I decided that my backwoods branch of the Boston and Maine could use some pulpwood traffic. We used to have a lot of it before the paper mills went out of business. I started with a Walthers bulkhead flat kit 932-2909.
Started with the undercarriage. On of the molded on stirrups was broken off and they all looked too fat, so I bent up new ones out of 0.020" brass wire. I added wire grab irons on the car ends.
Glued in the weight with silicone bathtub caulk. Spring clamps hold it in place while the stickum hardens.
Added a train line and brake levers and rodding. Glued them in place with CA. Trainline is 0.032" brass wire and the rodding is 0.020" brass wire.
All put together. Undercarriage is dark gray auto primer, deck is light gray auto primer, trucks are red auto primer, wheel faces are grimy black.
And a load. Made from small saplings from my back yard. Cut to length with a Chopper nad glued down with Elmers white glue.
And we have a Bachmann Shay on point and a bobber bringing up the rear. All I need to do is build some more bullhead flats to have a respectable train. And fix the Shay. It hasn’t run in a long time. It made one turn around the layout and then something let go. The motor runs, the drive shafts turn, but the bevel
On mine the beveled gears started splitting, in a cascading effect. There should be NWSL replacements available (I have to replace mine as the gears split and fell away from the locomotive, and they are no longer around).
They were all young saplings, planning to become real trees when they grew up. Maple mostly, a little birch. Real cord wood was in the general size of 1 foot, which is approx 1/8 inch in HO. By the time the tree got to be two foot in diameter, it was big enough to send to a sawmill.
I have photographs of pulpwood cars for Seaboard Air Line, Maine Central, Bangor and Aroostook, Southern Pacific, and Chicago and Great Western. There has gotta be others as well.
East Branch and Lincoln Railroad (ran on Boston and Maine tracks between Campton and Lincoln). Pg 153 Logging railroads along The Pemigewasset River, Bill Gove.
Mature maple tree twigs will not work, they are too bumpy from leaf attachments. They can be used for middle of the pile fillers after smoothing the bumps. White pine twigs are smooth and can be used as well.
This is a 70 ton pulpwood car that was used by MEC and BAR. Originally an Ambroid kit, now made by Northeastern Scale Models
I use white pine twigs still on the tree to avoid rotten ones and to limit critters in them. I bake the twigs and cut them to scale 5’ length. Pulpwood was 4”-15” in diameter.
