This is a project that I’ve been working on, its a model of a dump train (Grex) conveyor unit I cut a Bachmann depressed centre flat car in half and added approx 45 scale feet in the middle. Next will be some some finishing touches and then paint…after the paint I’ll finish the conveyor belt…the second picture is the beginnings of a hopper car that has a conveyor belt that runs through the belly and feeds the conveyor unit, I’ll weather all of them “Well used”…I’ll have approx 10 hoppers, the model will not be powered as the original is not
It seems that you can work with sheet styrene. I think Evergreen makes styrene with the ridges on it, so all you have to do is cut it. Those hoppers don’t look too hard to scratchbuild. Just extend the lattice work up a bit, scratch build the hoppers, and you’ll end up wtih a completely scratch built car that looks more like the prototype. You detail it enough and do a couple more and you could try out for your NMRA master modeler’s certificate.
Is it just an illusion from the pic, or is the car bowed down where your splices are? It almost looks from the pic that the frame under the conveyor boom (chute)(?) will drag the track.
It’s a neat looking piece of equipment. Nice build. I’d like to see the finished unit.
I looked at the pic and yes it looks bowed…but I think it was the angle of the picture
Its actually an interesting machine…the hoppers (20+) have a continuous conveyor belt that runs underneath the hoppers, each car can dump onto the conveyor and sent it to the main conveyor car to fill in washouts or stockpile gravel/dirt trackside. The main conveyor car is not powered and is pushed along by a locomotive.