Large Scale Central

Loads for AMS Drop bottom gondolas

Modeling
#1

I started out by cutting some 1/4" PVC to size and made generous clearance cuts around the stakes. this platform sits down inside the car.

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next i glued blocks of foam to the topside with spray glue, and let sit and cure overnight

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checking fit

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I them sculpted the foam to the desired shape, one as a coal load, and the second as ashes and cinders,then painted the topside appropriate color, and after another overnight applied coal and cinder material to each with white glue. then when dry today i cleaned up and checked fit on the cars.

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Here we see the finished product.

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I have installed an screw eye in each end of these loads to facilitate removal, and am going to upgrade my previous high side gondola loads with the same. you have to look hard to find them.

AL P.

3 Likes
#2

Wow. You are going to have a great looking loaded train!

#3

Those look super. We don’t often see an ash/cinder load. I wonder how it would be to be behind that car when cruising down the track?

#4

Todd;

You may have answered why so many freight yards used cinder ballast during the steam era. There was a ready supply of cinders from the locomotive servicing facility, and those cinders did not need to be transported far.

Regards, David Meashey

#5

Although it makes for poor quality ballast, it is easy to dig ties out of!

#6

I was thinking about the uncovered ash load moving down the track Dave. If the train was going fast enough the load might blow out by the time it reaches its destination. The cars behind it would be coated with dust.
It makes sense to use the ash for ballast in the yards like how some timber operations used wood chips.

I wonder if Al has an ash pit on his RR?

#7

Todd, funny you should ask. I have started a small one on the turntable lead. i have yet to finish, as ground cover here has yet to be fixed.

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Al P.

#8

That is cool Al, we don’t see too many of those modeled.
I have seen a photo somewhere of a worker cleaning out an ash pit and shoveling by hand into a low sided hopper. I can’t imagine doing that all day long but someone had to do it.

#9

Talking about ballast, working for the electric company, they tried an experiment. Back in the late 1960’s when they built the repair shop I work at, they used fly ash from the coal generating stations as the sub-base for truck driveways and parking lots. Maybe a good way to market the waist. Well no, it failed. Few years later, a section at a time, they removed all the base and replaced it with the usual large crushed stone.