Hello model train buds,
I was recently trying to come up with some ideas for loads for my HO scale gondolas and flatcars. I was wondering… What are some interesting loads that you can model, for cheap (or even scratchbuilding) for free. Thanks!
Happy Model Railroading,
Nate
I made these (sorry for the photo quality):
I use in some of my cars the left over but yet unusable pieces of rail. Pull the rail off the ties, a little rust colored paint and now you have a scrap load. Another option that woud work which I have done on my bulk head flat cars is pipe… get some of the Plastruct or similar tubes, a little rattle can paint and you have pipe. I have read people even using old Bic pens as pipes.
Most of the pipes on my layout are plastic coffee stirrers from work. As you replace plastic wheels with metal wheels on your rolling stock, save the old plastic wheels and paint them with rust-colored primer. I have a scrap pile of chips from hydrocal castings, which look like old pieces of broken-up concrete.
Be aware of weight as you load your gondolas. I bought a couple of Chooch loads for mine. They look good, but they are cast resin and added a lot of weight. I removed the metal plate that was providing weight from the car and brought it closer to spec.
take a stroll through the plumbing department of your local hardware store. check out the pipe fittings in copper and plastic.
charlie
One cheap load would be a pulpwood load for your gondolas. Just find sticks in your yard that are about 1/8" to 1/4" across, and cut them into pieces about 1’ long.
These are special flats built by NYCT…
They are loaded with trash dumpsters loaded from each station, and taken to a special depot for transloading to the Department of Sanitation. I want to build these for my model railroad.
I am taking 50’ boxcars, the kind with metal frames and throwing away the car. I will build the flat on the frame, which will make it narrower as is required by NYCT (IRT division) . Those stakes rotate down and the sides of the car fold down to make a ramp between the car and the platform. An empty can is pulled off the train, and the full one is loaded. There are yellow railings at the end of the cars, but riding on the cars is no longer permitted (I think), the crew rides in the motor car. Each flat car has both white and red lamps at the end of the car in case it is at the end of the train. The Garbage Train runs with motors at both ends, but when the flats are used in other (MOW) services, the cars may lead the train, and that would require a conductor on the car to control the brakes in case of emergency.
ROAR
Thanks to everyone for such great ideas! To the drawingboard!
Nate
I have a couple of Walther’s 567 EMD prime mover engines and I keep one on a flatcar as a temporary load. Looks great and isn’t the standard load of pipes or tractors. Just a thought.
-Bob
Few months back I saw a literal once in a lifetime never to be repeated flatcar load heading north through downtown DC: an actual battleship gun. It was a monster. Not a little five inch peashooter. We’re talking one of those monster 16" guns.
Of course, its so uncommon as to redefine the term. But, hey, more interesting than pipe load #9384. And I’m one of those guys that pines for the space and resources do be able to scratchbuild spend nuclear fuel cars or Space Shuttle SRB segment cars. So maybe something that out there appeals to me.
[:-^]
My newest flatcars load, ( a week old ) is two school buses on a union pacific 50’ car.
Johnboy out…
There looks to be about 100,000 photos of flats and gondolas on this site:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsTypeList.aspx
I expect there’s loads in many of them. 'Course the gons have sides that may block the view, but there’s still an awful lot to check out.
Here’s a down-on shot of a gon I found really quickly:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1410978
Ed
Pipe load
Scrap Iron load.
Small magnets are glued in the lumber load to hold it down to the flat car’s steel weight.
Sprinter vans are to big for autoracks so they are shipped on flat cars. I made up a couple and they make for interesting loads and are something different.
Steamage, that lumber load is exactly what I want to make for some of my flat cars. The D&RGW hauled lots of lumber like this. How did you do it?
I made the lumber load from scale lumber on hand. Purchased those strong little magnets from Radio Shack, this load used two of them located at each underside of the load. The flat wire strapping is from JBL speaker coil winding. I didn’t scrap a good speaker, but worked at the plant 30 years ago, so I knew where the scrap bin was.
In my research on the Port of Corpus Christi through 50 and 60 year promotional publications, I saw catepillar-type tractors carried in gondolas to the port for export. Of ncourse, if they were being shipped to a domestic dealer, they would have been carried on a flatcar where they could have been driven off. But for export, where they were going to a port with cranes that could hoist them, the heavy equipment could be rail-shipped in gondolas. I wouldn’t think they were need to be strapped down as they would on a flatcar, thus making bthem easier to model as removable loads.