It’s the load ’em up and lock ’em down edition.
If you’ve ever wondered what a load should look like inside a boxcar (I know that this is specific to this particular load – but I am certain that I can make up some realistic looking loads using these principles) then watch the video below; it is fascinating.
No longer should you boxcar doors open with nothing inside of them. I’ve gotten some ideas out of this one for a small project.
As a modeller, especially half a world away from the trains I model, what I find hardest to visualise is how freight car loading and unloading affects the design of a facility. One industry in particular has confounded me for some time: lumber.
Site 1: Kuiken Brothers Lumber Delivery by Rail
When I worked in Austin, TX back in the early late 1990s through late 2000 I was very close to the Vinson (Bergstrom) Lead. A couple of mile long industrial track operated by the SP, and then the UP after the Merger our of New Braunfels yard. There was a large lumber dealer on the lead taking multiple centerbeam cars, but no boxcars that I ever saw in my time there.
Thankfully, Kuiken Brothers Lumber posted a video on YouTube back in 2011 showing exactly how the Morristown & Erie’s number 18 delivered the two cars into the facility before setting out the centerbeam and boxcar. Then they go on to show you how the boxcar is unloaded.
Take note of the appliances used to unload the cargo and the work done to unload by the work crew. Skidding the load around with the forks answered my question of how they made enough space to get into the car.
Enjoy.
I’ve added a new Modelling section – My 12 Foot Layout.
This will provide a Work-in-Progress report of what’s happening in the layout build process. For now there’s a front page. It provides my overall thoughts and a photo showing the proposed design (already laid out in track).
As I stated on the page there’ll be more coming in the future including:
Looking forward to getting this underway this month.
A local site seeing tour today of the newest pages uploaded to the blog.
Site 1: Small Layouts [Follow the link —>]
This is the small layouts section of the old HunterValleyLines.com/gallery website that is now offline as mentioned in my post yesterday. There are over 30 layout designs in this section.
Site 2: Medium Layouts [Follow the link –>]
This is the medium layouts section of the old HunterValleyLines.com/gallery website. There are 13 layout designs in this section.
Site 3: Large Layouts [Follow the link –>]
This is the large layouts section of the old HunterValleyLines.com/gallery website. There are 3 layout designs in this section.
Site 4: Ideas and Scribbles [Follow the link –>]
This is the most interesting and fastest growing section of the website. The Ideas and scribbles section is the storehouse of all of the doodling and noodling that I’ve done over the years. There are narrow gauge loco designs, industry designs, layout ideas and designs but all are drawings only.
Broken down into four major sections follow the links and find some hopefully useful ideas to kickstart your own modelling process.
Introduction
Lance Mindheim is a force in the design of operational layouts. Today’s site seeing tour takes us to an article on his views and to his new website (built on WordPress no less).
Site 1: Railroad Model Craftsmen
In this article (offsite link) Lance talks about the play value in our layouts, and how without the play value, the layout will in the long run fail to please.
Site 2: Lance Mindheim’s new site
Lance has moved his site (offsite link) across to a new platform that finally allows searching. He’ll be updating and moving older content across to the new site over time. But for the moment the link I’ve provided takes you straight to the blog. This is where most of the content is right now.
Introduction
Today’s site seeing adventure is for those of you interested in railroad operation, in this case dispatching. Today’s link came across the wire thanks to the ‘Ry-ops-industrialSIG’ SIG group on Yahoo! Groups.
Site 1 – Train Dispatching
Today’s link points to Train Dispatching by J. G. Lachaussee. It has two separate sources of the same article (one from Scribd – the other directly on the site.) The article is as published in ‘The Sandhouse’ – A Publication of the Mississippi Great Southern Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.
I’ve had a quick read of it and found it to be really interesting to see the information presented by a long time dispatcher himself. You can read more of the article here: <Offsite Link>
The article is by J. G. Lachaussee; published in the November 2011 issue of The Sandhouse.
Site 2 – Scribd
A while back I began a short history of the 40’ Hi-Cube Boxcars that rode the rails for a short period from the late 1960s through to the 1980s. So far I’ve only completed the SP and SSW part of the document and have not yet completed the other owners or operators or the modelling section for the final eBook.
There seems to be an inordinate amount of modelling interest in these very specifically operated cars; the model manufacturers have made a lot of them over the years. In fact there are more models available than those produced by the car makers themselves.
They’ve lived in model form for longer than they ever did during their prototype railroad days. If you’d like to take a look at the first part of the eBook please go to: https://www.scribd.com/doc/103033209/A-Very-Short-History-of-the-40-Foot-Hi-Cube-Boxcars
Now it is time to go model with my 10-year-old son.
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