I was thinking about adding a little bit more realism to my trains, and I got the idea of putting sand into some hoppers and gondolas.
I was thinking of a certian type of sandblast sand - It’s black and sort of resembles coal -
aside from maybe being messy, My concerns are mainly about the car
Do you think a normal Bachmann car would be able to handle the addidional weight of the sand? Would this affect the cars detail or function in any way? What about pulling it? What kind of locomotive would you need?
I’ll think up some more questions if neccecary. I get back to this with the weight of the sand.
Filling will make them rather heavy. Cut out a piece of cardboard to block off the space in the bottom, less sand less weight. The other thing to watch out for is if the car tips over. What a mess. Actually, there are companies that make loads from resin. Or, if you need a lot of them, you could cast them yourself. My advice is don’t use loose sand, you’re just asking for trouble.
I’ve made similar loads by first making one of sand (or in my case coal) about 1/4" thick glued with thinnied white glue and detergent. I make a mould from this and cast my loads. They can be added or removed at will.
One option would be to use a block of wood cut to fit the hopper, roughly contour the top and then glue a coating of your load material to it. This is a bit more work, but you won’t have loose sand, or whatever, all over the layout.
Enjoy
Paul
There is a small industry in a nearby town that brings in Sand, Stone Etc By rail. Nothing beats a train if you want to ship alot of material without maintaining a fleet of trucks, drivers, insurance, contracts, maitnaince etc etc.
I remember years ago containers were strictly shipping. Both Oceanic and Intracoastal. And used to deliver and recieve to and from ports. Suddenly some one had an idea of trains of containers coast to coast is cheaper and faster than ships from one coast to another (OF the USA)
Sand is good to make money on. There are plenty of Air being hauled by empty cars back to home roads.
Here’s an “old engineer’s” trick for hopper loads, which overcomes the “top heavy” problem.
Take a roll of the wide (at least 1" wider than the hopper or gondola) masking tape.
Cut off a length, which is 1" longer than the car.
Cut off 1/2" triangles at each corner, of your strip.
Fold your strip of masking tape, in half, down the middle (sticky side up).
Make a 1/2" fold (again sticky side out) on one short side and stick that “end tab” to an end bulkhead.
Now lower the folded strip into the hopper, keeping hold of the other “end tab”, and allow the tape sides to spring outwards and stick to the hopper’s side walls.
Sometimes a length of coathanger wire will reach in there to improve adhesion.
Now tuck your remaining “end tab” down inside the end bulkhead and allow it to self-adhere.
If it gets screwed up – try again – its only masking tape !!
Finally you can add your fake coal, sand, aggregate etc. simply by sprinkling over the exposed tape’s adhesive.
To my amazement, I’ve got some ten year old coal loads, which were made this way and which still look pretty good – All I have to do is blow the dust off !
I’m interested in what you decide to do, as I have been thinking about doing something very similar.
And yes sand certainly does ride the rails. Most of the local Lefarge (formerly Blue Circle) concrete plants around here have most of their ingredients delivered. Sand, cement, grave, all of it. I have some actual prototype pics if you are interested, but the cars are nearly identical to these:
I’ve used fine white sand for hopper loads several times. What I do is get a sheet of 1/16" thick aircraft balsa wood and cut it into pieces that just fit down inside the top of the hopper. Then I cover the balsa with sand, spray rubbing alcohol to dampen the sand, then pour a 50/50 white glue mixture over the sand to seal it in place. This is followed with another misting of rubbing alcohol. Let dry for a day or two, and you have a nice hopper load. I have also used the fine charcoal granules that come out of a Brita water pitcher filter to simulate a coal load. Filling a hopper completely full of sand would make it way too heavy.
The company that I was thinking of when I mentioned resin castings is Chooch Enterprises, though I would bet there are others. http://walthers.com has products from almost every company that makes model railroad supplies, including Chooch. One drawback, so many items listed, no photos.
I would make sure that you use white glue and sand mixed
well enough to not have loose particles. This will also lighten
the weight a bit. Put a block of styro in the middle of the car.
You do not want to have the car tip over. Then, to finish, paint
and shade to hide the clear spots.
I did a load of real Rock’s in a hopper car . First I make a spacer of pink form in the car ,then used glue with rock that had hammer down to size . Glue it in the top over the form . It was the real thing and a lot cheaper then store kind 's
Just be really sure (as some people have mentioned) to glue down all the sand - don’t want stray grains making their way into any moving parts on your locos! Rather than just relying on the paint to stick everything in place, when the paint is dry, hit the sand load with wet water, and then thinned white glue.
These are so easy, you could make 10 by the time you set up to cast them in resin. Plus this way, every one is different!
Chris…Andrew’s method works well, looks good, and as he says, it’s easy.
One thing I like to keep in mind is the NMRA recommended weight for cars, as it is definitely a tool for consistent performance…and the lower the better for the extra weight.
For HO, it’s 1 oz. plus 1/2 oz. per inch of actual length…so a 40’ hopper car should weigh around 3.75 to 4 ozs…an Athearn 40’ Quad hopper would only weigh about 2 ozs. if completed as an empty car.
Adding the foam weight might only add 1/2 to 3/4 oz., and it would be adding most of the extra weight high up in the car.
So I like to add some of that aquarium grit, or sandblast “coal” material down in the bottom of the car, down in the hopper chute \ door area. Making this weight a solid mass with thinned white glue prevents any future spills, but I leave it “loose”.
best regards,
Merry Christmas,
Mike[:)]
That’s the beauty of the foam, that it doesn’t tend to make the car top-heavy. As you mentioned too, it allows you to put some high-density weights in the bottom of the car under the foam. Chris also seemed to have some reservations about permanently altering the car, so this way, the load is removable.