Gondola load

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

This week, I tried my hand at modeling a load of scrap railroad wheels. I used a Proto 2000 drop end mill gondola. I have a surplus of cheapie wheels from trainset rolling stock that I kept around after replacing them with metal ones. The axles all had tapered ends, so I sanded the taper off with the sanding disk attachment of my bench sander. Then, laying them in the car one by one, I glued them together with CA, making sure so that the staggering of them would not bind against the inside walls of the gondola.

When I had all the wheels glued together, I painted them with red fast-drying primer. This proved to be a little too red, so I airbrushed them a rust color using acrylics purchased from Walmart. I mixed Autumn Brown with a few drops of Polly Scale Milwaukee Road grey to lighten it, and airbrushed the load. While I was at it, I sprayed a light coat inside the gondolas and along the top edge. The load may not look perfect, but the gondola looks better than having 3 of them with nothing in them.

Wheels glued together with CA.

Primed load, painted with red primer. Just a tad too red for me.

Weathered gondola.

Gondola with load, after painting as mentioned above.

2

Looking good. I’m going to have to try that as I have a crap load of gondolas as well with nothing in them with a lot of scrap plastic wheels too!

Gordon

3

Good job.

Here is my version of loads. The top picture is a real load of course.

http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/themes/trc/utility/[IMGhttp://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii34/Yankeeflyer/2815scrapwheels.jpg[/IMG]:550:0]

http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/themes/trc/utility/[IMGhttp://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii34/Yankeeflyer/IMG_1075.jpg[/IMG]:550:0]

I also have a load of scrap rail that’s going to the smelter but I don’t have a picture of it. I just cut up some short rail pieces and stacked them haphazardly on a thin piece of foam so there wouldn’t be too much weight on the car. The wheels are also on foam. As is the load of crushed rock.

Have fun.

Lee

4

Thank you. And yours look great, Lee.

5

You folks have me thinking about going to the junk box to thin out the culls and load some of my numerous To or, at least. make some removable loads for same. [8D]

Problem is, every time I do that I come up with some better use for the scrap. [(-D]

To? Katakana symbol preceding the number of a gondola. In Japan, you don’t have to guess what type of car the number belongs to. OTOH, it’s entirely possible to have the same digits on two cars, differentiated only by the prefix dipthong.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)