Live loads, the concept is there and sound. Using materials such as coal, sand or the like to show actual loads of the materials. Thing is, what is it, Over-scale or under-used?
First, the cons
The loads don’t always scale down nice.
Dust and the loads themselves can work into the motors and wreck motors and gears.
Derail and there are major clean up headaches. (Could be a scale accident though)
Heavier cars, bad bearings mean shorter trains and harder working models.
But on the other hand
If it’s scaled down right, the loads are impressive.
The operating potential, spot cars, load them, then deliver and unload.
Rough shunts shift loads in real life, why do our models have to have that perfectly loaded coal load or aggregate?
Today there are realistic operating freight cars. We have the ability to use them, why not?
The pros and cons cancel out, and this month’s Model Railroader shows the potential of live coal loads. Loaders, car dumpers, stock models can be used with little or no modification.
Are live loads ahead of their time, or a headache and mess?
To answer your last line, “Are live loads ahead of their time, or a headache and mess?” - first I would have to say they aren’t ahead of their time… in fact, they have been around in various forms for decades in the model railroad world. As you pointed out, there are advantages and disadvantages to using them. I suspect we will continue to see them used as always; a small, hardy contingent will use live loads for the nth degree of realism and the satisfaction of actually transporting a commodity, as opposed to simulated movement of a fake commodity. The rest of the model railroading world will continue to use simulated loads for the sake of convenience and concentrate strictly on train movements. Some will use live loads instead of simulated loads in part of their freight cars, but not actually load and unload the materials. If derailments are low and messes infrequent, they will continue to use the live loads. If derailments and cleanups happen often enough, they will convert back to simulated loads.
Just my two cents, it will be interesting to see what others think. I haven’t seen the MR article yet, btw.
James (who uses 100% live loads of coal, gravel and lumber on the N&F RR)
Another thought, at least in regards to both loading and unloading. Very few model railroads have the space to realistically simulate both ends of a load chain. Often on the prototype, these are hundreds of miles (at least) apart, and before the consolidation into the few mega roads, required several interchanges first. An example would be coal loaded on the Clinchfield in KT/VA; travles almost 300 miles to Spartanburg SC, interchanges with the Southern, than again with the P&N, before going another 80 miles to a power plant somewhere. So I see having both ends of the chain as somewhat a problem. Now you could simulate loading and then to staging, but there’s still a manual unload in there somewhere.
I’d like to add a second variety of live load - something that is carried in or on an open-top car that can be inserted and removed quickly and easily, and can be designed to fit any of several cars of the same type. Examples:
Large crates containing ? Could be anything.
Rough or packaged forest products, including logs.
Machinery on pallets or in open-sided crates.
Larger machines and vehicles properly chocked and chained.
Loads of drummed products.
Tarpaulin-covered loads of something or other.
The trick is two-fold. One fold is that the load must be designed as a unit for quick insertion or removal. The other is that the load must fit into an unmodified car. Fortunately, my gondolas are of pretty uniform size, as are my flat cars. Also, with steel bodied cars, I can build loads on refrigerator magnets and they will then stay put on flat cars.
Each of my several loads is tied to a waybill, so it can be inserted into an appropriate car at its point of origin and removed at its point of termination. The waybills are included in my random waybill arrangement - when one shows up, I retrieve the designated carload from its storage location, load it when appropriate and remove it for return to storage upon delivery. Either loading or unloading is accomplished with the car in a cassette. It is then circulated onto the layout as part of normal operation. On the layout, sometime during the hours of darkness, the unloading crew (aka The Giant Hand of God) converts loaded deliveries to empty pickups, or vice-versa.
Why? So that flat cars and gondolas won’t arrive at loading docks, then depart in the same configuration later. After all, the prototype doesn’t simply shuttle cars back and forth. They are delivering real things to real locations. So should we.
And, in connection with the original topic, I will have a live
One could get pretty ridiculous with this…my railroad’s main business is transportation of fruit and vegetables to and from canneries, should I put real ice cubes in my reefers?
Personally, I like and use live loads. To me it looks better than the molded plastic, plaster or resin loads. I also freelance British railways so I have short freight cars to work with during my era and I just can’t find cast loads.
Besides, I plan on modeling a mine and locomotive colliery. With wagons of coal to have something to do with, it works out for me. With a load that has to be cleaned up instead of picked up, there’s more motive to be gentle. Physics may not scale down, but can be worked with. I have already messed around with open car loads and loads in vans. (Last one is a headache, but I’m not giving up.) My plans are ready to rock. I’m just looking for whose for and against
I think this post helps to illustrate the beauty of model railroading. For some, live loads is a must. For some, and interesting concept, and for others, just a pain in the caboose. And ultimately, everyone is right, because IT IS THEIR RAILROAD. I personally see nothing wrong with any of those choices, because the idea is to have fun. Enjoy all.
I have operated on a layout with “live” loads — where I was the staging yard yardmaster and in charge of unloading and loading cars. I think it adds to realism and depending on how you do it, can provide some interesting modeling challenges. The loads were coal, scrap metal, rebar, Caterpillar tractors, wood utility poles, trailers (for TOFC), and such. They were neatly stored in staging and easy to load and unload. My friend converted from “real” coal to foam rubber sheets painted black that were surprisingly realistic looking. His car forwarding system told me what to do, but frankly after a while just knowing the destination or origin of the car told me too.
One thing is that with live loads the load bracing cannot be quite as realistic or detailed as for a contest car but with some modest trade offs, things looked good.
This type of live loads is another case. I model this. Empty cars should be mty and loaded cars show the correct load. I’ve just made a few coal and ore loads for my narrow gauge drop bottom gons.
Someday, I want to build a rig that contains magent loads. You load it like a gun magazine, then spot the car, it shoves the load off the magent and drops into the car somehow. Then run it around and when you want to unload it, say into a coal bin. there’s a second magnetic arm that moves down a bit and comes back up. The magnet ont he bottom of the previously “unloaded” load is what picks up the newest load. Then take that cartrtidge back to your coal mine and repeat. No spills, but a loaded hopper is a loaded hopper, and an emptyis an empty.
Wolfgang, that looks pretty good but it’s NOT a live load. A “live” load refers to actually putting loose, bulk sand or coal into the car, not a solid glued sand or coal load.
I do respectfully beg to differ - see my previous post. If the load can be easily installed and removed, changing an empty open top car to a loaded car, or vice-versa, it is a live load. The opposite is a fixed, stuck in place, never to be removed, load.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with live loads of logs and machinery, among other things)
Chuck, that is an astute observation! I guess we could designate them as Type I and Type II live loads - Type I being the strictly prototypical, bulk live load (loose coal, individual boards of lumber, etc), the Type II being an easily removeable one piece load that may simulate any type of load, bulk or not. I must confess, when I made my initial post, I was just thinking of the Type I “make a mess when it derails” live load. The Type II makes a lot more sense for most model railroaders - empty and loaded cars being routed the proper directions, but loads are easy to install and remove for the sake of operation. I would suspect that the Type I just isn’t for the majority of model railroaders. When I was running N scale, I dabbled with Type I live loads and found I was just tipping over too many cars, resulting in too much cleanup. However, the live steam stuff just begs for live loads, the train being the natural way to transport coal, ballast and building materials along the railroad… witness 400 lbs of coal in transit below - the only problem is that it has to be shoveled in and shoveled out!
