My latest column in Model Railroad Hobbyist

My most recent column in the on-line magazine, Model Railroad Hobbyist, has just appeared in the March issue. It is entitled “Military Loads,” and as readers of this blog will know, I have posted numerous descriptions of a variety of such loads over the years. A full set of live links to those posts is in the article.

This happens to be my 31st column in the magazine, a series dating back to my first column in the December 2011 issue. I sometimes think I am going to run out of ideas for this series, but they do seem to crop up every tine.

The current column is primarily about military vehicles, most of them fighting vehicles. I decide not to get into the very large variety of loads for military uses, which could be an entire additional column.s I always do, I attempted to provide a solid list of prototype information sources for the topic of the column. 

I was also able to contribute a few photos from my own collection. The example below was taken at San Luis Obispo by a Southern Pacific photographer, depicting M3 half-tracks being prepared for unloading at Camp San Luis Obispo, a training camp just north of the city. Blocking of the vehicles for shipment is clearly shown. The tank cars at right are loads of locomotive fuel for the engine terminal.

I used the blocking arrangements visible above for my Roco model half-tracks. Two of them are shown below (one has a tarpaulin cover, like some of the ones above). They are riding on an upgraded Roco “Army” flat car; see my posts ending in:  https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/12/upgrading-roco-flat-car-part-3.html . 

I also enjoyed a number of other fighting vehicles, and since my modeling era is the Korean War period, I can model older vehicles that we know were used in training units for Korea. An example is the two shown below, an M4 Sherman tank, and an M7 105-mm howitzer mounted on a Sherman hull, again shown on the Roco flat car.

Of course numerous other military vehicles were also being shipped in this period, and I included a model inherited from Richard Hendrickson, a pair of army trucks on an Illinois Terminal flat car. Richard modeled the blocking ant tie-downs very nicely. As with all my military loads, this is shown in. a train on the SP Main line passing my town of Shumala, since there would be no credible reasons for these vehicles to operate on my Santa Rosalia Branch.

Lastly, I showed some examples of the waybills used to move these loads on my layout. Like prototype examples I have seen, they are U.S. Government waybills, not railroad ones, and are filled out with a Teletype font. I researched which West Coast training facilities housed which armored divisions, information readily found on line. 

I have enjoyed learning about military vehicles of my modeling period, and have also enjoyed seeking out HO scale models of them and making them into removable loads for flat cars in my operating sessions. All that is covered in much more detail in the MRH article, if you wish to read it.

Tony Thompson 

Still more on shipping of tanks

I apologize for the sort of “real time” back and forth on this topic, but information I thought I knew and understood is getting changed in every bit as much real time. The comments by Jim Eager to my previous post on this topic (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-note-on-shipping-of-tanks.html ) led me to re-examine the information I had, and to update it. 

First of all, in that previous post, I showed a page from the 1953 AAR loading rules pamphlet MD-7, and I misinterpreted the drawing shown (as Jim pointed out, it is not actually the outline of an M47 tank). The accompanying text directions do state that the gun barrel should face forward, in contradiction to the drawing, but as Jim mentioned, it may be that this text was erroneously carried over from a previous edition of the pamphlet. 

Jim mentioned a recent book about this tank, by David Doyle, the cover of which is shown below. This is one of a considerable number of fine books on armor subjects, and stands out because it contains some excellent photos of shipping arrangements.

This is a large-format book, 8.25 x 11 inches in size, with 94 pages. It is copiously illustrated with. historic photos, and contains 167 of them. Publisher is Guideline Publications Books, which also publishes the military modeling magazine, Military Modelcraft International. They are a UK company, but market in the U.S. (see the site at: https://www.guidelinepublicationsusa.com/index.php?INNERWIDTH=1220&RET=1 ).

The book contains numerous excellent images of M47 tanks, including the portrait below (Patton Museum), of an M47 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, in August of 1951, undergoing test and inspection. The forward position of the turret on the tank body is evident.

