One of my favorite modeling tricks is to show the empty interiors of my rolling stock. This “open door” effect is a great way to give your rolling stock the illusion of purpose. Here are two of the stock cars in my collection:
This first pic shows a Mather Stock Car. The dry hay was modeled using “chopped” Woodland Scenics tall grass. To form the cow droppings, Woodland Scenics turf was used:
Here’s a pic of a Central Valley Stock Car. For this car, the hay was mixed with dirt to simulate the transport of other livestock:
Hey, guys, next time you post stock car pics, do it in the winter. It’s hot here this week, and all that manure is, well, not the most pleasant smell I’ve ever had coming out of my computer.
That’s got to be the first time I’ve heard of anyone modelling cow pies in HO. Great idea.
Both very nice modeling efforts, but I’ve got a couple of comments/suggestions:
First, stock cars didn’t use straw for bedding, they used sand. Look through any railroad rulebook, and it’ll clearly say SAND. Why? Simple: cows, sheep and goats will EAT the straw, leaving them with no bedding at all. They won’t eat the sand. True, you will OCCASIONALLY see a stock car with either some remnant HAY sticking out of the slats (hay’s a different color than straw), and stock cars were loaded with straw to transport melons and tomatos, but they wouldn’t have cow pies in the straw at those times.
Secondly, stock cars were among the CLEANEST cars on steam-era railroads. Why? Because they were steam cleaned after every use: live steam tends to leave a VERY clean surface. Why were they steam cleaned? To remove the filth. Filth breeds disease, and you didn’t want to risk infecting new livestock. If you want a stock car to look “weathered”, the most you should do is to simulate chipped and faded paint on the wood surfaces of the cars: the wood surfaces didn’t take steam cleaning as well as the metal parts, which usually retained their paint.
Having dirty stock cars running around with lots of poopy straw hanging out of them isn’t a matter of freelancing, it’s simply a matter of not getting things right. Mostly, because stock car movements haven’t happened on a daily basis in over 40 years and we’ve forgotten what they looked like.
I can’t comment on how prototypical Bob’s stock car rendition is (I think they look terrific) but if I went to the trouble of making HO scale cow pies, I’d sure as heck want to show them off.
I don’t even want to know how you arrived at the correct prototypical size of the pies.
I love em. It was prototypical for that line, before they got to the steam cleaner. I shoveled grain out of box cars for two years, and let me tell you, there were a lot of interesting “variations” on standards.
Arthill, I’ve seen all sorts of interesting things in my 31 years on the railway standard and non-standard. But even when I was the stationmaster at the biggest rail-served stockyard in the country, I never saw empty stock cars leave the yard full of “hey” and cow jobbies. Cheers, Mark.
Only a car fresh in will sport “offerings” and they will be cleaned out fast.
I would have thought that cattle would eat hay but not straw… then again… my Bull mastif happily eats his bedding (don’t ask me how I know*) despite my keep telling him that “bull mastiff” doesn’t mean that he’s bovine. In the UK straw was used but see below…
I know that in the USA all transport of livestock was extremely strictly regulated and monitored as here in the UK… what I don’t know… Up to the ? 1950s ? did your cattlestock trains disinfect with lime wash??? It was MANDATORY here in the UK until it was discovered that the lime rotted the steers hooves FAST whereupon it was promptly banned. (Commuters still get less-good treatment). Prior to the ban all cattle stock had splashes of white around the bottom 1/3 of the car body sides and below. Subsequently these faded. Did this happen in the US? When was steam cleaning introduced?
Something else I’m interested in … when were the last US livestock rail movements??? particularly pigs (I think these may have been the last - if they don’t still happen).
I’m interested in the UP “Hog Palaces”… They seem to say so much about UP. [Go on sue me]! [}:)]
I reallydo not believe the things that will pass through a canine digestive tract!
Something else I discovered when doing my original USA RR research… They used to have live poultry cars… Model that! The drawings I have (somewhere) show an “attendants comparment”… Mid car! I bet that was a crappy job!
Anything with four stomachs can easily eat and digest any fibrous material. That’s why goats are know to eat just about anything, and why reindeer can thrive on lichen. Having grown up on a farm, I know exactly how fast cattle can go through a round bale of straw! Out west during the cold months, cattle are fed more straw than hay, since straw is cheaper.
No, only in Canada (and them pesky Canadanians do anything you Brits do anyway…). That’s why CN stock cars are painted white on their bottom 2/3s; it was so the lime streaking wouldn’t show up. American stock cars weren’t painted that way because we didn’t use lime.
Probably 1907, give or take a few years. The aftermath of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” wasn’t what he intended: he wrote it as a battle cry for Reds to unionize labor, but all it accomplished were stricter health and safety regulations. Steam cleaning would have been one of the byproducts of that novel.
IIRC, the last REGULAR movements happened in 1980, with occasional movements happening throughout the decade. But stock car service was dying fast by 1960, and by 1970 was pretty much dead (killed off by packers fleeing Chicago for rural areas and refrigerated semi trailers)
Just a warning Bob. I think the Proto Police might be monitoring this site. They showed up at my door earlier this evening but my wife stalled them long enough so I could run downstairs & remove all traces of my unprotypical straw from my cars. Maybe you might want to do the same. YOU COULD BE NEXT!!![:D][:D]
Oh, what a disappointing day. First Floyd Landis, and now one of the neatest modelling ideas I’ve seen in a long time is ruled “non-prototypical.” What’s next? Is someone going to tell me TV wrestling is “fake?”
One rivet two rivets three rivets four no five rivets six rivets maybe even more. You be the judge, keep up the good work they look great. It is your RR not anyone else’s. It is a tiny little world we live in.
The Old Dog must suggest that sand is fire resistant, hay isn’t! Hot cinders from a steam engine and sraw or hay bedding might result in some pre-cooked beef or pork.
tommyr wrote: “I think the Proto Police might be monitoring this site.” Proto Police? Oh, you mean people who know the difference between real and make-believe? Mark.
orsonroy… hey, he’s only got one stomach and he don’t stick to fibrous! I’m having a heck opf a job persuading the utility companies and the post office that it wasn’t him! [;)]
Bergstrom was right; some of you will argue just for the sake of argument.
Bob Grech has proven time and again that he’s in the running for detailer of the year and this is just another offering that solidifies that title.
In order to satisfy the rivet counters I hope that when this forum finishes its run down the toilet the water in the bowl turns in the proper direction. Yes, I’m well aware that it will depend upon which hemisphere you’re in what that direction would be.
Congrats Bob, whimsy or not, a well presented detail.
Once the club layout in Corpus Christi was built in a member’s garage while the member had his personal layout in an adjoining room.
One day he called for help. He was building a logging diorama for a contest and needed HO scale cows (to figure-bash into oxen pulling a log from the woods…) He had looked in all the hobby stores in town, and the toy stores that had a tiny train selection, and he had called a hobby shop in Kingsville 45 miles down the road. NOBODY had any scale cattle for sale. Too late for mail order. Did I have any HO cattle in my personal stock he could “borrow”, in time for the contest.
Have you looked on the club layout in the other part of the garage, I asked.
There aren’t any cattle on the layout, he told me. He had thought of looking there.
Did you look in the stock cars, I asked.
You are putting me on, he said. Don’t try to kid me.
I asked, he didn’t think I would model stock cars without putting animals in them did he?
He accused me repeatedly of trying to pull a joke on him in his hoiur of direst need. Finally, he looked, knowing he was going to be teased for looking.
When he came back to the phone, he exlaimed “There are COWS in those cars!!!”
He borrowed the cows, bashed them into oxen and won the contest.
Mark.