DIFFERENT LOADS FOR WAGONS
Due to a surplus of empty wagons I began to
look around at other objects I could use as a load. I didn’t want to fill them
with coal or gravel or any other bulk minerals. I wanted to reflect the
multiple variations that could be found on the railways in the late 1940’s and
on. Looking at some of our club`s back issues of Modelling Magazines showed
that a wide variety of items were transported by rail before the advent of
heavy haulage road firms
My first stop was at Hobby Junction in
Dorval to look through the various items on offer for HO gauge modelers, I
found two interesting packages from Chooch Enterprises #7221 and #7229 “Coiled
wire loads for gondolas “ which looked like reasonable propositions. One is
coiled wire bundles set upright and the other has the bundles laid
horizontally. In the package is a simulated wooden platform printed on the
backing cardboard that can be cutout and used as a base. In my case I have
saved this for other projects.
I took them home and compared the overall
length against an empty wagon and found that the gondola load lengths could be
cut into three individual sections that would each fit an empty 00 guage wagon.
It should be noted that the length can be varied to suit whatever sized section
is needed
After cutting the loads into three sections
I drilled out the upright bundle cores to resemble the hollow interior using a
1/8 pilot drill and stepping up the drill size until I was happy with the
resultant holes. I also trimmed the load base edges and painted them to
resemble a wooden support platform
Having recently purchased an air brush and been
given lessons from a fellow BRMCM member I applied various weathering colours
until I achieved what I considered an acceptable finish.
This was my first attempt to introduce
different loads when compared to the standard loads offered by the manufacturers
and /or other suppliers and has led me to create several other wagon loads of various types