As mentioned above, there are also several photos of M47s being readied for shipment. The one below (Stellantis Historical archive) is especially interesting. It shows M47s being loaded onto railroad flat cars at the Detroit Tank Arsenal, operated at that time by the Chrysler Corporation. 

In the photo, the foreground Milwaukee Road flat car is part of a 750-car group numbered 650000–650749, 50-foot cars of 100,000-pound capacity. The 46-ton M47 was appropriately loaded on such cars. Note that the nearest tank being loaded, and those in the distance, all have turrets turned to the rear.

For this and other reasons, already discussed, I re-photographed my Roco model of an M47, and turned its turret to the rear for shipping, as you see in this view on my layout at Shumala.

This little discussion of shipping details for tanks reminds us that shipping arrangements were era-dependent. One should not generalize from any one era, what was done in another.

Tony Thompson 

Completing a ship’s boiler load

I have long wanted to duplicate a particular load for a depressed-center flat car that is documented in Southern Pacific photographs. The cars in the photos are home-built SP 70-ton flat cars, Class F-70-4, but of course such a load could ride on any suitable AAR Class FD car. The previous post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/more-distinctive-flat-car-loads.html . In that post, I described  how a “Scotch” marine boiler like this works.  

For clarity, I’ll repeat an SP photo from that post, showing one of the 105,000-pound boilers on one of the Class F-70-4 cars. This photo was taken at Richmond, California, and the boilers were destined for Liberty ships. You can just see chocks underneath, and what looks like cable or steel rod over the top.  

 

I showed in the previous post what may be a Chooch HO scale boiler, which I cut down as described in that post. I had the idea to use some of the Heiser Models resin chocks, intended for armored vehicles, for this boiler (for info on the chocks, see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/07/more-about-vehicles-on-flat-cars.html ).

I looked at the AAR booklet Rules Governing the Loading of Miscellaneous Commodities on Open Top Cars, Pamphlet No. MD-5, July 1, 1951. For boilers, chocks are shown, and directed to be nailed to the deck with 60-penny nails, toe-nailed with 30-penny nails, or bolted to the deck (for steel decks). Chocks are to backed up with 4 x 4-inch or larger cross-wise timber. 

Steel banding of various widths is shown as overall hold-downs, as is steel rod. Chart-Pak tape, which I have used on other loads as steel banding, would be about right for 2-inch prototype steel banding if the 1/32-inch tape width is chosen. But if my load is removable, as I intend, the rod hold-downs would be more durable. For larger and heavier loads, two 3/4-inch steel rods are specified, consistent with the photo above.

This kind of rod hold-down might be secured in several ways. I decided to make it run through part of the blocking of the boiler. I chose to use 0.015-inch brass wire, somewhat oversize but I want it to be visible. I painted a length of it black, then threaded it through the holes I drilled in the blocking. Here is the load at this point. 

A coat of flat finish was next, since the black wire turned out a little glossy. The load could then be tried on a depressed-center flat car, NYC 499056 (my upgrade of this Walthers model is presented here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/12/small-modeling-project-nyc-drop-center.html ). 

I also wanted to try one of the Chooch boiler moldings in its entirety, loaded lengthwise on a flat car. I had another one of these boilers, painted a kind of red primer color. Here is how that looked, again with stripwood chocks and blocking, on the same NYC car. 

Both these loads would also be suitable for use in a 70-ton gondola, and likely I will prepare waybills for them to be moved that way also.

These are fairly distinctive loads, especially the drum-shaped one as seen in the prototype photo at the top of this post. I look forward to seeing these on my layout in future operating sessions.

Tony Thompson 

A note on the shipping of tanks

In a recent blog post, back on February 12, I showed my assembled HO scale Roco kit for a U.S. Army M47 tank (new in mid-1953, the year I model). I then showed the model being shipped on a flat car. (You can see that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-new-armor-load.html .) Below I reproduce the flat car photo. 

