This weekend I picked up some Atlas Thrall 2734 gondolas from my LHS and I need some loads. Modern day loads that are something you would really see in a gondola besides scrap metal. I really don't want to buy some pre-made loads if I don't have to. Seems like it would be easy enough to whip something together, I just can't think of anything. Ideas????
Barrels, ties, tires, sand, gravel, rock, junk cars, other scrap metal, etc. I think, by & large, they were used in the scrap industry, for all steps of the process. Have you looked @ "Hay Bros." loads?? Cheap & VERY nice!!
Do you mean the Thrall 2743? RJ Corman uses these in its "sand train", hauling sand from riverside docks in Lousiville to customers in Lexington, KY. IMG_2208 by BGTwinDad, on Flickr
I've made "pipes" out of cut-up used bass guitar strings and put them in my gondolas. Ask your musician friends to give you their used strings instead of throwing them away. The thinner guitar strings make great wire material (because, well, they are wire...) Weather 'em and load 'em up!
Tarped loads can be made by draping damp kleenex over a wood block or a machinery form. Let dry then spray paint. New wood ties being delivered. Telephone poles, without the crossbars, of course. Steel wire rolls, using thin wire, formed by wrapping on a dowel. I've seen them packed in longitudinally in two rows. Wood crates of various sizes (all for some unidentified project) can be made out of balsa or scrap glued as facing to wood blocks. Cut stone for building can be made of wood or plaster. The pieces need to be blocked in with wood. Cable reels are still used for wire and fiberoptic cable and carried by RRs. Steel trusses and large I-beams are still carried. See if you can add some weight down low if you have a relatively light load. Plus, you don't want to make the gon top-heavy.
Or, with a broken, or damaged turnout or two, you might try this: For me, the road name was more interesting than the load!
Hay Brothers makes some interesting loads including crush glass.. http://www.haybrosgarage.com/n_products.htm
You can put anything in there that you'd want to haul on a flat car but are afraid it will fall off. Rather than use guitar strings for pipes use cocktail straws. All sorts of Plasrtuct and Evergreen shapes can be transported from the foundry to the fab shop. Flat toothpicks make great packing. Thread, striping tape or paper strips for steel banding. Fine wire can be used for rebar tied in bundles and stacked. Truck frames are shipped vertically on rack in them. I know they were done in HO. Somebody might make them for us. Really cheap is pulpwood. Raid the garden shrubs for branches cut to short lengths and stacked. Use some vertically to extend the load beyond the sides. Scraps of conduit/copper pipe make painted like concrete for sewer pipes. Plastic corrugated conduit painted galvanized for storm pipes for viaducts
Pipe. I have seen a lot of modeler's use a flat car for a pipe load. Personally I have never seen a prototype pipe load on a flat car. USS had a pipe mill in Mckeesport, PA that is still in service but under a different name and all the loads I have seen and continue to see coming out of there are in gondolas not flats. To be sure they are well braced and with multiple steel banding to secure the load. Excellent source of pipe in N scale are straws, coffee stirrers, swizzle sticks, etc. Go to a party store and you can probably get some in different sizes as well as colors. Some places actually have them in black plastic and no painting required.
I have seen lots of pipe loads on bulkhead flatcars and years ago 40' and 50' flat cars. If pipe can be hauled on a flatbed semi then it can be hauled on a flatcar.
Before you get those modern loads, you better make sure you have a way of actually loading them. The N Scale Telehandler was specifically created because I wanted an easy way to load gondolas and flatcars!
The answer might be defined by where you model. Scrap is always an option if you have a scrap yard to generate it; same with pulp logs - although that might depend on how modern you mean by modern. What about worn out railroad ties?
Sections of concrete pipe. Comes in sizes large enough to drive a VW through to as small as 2 ft. n diameter. Get some plastic tube of several sizes, the wall thickness is close to scale for concrete pipe, and a bottle of concrete paint. Leftover tube and concrete paint can be used again for other projects. And a couple of packs of the tube will do for quite a few loads.
I do not believe I said it couldn't. The OP was asking specifically about gondola loads. I gave him one and how to model it. And USS National Tube Works still ships everything they make by gondola.
This is what was being responded too. BTW, I've never seen a pipe load in a gondola, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I've always seen pipe on flat cars like on this page - http://azoony.com/hattrips/portland.html Other Gondola loads - Scrap metal (both loose & compressed cubes), sand, limestone, aggregate rock for concrete and fill (anything from 1/4" to 1" rock), wire, steel coils, and ties.
Both flatcar and gondola are right for pipe shipment. Today the bulkhead and regular flat seem to see the most loadings of pipe but loading into gons still happens. However when you google the question you can find some gon loads of pipe on real cars besides a phlethora of model car photos including someones smoking pipe on a flat. The link takes you to a 2011 photo. http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Pipe...bnh=154&tbnw=201&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:432
How 'bout straws for pipe loads? Glue together, spray, block and band. Light weight. Always a good excuse to order another margarita. Scott
