Working With Wood Loads

 Greetings All,

Working With Wood Loads

I've always believed that nothing looks like wood except wood. I know there are modelers who can take styrene and make convincing wood loads from it however I my attempts at this leave me with styrene pretending to be wood.

With this in mind I asked for and received two packages of wood stirrers as Christmas presents to hopefully use as lumber loads.

Two thousand wood stirrers are supplemented by some Woodpile wood shapes that I thought would make some nice open car loads along with two packages of strip wood for bracing. Two thousand!! What was I thinking!!!

The wood cubes fit onto the Rock Island bulkhead flat and have some potential.

Eight cubes to package could give me three open car loads.

From a big box hobby store came these rectangular shapes. 

Probably too big for plywood loads but has potential as sheet steel loads.

Dollar Store blocks will get protected by a wood crate to make a High & Wide Load.

The crate is under construction.

The two end cubes are being dressed up with the coffee stirrers to simulate a board by board crate. This was very time consuming and these will be the last of the board by board crates in this project.

The High & Wide crate is complete and fits nicely on the longer CNW depressed center flatcar. Some blocking is still needed.

The H&W crate fits perfectly within the width of the flatcar eliminating some of the troublesome wide of the H&W.

Three cubes with the coffee stirrers cut to fit the ends to create a plywood and dimensional lumber built crate. Much easier to build and much faster. 

The first coffee stirrer lumber load is being being built. This has potential.

The now completed lumber load rides on an MDW Boise Cascade bulk head flat.

Not too bad. Needs some weathering and maybe some banding and paint on the ends of the lumber. The bracing is constructed to fit into the shallow stake pockets of the 67' Atlas bulkhead flats in my fleet.

The two large crates ride into Terminal Yard on APRR bulkhead flatcar #166941.

A three crate load rests on an ACL bulkhead flat as the glue dries. Still needs some bracing. This car has open stake pockets which makes securing the load pretty easy.

Friday was bracing day and the three crate load atop the ACL bulkhead is ready to go. The load and bracing are built to fit the stake pockets on this car and two others made by Con-Cor.

The board by board crates are braced and ready. The load fits this Walther's car and will maybe fit on a few others.

Final Thoughts and Comments

There are a couple of downsides to wood loads like the amount of time it takes to build a lumber load out of coffee stirrers. The strips are not exactly straight which gives them a prototype appearance but slows down the build and once one level is glued it has to be weighted down until the glue dries.

The second issue I'm having is that not all of the bulkhead flatcars have open stake pockets making the securing of the loads challenging. I want to keep the loads within the width of the car as much as possible. Drilling thru faux pockets isn't an option due to how the car is constructed.

Last but not least if it ever stops raining here I can open up the Patti O Paint Shop and get these loads weathered.

Thanks for reading!!!

See you soon!!!

Intermodal Daze

 Greetings All, 

Intermodal Daze

Actor Gene Hackman portraying Lex Luthor in the Superman movie starring Christopher Reeves said to General Zod "Due to my fascination with beachfront property I'll take Australia" as his reward for delivering Superman to become a prisoner. 

New Intermodal 5 Unit Well Car

I use a similar line today to present Intermodal Daze. "Due to my fascination with Intermodal trains I'll take this five unit well car set and more".

The SFLC 40' well cars see their first run on the layout.

The five unit set is considered a single car. The cars are metal giving them a good amount of weight and came with metal wheels and Proto knuckle couplers on the A & B ends.

New Containers

A trip to my LHS, Trainmaster Models in Auburn, GA for their 50% off used merchandise sale led to the below purchases. New well cars need new (used) containers!

Two Athearn BB CN 48'ers and three NYK Line were still new in their boxes. 

Athearn BB CNRU 280203 rides on top of two Athearn BB 20' containers. 

An older 48' CP Rail container will ride on the new BB CN container today.

The BB NYK Line 40' containers fit perfectly on these Walthers 60' COFC flatcars.

All three of the new containers have found a temporary home today.

New Trailer

I picked up this still new Walthers Southern Railway Flexi-Van Trailer that was sold as used during the Trainmaster Models sale.

I chose the trailer version for the build which is now complete. Extra weight has been added. The door lock rods are a bit fragile and it looks like I lost part of one.

SC-28 gets moves to the TOFC Ramp for loading onto a trailer.

The SC-28 rides on a Walthers Trailer-Train G-85 TOFC flatcar. I had to trim the bottom of the landing gear so the kingpin would sit in the trailer hitch.