 There ensued half a dozen comments to the post (you can see them at the bottom of that post), three of which pointed out that tanks like the M47 were shipped with main guns facing to the rear. You will also see my reply, in which I admitted I had not checked loading diagrams.

It nagged me that I had shown this load without checking a loading diagram book; after all, I have one. It’s shown below, and is clearly aimed at DoD shipments. Note the effective date of the book, AAR Pamphlet No. MD-7: it is October 1, 1953, clearly just right for my modeling era. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

There are two applicable loading diagrams in this book for tanks like the loads I have modeled. One of them, Fig. 90 on page 247, for lower-weight tanks, is shown below; it is rather obviously the profile of a Sherman tank. 

The accompanying description for this diagram states explicitly that guns are to face forward, and that if no gun brace is available on the vehicle, that one should be made with a piece of 2 x 6-inch lumber, secured to the gun with steel banding. And there are period photos of Shermans shipped just this way.

Note also the diagonal tie-downs in the diagram. I have omitted these on my removable armor loads so that the loads are not too fragile in handling, though of course they would be there in the prototype. 

 But the issue we are addressing is not Sherman tanks, but the newer M47. In this same loading pamphlet, there is a separate category for heavier tanks. In that case, diagram 92 on page 253 applies, and it’s shown below. This is very clearly the profile of an M47, with its distinctive long turret gun and rear turret overhang. 

And not only is the gun shown facing forward, but the text in the pamphlet reads thus: “Turret gun should be in straightforward position, and turret lock handwheel and elevating mechanism handwheel, must be wired to prevent rotation.”

I do not dispute that in later years, many different tanks, not just the M47, were shipped with guns facing rearward. I merely point out that such was not the case for the M47 in 1953. 

Tony Thompson  

 

A new armor load

Almost ten years back, I upgraded an HO scale Roco “Army” flat car, improving details, repairing the deck, replacing the undersize trucks, and repainting and re-lettering. Here’s a link to the concluding post in that series: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/12/upgrading-roco-flat-car-part-3.html . 

I then wrote a lengthy series of posts about a wide variety of military loads, mostly armored vehicles, that could move on that flat car, posts starting with the term “Roco flat car,” though loads weren’t restricted to that flat car. If you want to search for those posts, use “Roco flat cars” as the search term in the search box at right. Here's the concluding post in that series: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/10/roco-flat-car-part-10-still-more-loads.html .

On thing missing from my series was a more modern tank. I had used the various World War II vehicles from Roco, appropriate since older vehicles very much remained in use stateside for training during and after the Korean War. But I thought a more modern tank, such as served in Korea, would be good too. 

An excellent reference, discussing in detail the evolution of tank design from World War II’s M26, through the M46, to the M47, is contained in Jim Mesko’s book, M48 Patton in Action (Squadron/Signal Publications, Carrollton, TX 1984). That historical material, of course, is presented as background for the M48 tank.

There aren’t too many good photos of the M47 in the U.S. (many were transferred to U.S. allies). Here is a view of one in German service during winter maneuvers in Germany (U.S. Army photo). The hull, suspension, and turret show the extensive differences from the Sherman family of tanks.  

Though these have been available in HO scale as ready-to-run models, none seemed available when I wanted one. Instead, I located a Roco kit (their number 5086) for an M47 Patton tank.

The kit is quite simple, a body in two halves, the treads and suspension for each side, and a turret with main gun and commander’s hatch. There are no kit directions, but the location of all parts is pretty obvious. It also comes with a machine gun for the turret top, but these weren’t installed during shipping. I glued the parts together with styrene cement.

Then to make the tank into a load, I needed to add tread chocks from the Heiser set of resin parts, which I’ve shown in a previous post (see that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/07/more-about-vehicles-on-flat-cars.html ). That post also shows the boards applied along the side of the tracks.

