Can anyone point me in the right direction to purchase or scratch build some N Scale woodchip loads. The car I will be using will be Deluxe Innovations N 101612 Gunderson Deep-Rib Wood Chip Gondola TERX C&D/Waste Cars, Southeastern Industrial Enterprises.
I'm not sure where you might find them, but it appears that three manufacturers (and perhaps others) have offered wood chip loads for Deluxe Innovations cars, including Fine N Scale, Motrak Models and JWD EasyFit. These are nice cars.
I think it would be easy enough to make your own. I found this photo of a model woodchip load which looks like the sawdust caught in a belt sander bag.
I'm planning to simply have shaped foam with sifted sawdust glued on top. Since I've cut a lot of spruce, I've got a lot of sawdust the right colour! Just paint the top of the foam tan or light brown to make sure that missing 'chips' don't show. That's the problem whoever made these faced. Also, the sawmills in my territory loaded the gons literally as high as they could. Check to see if that's appropriate for yours.
I see them loaded high too in the southeast. It maximizes the utilization of each car; as the cars are moved, the load settles in. As added trivia, I was reading a book on the WM and they would always try put wood chip hoppers ahead of coal hoppers in train consists, else coal dust would blow back into the woodchip loads and cause misery at the Westvaco paper mill at Luke, MD.
On the other hand sawdust and chips are great igniters for a coal fire, when you've let a Fairbanks Morse Iron Fireman automatic stoker go out. But that was 67 years ago before I had learned how to coddle a stoker....
One class of forest products car I very much miss are "shortwood" pulpwood cars like these (photo by Larry Goss). These used to be everywhere in the south, filling the air with the smell of fresh cut timber. Longwood debarking at paper mills and large chipyards spelled the end of these. The railroads were somewhat pleased to see shortwood cars disappear because trains that carried them were often held to reduced speeds on bridges, for fear that a log might work loose, extend itself and impact the structure. Papermakers were happy to see them go because the expensive mill infrastructure of "hydra rakes", jackstraw piles and flumes could also go away.
I remember seeing many pulp loading sidings on the Crescent's route south of Atlanta. Doubt I'll see that many on Thursday as I go north one more time.
Here is a 50' Milw rib side woodchip car using sifted sawdust glued in place. I removed the roof of a MT boxcar and went on from there. My load is permanent, but, can be made mobile by building a platform for the glued sawdust. Thin styrens can be added to the platform to keep the sawdust in place until it dries....
Here is what I have done. I got woodchips from my work shop. IMG_4569 by Hansel posted Sep 4, 2017 at 9:52 AM Here is the load removed, since there is not a sill for the load to be placed on I attached 2 legs to the height of the load. IMG_4575 by Hansel posted Sep 4, 2017 at 9:52 AM Here is the load and the car. Since this car was under the NMRA weight guidance I put a piece of metal in the bottom of the car and then glued some wood chips to it so that you don't see just a bare metal bottom. IMG_4577 by Hansel posted Sep 4, 2017 at 9:52 AM
Nice ideas and simple solutions. Now i know how I'll do mine. I have several Alco C-40's in Apache RR paint, Atlas Units and plan on a chip car train. Thanks guys
Was working through some woodchip car shots and I found one I wasn't expecting... I've got a load for you... http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=411664 http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=402291
