Hi Fred, no need to apologize! It would have been great to work for the LIRR, but life took me a different direction. We had a house that backed onto the Montauk branch, and the local Scout Troop leader (known as “Big Don”) used to hit the horn as he passed behind our house! We always knew it was him, as we were a good few minutes from the nearest whistle crossings in either direction.
BTW while I gather the bits or detailing a loco, I snapped up a cheapie Athearn heavyweight obs that wants to become a freelanced superintendant’s car…
Tracks painted. The center one is the section that came with the kits. The ones on the side are pieces I had before. I didn’t like the way I had painted them before so repainted them to be the same as this one. I’ll put the bright metal on the top of the rails when I figure out how far the car gets up to the bumper when it’s on it. Will have to finish assembling it.
It took a long time to paint these just because I did it, didn’t like it, then redid it. In the end I think I have a much quicker method of painting rail sections now, airbrush only with no masking, so when I do more it will go quicker. And I was trying to get an aged weathered wood look that is pretty grayed out and it took a bit to find the right paint color for that.
I’m working on the car too but it similarly took a long time to figure out how to do the wood underneath the paint as I imagine some of that being more less visible especially on the interior bits. I think I can move along more quickly now, so hopefully some pics of that soon.
Hi Phil, I wouldn’t worry about adding silver to the railtops - a dead-end siding like this would stay rusty due to low traffic use. The cars would move slowly, so any rust on the rails would be crushed in rather than scraped away. (Unless there’s a loco parked on it frequently, in which case some wheel-slip might polish the rails…)
Oh, and of course the last few feet of track between the wheels and the buffers won’t ever get any rubbing, so will go a nice dark-brown rusty colour over time…
Phil, cranes capturing the imagination is why the model railroad community refers to themselves as the world’s greatest Hobby! There are so many aspects too late realistic model railroad. There are so many aspects to a realistic model railroad.
Thanks to Fred and Tom for their views on the ‘colour’ of the ballast between the rails with regards steam, diesel, or electric engines, your feedback is much appreciated, .
So this took too long, but I’m very pleased with it now. It took me awhile to figure out a good weathered wood. Too much time given that I was painting over it then pulling it off to let it show through. I think this color will work for the paint on the whole thing. I might like it a little more red but we’ll see that once the whole thing is done.
So what did Gondolas in WW2 carry? The kit comes with a bunch of barrels and some guys loading it. There is a picture of one that looks like it’s carrying coal. I’m skeptical of the coal load for a couple of reasons. It seems like it would be easy enough to load the coal in, but I can’t imagine unloading it as being anything but laborious - it doesn’t tip over and there’s nothing underneath to drop the coal through? And, it seems like it wouldn’t have the carrying capacity to carry much anyway. Maybe my calculations are wrong but at roughly one ton per cubic yard, i think filling the Gondola would be about a 30 ton load and I think these were only 18ton capacity?
Hi folks, if it’s ok I’d like to join.
I have a BD-41 in 1/72 in my stock, I love to find a reason for building and painting it. This group build is a great reason.
I haven’t decided if it’s going to be winter or summer, if it’s winter the scenario could be like in this pictures. Some figures are just for the mockup. If it’s winter, all must wear winter dress of course.
Behind the BD-41 there will be some sort of industrial building.
/Erik
Hi Phil, gondolas carried a variety of things. Gondolas could carry coal, pipe, rails, barrels, bags, building material, boxes of ammo, just about anything you want to put in them. Gondolas basically are flat cars with sides and ends. They were for things that did not necessarily have to be protected from the weather. And they were also loaded with oversized things that would be difficult to fit through a Boxcar Door. So, in short, you can put anything you want in a gondola. I’ve even seen gondolas with jeeps and trucks in them. There were a lot of gondolas built with the sides that could be collapsed. Flat cars have stake pockets alongside sills to set posts in them to either steady a load like pipes and rail, or with slats along them and turn them into it, essentially a gondola.
Gondolas also carry food stocks. Gondolas on the Burlington and other Granger railroads, during the sugar beet harvest rush, they would load boxcars and gondolas to the brim with sugar beets. They did the same with potatoes, apples, anything that needed to be transported. What you wrote about filling them up with coal? Way back in the good old days, human labor was cheap and you loaded and unloaded them with manpower via shovel. Or they might have clamshell bucket cranes by the side. All sorts of methods. Yes, a gondola would not necessarily carry a lot of coal, but they would load it up as high as they could. Even today, there are hopper’s and gondolas that are loaded differently depending on what they’re carrying: coal or aggregates.
Gondolas can also be loaded with sand. They can be loaded with livestock. Think of a gondola as a flatcar with sides. A box car is little more than a gondola with a roof. Early tank cars were simply wooden casks that were secured on a flatcar. One of the funner model cars out there is a old pickle car. They were literally flat cars with an open superstructure designed to hold several large wooden casks full of pickles. I have a craftsman freight car that is a barrel car. It’s a multi-level open side freight car with a hundred or more wooden barrels on it.
Back to your original question though, yes gondolas would haul coal. I think it’s interesting that the gondolas we have models of for the World War II era, they have the side doors. In the United States, you had drop-side gondolas and you also had gondolas where the floors would actually drop open. In short, the European gon that you are building would probably be used just as they were used in the United States, which means you would put in them whatever would fit, whenever you need it that in one. And manpower, especially with soldiers/civilian employees/slave labor in the rear area, was fairly cheap.
Phil, there might be some weird words in my 2 posts about Gondola loads. I’m not at my computer and I composed those posts on my phone using voice dictation. Voice dictation does not work well with me, and auto spell correct screws me over frequently. But when I get home later, I’ll proofread proof read them again and edit what I said.
Yeah, there are some funny words in some of your posts, but I can usually make out what you dictated!
This info is great! It gives me a lot of interesting ideas. The kit comes with a bunch of 200L fuel drums. Maybe I will get more of those and fill it up? Stacking it full of ammo crates might be interesting too. I imagine they went through artillery shells pretty rapidly. Rails needing to be put in place might be interesting too, but the gondola could carry a lot of those and I’m not sure I could either buy or fabricate that size load economically :-).
Ryan, the fitting is not good, sad story… but I think I will get it look okey in the end:) The great thing with a winter scenery is that I could always place some ice and snow on some places.
.
,
