess if you tip the car and spill ballast all over the place.
A model loco should have no trouble pulling a few cars loaded with ballast, as it’s not really that dense. However, the prototype loads hoppers with ballast only to about the half-way point, as real ballast is much denser than coal. Replicating this would keep the weight in your models low and also save on the amount of ballast needed. I run all of my open cars with “live” loads, including coal hoppers. A loaded Athearn 34’ hopper weighs about 8 ounces, so a 12 car train, plus caboose, weighs 100 ounces, requiring doubleheaded locos. It can be messy if there’s a major derailment, but most trains don’t run very fast, and the only accidents can be attributed to operator error - usually running through an open switch. [:-^]
I like to remove the cast coal load from tenders, then build an open bunker for loading loose “coal”. You can model the tender full, partially empty, or almost totally empty, which is very useful when I do a picture thread that shows a train making its way over the division, with the coal load dwindling as the trip progresses.
Wayne
I use that florist foam to make a base. It cuts and shapes real EZ. Spray paint it what ever color and then glue your ballast/coal/ore to it.
I did this about 20 years ago (pre -foam days) and it worked well for simulating loads in my hoppers. First, I needed to add some weight to the hoppers so I glued two large nuts in the bay. Then I took a piece of notebook paper and cut it slightly larger than the dimensions of the hopper. I then glued the paper in the bay over the nuts shaping it into load mounds and then added white glue to the top section of the paper. While the paper was still wet with glue, I sprinkled in the ballast until the paper was completely covered with ballast and then let it dry. It worked well and looks like a fresh load of limestone in the hopper bay. The only drawback is that once the glue dries, it won’t come out…chuck
Ballast is too expensive for me to do that… I do run a rock train with cars filled with sifted stone dust (the coarse stuff removed from the sifter) and a hopper with the fine stuff sifted throught it, which looks like sand. Easy to dump out into a bin after it gets unloaded at the cement plant. I haven’t had any spills yet!
EDIT: Although I have seen photos of a whole loose load coal train that stringlined, piles of coal everywhere![:O] Hey, that’s prototypical, right![(-D]
I believe it was the Nashua Valley Club, which ran a 160 car live load train, and then stringlined the cars on one of the curves!
The longest train that I’ve run with live coal loads was 42 cars. I ran out of “coal”, which was probably just as well, as I only had a couple more empty hoppers left. [;)] The train extended through three curves (left, right, and left again, the latter two on a 2.5% grade), and weighed, excluding locos, just over 21 pounds. No stringlining, fortunately, as about half of that grade is in a tunnel. [swg]
Wayne
I cut a piece of cardstock, or styrene, to fit in the hopper. I put a sheet of “cling” wrap in the hopper, then insert the cardstock or styrene panel in the hopper. The “cling wrap” prevents the glue from sticking to the car. Then I glue ballast, or coal, to the panel. Remove it when dry, remove the “cling wrap”, reinstall the “load”, and you have a realistic looking load that only takes a little bit of material to make.
Rotor