It seems like back about 50 years or so freight cars got beat up a lot more than they do today. Many box cars had their ends bulged out over the top of the drawbar from lading that had shifted inside the car. Gondolas seemed to get the worst of it. Not only did their ends get pushed out, their side were often spread so badly, they had to have a special route assigned to move them back East for repair. Some were bulged out over to over 13’ wide.
Have any of you modeled this? I don’t mean just using a knife blade on the side of the car but actually pushing the side of the car out. If so, could you post some photos?
Charlie
I haven’t done it, but I’ve seen it done. The most common approach seems to be to add some kind of filler/putty to the outside of a gondola or hopper. This approach does not do anything to modify the inside of an open-top car. I’ve never seen it done to a boxcar side or end. Maybe the same approach could be used on a flat end or side, with decal rivets applied to replace any rivets that are destroyed in the process. A dreadnought end or other end with a distinctive corrugated pattern would be difficult, though theoretically not impossible. To replicate the effect on the inside of an open-top car, I recall hearing about somebody who softened a plastic side with hot water, then pushed with his fingers to create the bulges. To really do it well, you probably would need to scratchbuild the sides and ends with thin metal (maybe brass, but copper might be softer) and actually push the sides out from the inside, just as a shifting load would do.
Good luck on this one!
Tom
I’ve done this with some gons I use for steel coils. I used a soldering iron to soften the plastic. Go slow, and experiment. I got a little overboard on the top rails. Of the hudreds of gons I’ve watched, the sides can be really “pillowed” out to the extreme, but the top rail is usually not distorted much. I wanted to post a couple of pics, but what I don’t like in here is the fact you have to post them somewhere first, it’s another step one has to do, and many times, it has stopped me from posting more pics, because I don’t take the time. Plus I don’t like the way Photobucket works. To slow, and too many pop-ups.
When I get done with outside chores, I’ll add some pics.
Mike.
EDIT: The above mentioned “rant” is why none of the links below have been updated in a while.
As for modern-era boxcars (and containers now, too), I suppose the growth in proper loading and securing methods, as well as wide spread palletization and banding/plastic wrap, have reduced (but not eliminated) the incidents of shifting loads enroute. What I do remember from reading old archived Railway Age articles from the 1970s was the abuse that consignees would do to the boxcar doors (apparently due to pushing them open with forklifts, and not always carefully), so that the doors would get dented, jammed, and even fall off their tracks. I think this is why those boxcar mounted door rachets were developed, although they never took off so now consignees can purchases their own boxcar opening equipment
Scrap gondolas still get beat up, although I agree they don’t look as bad in service as they predecessors did (or the railroads don’t send out gondola that beat up for revenue service anymore). As I learned it, you were supposed to push out on the model gondola side panels from the inside with a small, high wattage bulb, or if you were really brave, soften the sides first with a soldering iron (not touching, but very near the sides) and then push out with whatever rounded rod you chose.
Railcar manufactures have also developed stronger designs and better materials (you don’t buy prototype rolling stock in Dollar Tree), so that may have something to do with it too.
I decided to do the pics before I got busy outside. Not the best photos, but hopefully you can get the idea. Once again, I’m not real happy with the top rails of the cars. Next time, I’ll leave that alone. Because the plastic is so thick, it’s tough to get the right effect. I have read an articlle on the method of using brass sheet, and fabricating new sides, and weathering from there, but the process took many, many steps, and lots of time. I had a small fleet to do, so I experimented with the soldering iron.
Please excuse the quality of the pics. I have a Cannon SD750 which I have yet to learn about. (It’s probably obsolete already, anyway!)
Mike.
Most boxcars I see have a bulging roof, probably caused by a forklift going up too far. Never saw this on a model, though.
As wonderful a material for modeling as styrene is, it is not the easiest to use to replicate bulges, dents, and other evidence of hard use. That is where the old sheet tin metal cars in the Varney and Athearn lines really excelled – they bent and dented like metal because, well, because they were metal. Moreover the car sides, ends, roofs and doors were very close to scale thickness. Back when Menzies briefly revived the Athearn metal kits in the late 1970s/early 1980s I laid in a small supply of their metal boxcar doors and a few housecar metal roofs thinking I could retrofit them onto plastic freight cars. Those are projects yet to be done but the stuff is still there on the shelf.
I remember one guy who wrote about creating accurate looking train wreck models by carefully embossing foil over a plastic model so it captured all the detail, and then slightly denting and crumpling the foil. There might be the germ of an idea there for someone to emulate for select panels on a roof that have been dented by the top of a fork lift. More recently a modeler (perhaps Bruce Petty?) wrote in one or another of the magazines I get, either MR or the NMRA Magazine, how he used the thick metal foil from the tops of wine bottles to emboss over and thus replicate and then replace the plastic hoods and doors of model automobiles so that dents could be modeled.
When bulging out the sides of gondolas or hoppers it is important to remember to bulge out the panels between the vertical braces and ridges, not the braces and ridges themselves because that car would be likely taken out of service. The article I remember used a soldering iron to heat up and soften the plastic, but then a somewhat large dowel of wood to actually push at the plastic, to avoid an unrealistic gouge in the interior of the gon or hopper.
Dave Nelson
I’ve done a couple with bulged panels, but not with the entire sides spread. Most of mine represent fairly recently-built cars, so not a lot are severely damage yet.
Paint is Floquil, with decals from Champ. I used a fairly large soldering iron to soft the panels from the inside (not touching, though), then bulged them using the handle of a screwdriver.
Wayne
Freight cars today are still abused in the same ways . A while back we replaced box car door and 3 days later the car was back at the shop because a forklift driver ripped off the new door . As far as modeling it I have had very little luck
