Car loads are one of the most fascinating areas of model railroading. They bring life to your trains by adding realism. I would like to see any type of car load you have purchased or custom made. For purchased items please provide manufacturer info and any further modifications you have made or plan to make. For custom items please explain your build process. I'll get the train rolling with pictures of two MTL heavyweight depressed-center flat car loads. The Union Pacific is carrying a heavy generator load. I intend to paint the unit, detail the door handles and blackout the cooling vents to improve the appearance. The Atlantic Coast Line is carrying a drag line bucket. It obviously needs some rust applied to the factory weathering. Flat Car 1 by Jerry Tarvid posted Oct 19, 2015 at 9:32 AM Flat Car 2 by Jerry Tarvid posted Oct 19, 2015 at 9:32 AM
I was hoping someone would do this on the n-scale board. I've been reading the HO thread for weeks now to gather ideas. The current issue of MRH also has an article on AAR regs for securing open loads. Its an HO article, but very applicable for us in N scale as well.
Saint Louis Brownsville & Mexico, subsidiary of Missouri Pacific. StLB&M 11001-11050 GB gondola steel underframe, fixed ends, wood floor, 48' IL 70 ton capy, 13-panel mill gon. Blt 1926 by Pressed Steel Car Co. Builders photo in Train Shed Cyclopedia #5 p.219. listed in 1954 Equipment Register I kitbashed my own model of StLB&M #11022 from 2 Lima 46’ 12 panel straight side sill gondolas. Lad is coffee stir-sticks, with banding from custom-car striping tape.
Here's one with an older Alan Curtis flatcar kit and a swap meet cheap-o locomotive shell: QTTX131036 by Eagle2 posted Oct 21, 2006 at 9:56 PM
While we're on this thread, i have a question: What sorts or sizes of dimensional steal, or beam loads are too large, or too heavy to bulkhead flats? At what point do you have to switch to a depressed center car, or a heavy duty flatcar like the one with the loco shell above?
Transformer. John Deere tractors. Hobos. Giant beetle. MOW supplies. People and a horse amongst them.
I believe the depressed center cars were used based on load height rather than any consideration of weight, usually due to clearances (as in tunnels and so forth). For the rest, it's mostly a question of the weight of the load compared to the car capacity; most of what I've seen on heavy duty cars was assembled equipment (as the transformer above) as opposed to raw materials, which would simply be split into appropriately sized loads for regular cars.
A few loaded gong and flats - I like the church beam load; modelled after similar ones I used to see when living in Vancouver...huge milled beams.
I read your build article in N-Scale on the wind turbine blade train. I was hoping you would post a picture on this thread. Nicely done and well documented Jim!
Wow ! Great topic. Thanks for starting this Jerry and to everyone who has posted so far. Here are some of mine that I've done over the last 15 years or so with a bit of a story about each one. I purchased enough TomyTec Datsun 240Z's to fill an open Micro-Trains autorack. A number of years ago there had been some big wild fires in Arizona. Much of the burned timber was salvaged and hauled by unit trains to some mills north of SF Bay area. For awhile we would see these some by couple times a week. Some cars designed as log cars but also some bulkhead flats with racks added so that's what I modeled. Also tried my hand at printing some packaged lumber loads for my Red Caboose center-beam flats. I had noticed that on some of the loads available in the hobby shops, the corners were unrealistically rounded I suspect because the center was soft foam of some sort. So I rapped my printed loads around hard wood that I cut to size. Yes, a bit heavy but I only have a few cars. When I was a kid, there was this army tank in the city park that I used to play on. A few yeas ago I learned the history behind the tank. It was an M5 Stuart light tank that had been built during WW2 at the nearby GM plant, and yes they were hauled by rail. Not being able to find an M5 in N Scale, I purchased some gaming figures (very heavy) and a single 1/144 scale kit I found in Japan. Making some molds from parts of both, I cast a bunch of them and mounted them on some Micro-Trains flat cars. So far got 5 flat cars done. About this time Great Train Expo started doing shows at a place called the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, CA. Craneway is part of what had an old Ford plant that was used during the war as the debarkation port for Military vehicles headed to the Pacific. Photos on the walls of the Pavilion show M5's and M4 Sherman tanks being unloaded from flat cars. So I also run this train when we are doing a show there.