Most photos I have been able to find of these tanks in the U.S. show minimal lettering, most visibly the absence of the distinctive white star on the turret sides. So I left mine unlettered. The as-built model above is pretty shiny, and was next given a coat of flat finish.  

Finally, I experimented with the new load. The M47 weighed about 48 tons, so could be accommodated on 50-ton or 70-ton flat cars. It’s shown below carried on a 70-ton flat car, ATSF 93459, representing a General Steel Castings one-piece body (Walthers kit), on the SP main line, passing the caboose track at the engine terminal in my layout town of Shumala. 

Like a number of armor loads I have assembled before, I enjoyed both the modeling and the chance to learn more about armored vehicles. Previous posts have listed many of the prototype publications in which this history can be found, in addition to the Mesko book listed above. Military loads like the M47 continue to be seen in mainline trains during my layout operating sessions.

Tony Thompson 

More on open-car loads

In this blog, I have written numerous times about building loads and adapting commercial loads for use on my layout. I like to have both mainline movements, and also cars destined on my branch line, that are era- and locale-appropriate. 

A constantly used and continuing load type is lumber, destined to team tracks in any of my towns, because in the 1950s lumber was being shipped in prodigious quantities for the nationwide building boom of the period. Of course rough lumber, used widely in construction, usually traveled on flat cars, but when flat cars were not available, the Southern Pacific used gondolas. Accordingly, I enjoy operating loads of that kind. (To view past blog posts about this topic, you can use “lumber loads” as the search term in the search box at upper right.)

As I’ve reviewed, the Owl Mountain Models kit no. 3004, intended for narrower loads that will fit into gondolas, makes a very nice load. (See the review at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/04/lumber-owl-mountains-recent-kit.html ; for availability and price of this kit, you can visit Owl Mountain Models at: http://owlmtmodels.com/ ). 

Below you see SP Ten-wheeler 2344, having just run around the gondola, preparing to switch SP 95068 with its lumber load to the team track in Santa Rosalia. The gondola was built from a Detail Associates kit.

A load I have enjoyed operating for over 40 years is a Euclid scraper. I built it from a Stewart white metal kit, and the hard part was mixing paint for Euclid’s distinctive green. I showed the AAR loading diagram for this vehicle previously (available at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/05/vehicle-loading-on-flat-cars.html ). Here it’s ready to be switched at Shumala on my layout, riding today on 53-foot SP 140558 (a Red Caboose kit).

Another kind of load that is good for lots of destinations an op session is electrical equipment. I have a several small models of such equipment, and usually move them in a gondola, with different kinds of blocking. 

In the view below, switcher 1423 has run around its train, and is about to spot the gondola, C&O 44917, on the team track at Ballard. (I described this car in an earlier post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-richard-hendrickson-gondola-part-2.html .) 

Another load that gets used fairly regularly is a shipment of four heavy I-beams, painted with red lead and steel-banded, with intermediate wood spacers. I didn’t build this, it’s a commercial load. You see it below spotted on the team track in my town of East Shumala, loaded in 53-foot Erie gondola 14506, a kitbashed model by Richard Hendrickson, on which he experimented with suggesting denting of side panels with blobs of CA cement, which I’d call an only somewhat successful idea.

Lastly, like most modelers, I enjoy the loads carried on depressed-center flat cars. Below in a train passing Shumala is a General Electric transformer (from Multi-Scale Digital) loaded on Erie 7265, a ClassOne Model Works product (see my review at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-new-class-one-flat-car.html ), sandwiched between SFRD 35719, a Class RR-32 reefer built by Richard Hendrickson, and caboose SP 1253, a 1947-built Class C-30-4 caboose with its as-delivered vermilion ends (a Precision Scale brass model)

All these are just examples of open-car loads, but they do illustrate the kinds of loads I have enjoyed creating, and the ways they can be operated

Tony Thompson 

More on crates as open-top car loads

I have posted several times about using both commercial and scratch-built crates as open-top car loads, which have the virtue of being easily handled and not delicate. This series of posts began back in 2012, near the beginning of this blog, with this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/03/open-car-loads-crates-and-machinery.html .