On another day the SC-208 heads towards Terminal Yard on a 50' CP Rail TOFC flatcar.

New 20' Container Chassis

Athearn BB Evergreen and OCGL 20' container chassis kits were bought at Trainmaster Models.

A ebay bid  that I totally forgot about won and brought these five APLZ container kits my way.

I built the seven kits in assembly line fashion as seen below. The kits went together easily. The chassis and wheels were sprayed with dullcote prior to attaching the tires and adding them to the chassis. 

While simple builds the kits do contain mud flaps which gives them a nice prototypical appearance.

Seven new chassis await assignment as other 20' containers on chassis ride as TOFC traffic on TOFC flatcars in the background. 

I have a good number of 20' containers that I can use in various ways on the layout. Looks like the driver didn't raise the landing gear high enough.

The 20'ers look good and don't take up much space.

Backed up to an industry loading door.

Adding a modern touch to older 75' F85 TOFC flatcars.

The OCGL and Evergreen chassis add some color as well!

New Intermodal Equipment in Action!!!

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See you soon!!!

Putting New Rolling Stock Into Service

 Greetings All,

Putting New Rolling Stock Into Service

The New York Central Train Layout Shops have been quite busy getting some end of 2023 rolling stock additions from several manufacturers ready for 2024 revenue service.

These new cars came from friends and family as Christmas gifts and a big end of year sale at Trainmaster Models in Auburn, GA. 

Following some of my standard practices for reliability and for more realistic looking models all models received Kadee Couplers if needed that match up to the Kadee coupler height gauge, a shot of Testor's dullcote, metal wheels if needed with wheel faces and trucks painted a flat black or brown and additional weight where possible.

Scale Trains New York Central 52'6" Mill Gondolas

A trio of Scale Trains Kit Classic NYC gondolas have been added to the roster courtesy of Santa Claus.

Here is a kit as it comes out of the box. The build is pretty straightforward and similar to the Athearn BB kits that make up a good portion of my fleet.

All three Scale Trains NYC gondolas are built and ready to join the NYC P-2000 gondolas in revenue service. Kadee #148 whisker style couplers were used to replace the Scale Trains couplers.

A close up of NYC 713028.

The wood decks were painted with rattle can gray primer.

The trucks, originally black, have been painted with rattle can red primer and brush painted with burnt umber. 

Schaefer Beer 40' RBL #53148

This good looking Atlas 40' Schaefer RBL was a Christmas gift from good friends.

The Schaefer car also came with a nice looking Schaefer sign for the basement bar!

The 53148 joins the 53123 which was a gift from atjoe1972 (also known as 1:87 Alco Joe) and a 40' ice bunker reefer that was a gift from 1:1 Sir Neal. 

Three freight cars of the one beer to have when having more than one are delivered to Ralph's Grocery Warehouse to quench the thirsts of Empire City residents.

Walthers Mainline Burlington Northern Caboose

A Christmas gift from the mother in law is this good looking BN caboose.

The large "P" indicates this is a pool caboose that can be used throughout the BN and for me on run thru trains.

I've bumped the layout to the summer of 1976 with BN continuing their run thru power agreement with the EL which is now part of Conrail.

Bringing up the markers is the new BN "pool" caboose. Who says you can't rationalize a reason for having certain pieces of rolling stock or locomotives on your layout!

Roundhouse 60' Rock Island Bulk Head Flat Car

This is a used model I purchased from Trainmaster Models. For $6.00 I just couldn't leave this Rock Island car on the shelf!

The finished model is now ready for revenue service. Metal wheelsets and Kadee #5s have been added.

Open cars need loads spurring on a trip to a big box craft store where I found various wood pieces like these cubes that fit perfectly on the new ROCK bulkhead flatcar. More on building these and other open car loads to follow in a future post.

Walthers Gold Line

Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Cushion Coil Cars

This pair of cushion coil cars was a used car purchase from Trainmaster Models. The cars come factory equipped with metal wheelsets. As a bonus the prior owner added Kadee #5 couplers.

DTI 1067 is ready for service and will see some addition weathering down the road. Note the trip pins are removed from the couplers. The prior owner had cut half of the trip pin off which is a look I don't like so I cut them all the way off. 

DTI 1067 #2 became 1087 with a stroke of a small paint brush.

It's a little blurry but look closely and you'll see a gold 2-56 washer I added to the screw of the 1087 to tighten up the coupler box lid and get the couplers to meet the Kadee height gauge. 

The DTI cars cross onto the mainline.

A mix and match of new and old trains in revenue service.

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See you soon!!!