Yes, Modern Wood Chip Cars, can be a great addition to the freight car fleet, but what about the older cars used to transport wood chips…

With the used model train market supposedly growing in leaps and bounds, older style wood chip cars can be easily “Kitbashed” from older box cars.

Those that see those older 40 foot box cars, lettered for soft drinks, candy, and all that garbage, can easily purchase them, often at bargin prices, because they look like toys, and are not appealing to prototype modellers.

Just pick up a bunch of them…for example the old Aristo, standard 40 footers. Older ones are known to be a bit too high on the trucks, but that is easily cured with several cuts to the underframes/floors, and reassempling with shims. Cut the roofs off, and do a bit of changing on the doors, then add cross bracing between the sides with brass rods…and add other details. Each railroad had their own way of doing theirs…do it your way for YOUR railroad. Body mount a pair of Kadee couplers, and the basic job is done.

There are pictures available of prototype practises, just do a search on the web…or old model magazines. CPR (CP Rail) had lots of them, even outside braced cars.

After bashing, just hit them with the “Rattle Can”, then give them the bare minimum lettering…number and reporting marks.

Have a few of them at each lumber mill, or on sidings at stations where a portable chipper could load them from a truck.

The next move is to build the basics of a paper plant’s pile of wood chips, waiting to be used, with some sort of unloading machinery…here your mind can run wild with unloading methods…

Yes you can follow the great thread on building a modern Chip car, but don’t forget the old ones. There was a heck of a lot of them, not that long ago.

For our Narrow Gauge operations, I used two old Bachman Big Hauler box cars…just removed the roofs…added the braces…great for new modellers to try working with Styrene, for the first time…oh yes…glue the doors closed…and change the brake wheels…!!

Fred Mills