Years later, I added a couple of posts about crates I built myself, and included the kinds of shipper graphics I put onto these crates: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/05/open-car-loads-crates-part-2.html . That was Part 2. In Part 3, I showed more examples of ways to label these crates: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/06/open-car-loads-crates-part-3.html .

Most recently, I presented still another way of making one’s own crates for loads, this time using wood blocks, again with labels when completed: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/12/more-crate-and-box-loads-part-2.html . But it’s occurred to me, after browsing among prototype photos of loads, that many crates loaded to open-top cars don’t have shipper graphics on them. This of course means that they can be used in layout operation for a variety of shippers.

A familiar name among makers of commercial crate loads, at least in HO scale, is Chooch. They have long offered a series of large and small crates, apparently resin moldings and painted to be ready-to-use.  A variety of sizes and shapes have been produced, including heavily braced crates or pairs of crates. I’ve shown some of my efforts to label a few of these crates in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/06/open-car-loads-crates-part-4.html . 

Shown below are two of these Chooch sets. These are often available in hobby shops, and are also stocked by Walthers and a variety of on-line hobby sellers. Note the variety of sizes, shapes, and crate bracing, among these sets. Sometimes the color is not to my liking, and usually I repaint using Tamiya “Wooden Deck Tan,” XF-78.

 

In my own case, I add some blocking to suggest how the individual crate is restrained, as in the photo below with the crate on the right.

I have also added labels to some of the crates, while reserving most to be used in a plain condition. The plain ones can serve as shipments themselves, identified as to content only by consulting the waybill, or as “accompanying” crates of spare parts or parts not installed before shipment. For an example of the latter use, here is my Euclid scraper load (described in an earlier post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/05/vehicle-loading-on-flat-cars.html ), with such a plain crate included.

For the other case , the unlabeled crate load, such as shown below on my layout being switched by 0-6-0 SP 1284, the content of the crates on CNW flat car 42453 can only be discovered by looking at the waybill.

The waybill for the load illustrated above is shown below, incidentally conforming to the Car Service Rules.

Of course any of these Chooch crates can equally well be given a label to identify its owner or shipper. Below is one of these, photographed in a passing mainline train on my layout. It happens to be loaded into a General Service or drop-bottom gondola, illustrating the versatility of such cars. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

I continue to use commercial products when they fit my need, though I have constructed a number of scratch-built crates also, as described in some of the posts linked in the first three paragraphs of the present post. Both are welcome in operation and continue to be useful.

Tony Thompson 

A rail load for my Dry Creek ballast car

 I recently described completing a Dry Creek Models Southern Pacific Class W-50-3 Hart convertible ballast car, a fairly straightforward completion of a 3D-printed car body. In that post, I showed an example of such cars being used to carry rail, and mentioned that I planned to make such a load for the model (see the post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/03/another-dry-creek-ballast-car.html ). 

In addition to the photo I showed in that previous post, a second photo exists. (Both photos are in Chapter 3 of my book, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, Signature Press, 2003.) This photo shows the men getting ready to move rail. At left are two men holding rail tongs, which each pair of men will use in moving the rail. This is 90-pound rail, a 39-foot length of which weighs 1170 pounds, and 12 men, in six pairs, will be needed to move it.

Enlarging the photo above to look just at the rail ends, and assuming that rail not visible with something over it will be at the same spacing as the other rail, leads to the conclusion that there were at least 78 rails still in the car, and four more out of the car, as the full photo shows. For a 50-ton nominal car capacity, the max load would be 85 rail lengths, though in fact overloading company cars was not unusual, so that more than 85 lengths would be quite possible. But if one isn’t compulsive about this, a lesser load of rail is perfectly reasonable too.

