I drew up and 3d printed some large steel reels and clad them in wood coffee stirrers for a more unique coil car load. I believe they contain high-voltage cable or some other high tensile wire rope.
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Nice. I’ve seen coil/wire loads wrapped in what is probably Tyvek-type material, too, with logos and labeling.
You fair nailed those drums Dan.
These are fresh in the yard at work today - might have been a direct copy of your model!
Cheers
N
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What type of cable is on those and where is it going?
This lot is aluminium overhead conductor. Sometimes known as power lines… 
Here’s a slightly better angle. The wrap on the RH one is just one turn of crappy plastic. Someone must have ripped the cover off on the second drum…
They’re heading to a reconductoring job between Raramai and Kaikoura on the east coast of New Zealand.
Cheers
N
I’m 17hrs too late to say : Don’t tell him Neil as he knows too much already!!
Damnation!
Do you happen to know what purpose the wrap serves? The ones I modeled are certainly not watertight but I’m guessing the cable is coated with an anti-corrosive like this Anti-Corrosion Oils | ZERUST®/EXCOR® Corrosion Solutions
and the wood slats stop driving rain from “hosing” it off.
Nice find, Neil!
Might be really easy for Dan to make a reel that accepts an outer layer of cable… Making a “cable car” out of a “coil car” fairly quickly!
Thinking aloud - if it was steel wire rope (which I have no direct experience) I’d say that’s sounds plausible. Couldn’t say for sure.
The stuff I deal with is high voltage conductor (power lines) and cables. Pretty sure there’s no oil unless there’s a trace left after manufacture. The conductor is almost exclusively aluminium and the covers are just a light plastic to keep dirt 'n dust off - no serious protection capacity. They might sit in the yard uncovered for months (years if someone ordered wrong ) without any concern.
The smaller length drums just have industrial cling wrap, but that’s probably local repacking of ex factory drums.
Electrical cable drums (big ones) always have slats for mechanical protection. Handling damage is the main issue, anything can and does happen in transit. Any nicks or garks (non technical term) on the outer layer of the cable means the drum will get rejected on arrival. No one likes it when that happens…
Can do a pic of a reasonable size cable drum if you want detail.
With slats on a model you can call the load anything you want to I’d think.
Cheers
N
Need to protect the strawberry licorice laces destined for the Vermont Country Store. 
Thought they were carried in an armored converted refrigerator car, with manned guard cars converted bay window cabeese at both ends. 
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Pretty much Hollywood, but you forgot the “buffer” coil cars in between the cabeese.
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