Having recently ordered 72 “Minnesota” ore cars and 24 war emergency hoppers I have been thinking about loads. How much can it weigh before it causes trouble? I ahve some black vulckanic rocks that I was thinking of crushing and using as coal. When I wan’t to an aquarium store last week I found som red stone pellets that looked a bit like Iron ore. I was thinking about buying that and using that in the ore cars. Now my question is this. How much is to much? Will the weight ruin the couplers? I wan’t my locos to have to fight up the 2% grades real hard. I wan’t to be forced to use pushers and I wan’t to see how much my PCM Big Boy really can pull(and my IORE). But I don’t want to do any damage obviously and I want it to actually work so is it feasible to use real rocks as loads?
for weight heck out the NMRA standards on ther website nmra.org
As for my coal oads which I model in HO I cut out a piece of styrofoam color it the right color and while the paint is still wet i add crushed coal or ion ore on the wet paint. Elt it dry and it gives you the illusion of a full hopper or ore car. A fellow on here showed how to do it. ITs cheap and easy to do.
Yeah I know about that but I’m kind of intrested in trying “live” coal/ore loads. The problem is that the models comes in NMRA recomended weights I think so ading any load would mess it up.
Please correct me if I’m wrong? How much differs between NMRA standard and factory weight on Proto war emergency hoppers and walthers Iron ore cars? (930-4472).
[#ditto] You don’t want to fill that many cars all the way up with coal or ore. I think that would be a bit too much weight. Also, WHEN they derail, they will make a big mess.
But how much weight can I put in there? I ben thinking about the styrofoam with ore/coal on top and it’s probably what I will go for. But I have also thinking about using plaster as the base but it will probably weigh to much.
If you want to load the cars full with the material rather than make a false load as suggested…
Just take one of the car bodies before you complete the car (specifically before you fit the weights provided by the manufacturer), fill it with your load to a level that looks like what you want, tip it out onto some accurate scales and note the weight. Then compare this to the manufacturer’s weights.
It’s going to be a matter of judgement and use of the NMRA guidelines to decide what total weight you want the cars to be.
Bear in mind that while you might reduce the amount of weight built into the car to allow for the load it will then be a lot lighter if you run it empty.
[8D]
PS plaster would almost certainly be heavier than the load material… plus you have to figure out how to mold it in the car without having it glue or jam itself in there.
Also, if you use a loose load be aware of dust and spillage issues.
PPS Also, some plasters set by exothermic reaction… they get hot… this may cause some distortion in your car body. (For the technical I suspect that what the plaster actually does is an anhydrous reaction which happens to give off heat… [%-)] Any chemists out there)? Whatever you don’t want to mess up your cars… on the other hand… would it be away of creating those elusive “bashed and bent” car sides… would work for all steel not wood or composite body cars.
If you go for a false load you can put a small piece of iron or steel in the top of the load … when you want to put the load in/out you just pick it up with a magnet on the end of a stick. If you get the magnet size right you get it to attach by putting it straight down onto the location of the metal… you get it off by sideways swiping… in the direction of the
I use that green florist foam. (the kind they stick artificial plants in) It cuts and shapes real easy. You can even just spray paint them black for coal or primer red for ore and they look OK.
I have 36 Model Die Casting ore cars that I filled by cutting a block of balsa wood to almost fill the car, and then sprinkling and gluing the ore on top of that. This did not add nearly as much weight as a car full of nothing but ore would.
For coal hoppers, I cut a piece of sheet balsa to fit down insde the car and then sprinkle and glue the model coal, charcoal granules from a Brita water pitcher filter, on top of the balsa. This keeps the load lightweight.
There are many different ways to achieve the same end result. As others have already mentioned, styrofoam makes a good filler under the coal or ore load.
I chose to go with the filled vs. the facade look for my hoppers. Yes, it does add some additional weight to the cars. But, it looks terrific and it smooths out the ride of the train.
If you are going to be pulling large amounts of hoppers up a 2%+ grade, I would seriously look at replacing all of your non-Kadee couplers with reliable Kadee #5s or #58s. You sure wouldn’t want a coupler to fail at an ackward moment.
THE THEORY behind NMRA weighting is to attempt to distribute the weight to prevent heavy cars from tipping over lighter cars on curves. This called ‘Stringlining’ by the reailroads here.
REAL railroads place their heaviest cars up front, and empties on the rear. Most ‘model’ cars simulating RR’s do not carry loads, which minimizes the problem.
AT THE CLUB we run actual ‘coal loads’ downhill and empties uphill.
AT HOME I weight all empty Coal Hoppers the same, and cover with Foam rubber simulating a full load of coal. That prevents ‘Stringlining’.
The club has an operating dump for shows. A large coffee can of ‘coal’ is hand carried from basement to loft -‘Barge’ to ‘Mine’- to simulate this activity. The ‘Dump’ is mechanized and requires a full-time operator - as does the loading.
I don’t recommend “live” ore and coal loads because of the spillage problem.
That said, NMRA weight recommendation is one ounce + 1/2 ounce per inch of car length. For a 40 foot hopper (5 inches long) that’s 3 1/2 ounces. Ore jennies are shorter, say 3 inches, and so ought to weigh 2 1/2 ounces. Most kits and RTR models run an ounce light. At a guess, a live load would weight 3 or 4 ounces, so a loaded hopper car would be 5-6 ounces and a loaded ore jenny around 4-5 ounces, give or take a ounce or two. A four loco diesel lashup ought to move a goodly number of live loaded cars, at least on the flat.
I just finished making some ore loads. I use pine scrap, sawn to fit the car and shaped with a plane to give that pile-of-stuff look. A coat of dark paint to hide the bright white pine, some Elmers glue, and some plain old yellow sand picked up off the road out front, and they look pretty good. Cheaper than the $10 RTR loads from the friendly LHS.
Another trick. Spray paint the inside of hoppers and ore jennies with red auto primer to give that rusty steel look to your cars when running empty.
I can testify to this problem, there are still HO gauge pieces of coal scattered on the seats and floor of my car. A possible way to fix this would to fit an insert to the cars to hold the coal (same width as the car being loaded) and glue the load inside that. Thus meaning you can still remove the load, but without the inevitable mess when collisions/crashes occur.