An important point is what size rail to use for the load. This will of course depend on your prototype and era. In the 1950s, SP’s Coast Division, which I model, was undergoing replacement of the last older rail, to bring the entire division up to 113-pound rail. Since HO scale Code 83 rail represents approximately 126-pound rail, that’s what I chose.

Part of the motivation to make this load is that the Dry Creek model is very light, and has few places that weight can be hidden on an empty car. So the combination of lengths of nickel-silver rail, and a slab of lead sheet under the load, can bring the car up to a weight that can be operated with confidence. 

I cut a lead slab to fit inside the car, and less than the 39-foot rail length. It’s 0.062 inches thick, handily less than 0.083-inch rail. Next I cut a piece of styrene sheet, 0.005-inches thick, slightly narrower than the car interior, and 37 scale feet long, to underlay the weight and allow the rail ends abutting the lead weight to be glued to something. Now I needed a way to get the rail ends exactly even. I decided to make a gluing fixture. I just used some scrap styrene, and glued barrier strips 39 scale feet apart.

I then taped the 0.005-inch styrene in the middle of this fixture, and with pencil marked the location of the ends of the lead weight. That defined the place where I would attach short rail ends to represent the bottom layer of rail in the load. Here are a bunch of rail ends attached with canopy glue, with the pencil boundary visible. It is very simple to align these rail pieces, simply butting the ends to the fixture.

Once all the short ends of the first rail layer were in place, I added the lead sheet weight in the middle, also with canopy glue. Then the next layer of 39-foot rail was added, again with canopy glue. I decided to add a couple extra rail lengths on top. Total weight is 3.5 ounces, very helpful in a “weightless” model. Here it is in unpainted condition.

New rail could vary considerably in color, from the medium gray of mill scale on freshly hot-rolled rail shipped from its place of production, to lightly rusted when outdoors for awhile, to a deeply rusted brown color if stored outdoor for some time. I chose a medium brown, Tamiya’s “Red Brown” (TS-1) and used artist’s color pencils to add rust patches.

This load not only makes this car without end bulkheads logically sensible, and creates an additional load that can be directed to MOW use, but adds weight to a very light model. I look forward to seeing it in a operating session.

Tony Thompson

Cocoa Beach 2025

Yes, it’s a new year, and for freight car enthusiasts like myself, the year begins on a high note with the annual Prototype Rails meeting in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Originated and long directed by the late Mike Brock, it’s now ably directed by Mike’s long-time second in command, Marty Magregian. 

And as has always been the case, the meeting was well organized and ran smoothly throughout. This year the heavy snows in the Midwest and Northeast did lead to a whole bunch of last-minute cancellations for obvious reasons, but otherwise attendance was typical of this meeting at around 200, and every one appeared to be having a great time.

I always focus on the clinic program at a meeting like this. There is rarely a clinic time slot when I’m not sitting in one, and have presented one or more clinics at every one of these meetings I’ve attended (out of 24 of these meetings, I’ve just missed two). 

This year’s program, organized by Jeff Aley, was as usual, nicely varied and of uniform high quality. My talk this year was entitled “Creating Realistic Operation on a Small Layout,” and you can view the handout if you wish (it‘s at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/01/handout-for-realistic-operation-clinic.html ).

One clinic I enjoyed was Mont Switzer’s talk about freight cars associated with Muncie, Indiana. He opened his talk with a variation on a slide he often uses at this meeting, which includes an HO scale surf board:

For those not familiar with Cocoa Beach, the huge Ron Jon surf shop is a local landmark. Mont also brought along all the freight cars described in the clinic, and exhibited them in the ballroom’s display area.

Speaking of the ballroom, as always it was the location for model displays, manufacturer's tables, and hobby sellers, with many interesting things on view. Here’s an overall photo:

As he always does, Eric Thur brought some interesting freight cars, including several with very well-done loads. I will just show a single example, a load of Allis-Chalmers transformers. The loads are S scale transformers 3D-printed by Multi-Scale Digital. They were shown loaded on a hybrid model, a Funaro & Camerlengo Pennsylvania Class FM flat car body with Sunshine resin sides. A prototype photo of a very similar load of transformers was also displayed. 

For John Armstrong fans, it was fun to see exhibited a 3D-printed, O scale model of his “imagineered” 200-ton articulated cement car, called a “Cementipede,” built by Jim King of Smoky Mountain Model Works for David Vaughn’s Wit & Wisdom LLC (I understand kits are available; you can email to witandwisdommodels@gmail.com ). As you see below, there was also exhibited an O scale version of Armstrong’s famous re-creation of the diner in the Edward Hopper painting, Nighthawks.

There weren’t large numbers of relatively modern models exhibited, but I liked a Canadian National aluminum-ingot flat car by Bob De Stefano. The car, CN 618226, is from the early 2000s, as shown in the upper photo, and as evident in the model photo below, the load is removable. Impressive modeling.

Lastly, I liked a model that Fenton Wells displayed. To some passers-by, it may have looked like “simply” an Accurail 8500-series plug-door reefer, with a 1953 reweigh date and almost-new paint. But look again, and note the upgrades: the free-standing grab irons, sill steps, ladder, ice hatch latch bars, roof corner grabs, and door hardware. This is nice work.

All in all, another typically enjoyable and fun Cocoa Beach meeting. I always look forward to each one, and invariably find it just as good as I expected. Reminders for it are already blocked in on my calendar for the event in 2026.

Tony Thompson

More crate and box loads, Part 2

In a recent post, I showed how I made use of some hardwood offcuts that were mostly but not entirely square, to make shipping box or crate loads suitable for gondolas or flat cars. I showed one of them loaded in a gondola. But more needed to be done on this project: the third of the three loads hadn’t been finished. To read that previous post, see this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/11/more-about-making-crate-and-box-loads.html .

The first additional task to describe is finishing the third and largest of the three loads. As was described for the the other two crates, in the previous post (link above), it was made to “sit square” by adding a styrene support underneath to level it. Then scale 1 x 10-inch styrene strip was glued to the bottom of the sides to conceal the angled cut on that part, and likewise around the top, using canopy glue. Finally, a piece of sheet styrene was glued to the top, since its end grain simply couldn’t be adequately concealed with modeler’s putty.

As a reminder, this box is 1.25 inches high and1.5 inches long. Some of the sanded areas of putty can be seen above as lighter areas. Then the crate was painted again, using the same Tamiya “Haze Grey” (TS-32) as before.

Another feature that needs to be present on such a load is a means of securing the crate to the freight car. In later years, steel banding was very widely used for this purpose, but at the time I model, 1953, only some photographs show banding used to secure this kind of a load. For crates like these, a common hold-down method was lengths of timber that could be spiked or lag-screwed down to the wood car deck of the flat car or gondola, and also bolted to the crate. In HO scale, I usually use scale 6 x 6-inch stripwood.

Lastly, labeling matters too. No doubt there were unmarked crates and boxes shipped like this, but marked ones are not only more interesting, but they add to the information in the accompanying waybill. I show two examples below. One is the familiar electrical equipment distributor, Graybar, at that time headquartered in Chicago. The other is a Naval Supply Depot, which would ship materials to other depots, or would move parts for repair or upgrade to contractors.

Finally, the larger crate was given timber hold-downs and a label for “Square D” circuit breakers, and operated on the layout, as a flat car load. This is shown below. Like all these new loads, this crate represents something well over the size that could be loaded through a box car door, at least in 1953, and is thus appropriate for open-top cars. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

Completing these three large crates or shipping boxes adds to the versatility of open-car loads that can be moved in layout operating sessions, and as such, are welcome additions to my load inventory.

Tony Thompson