HO construction equipment, Part 2

In the preceding post to this one, I showed some very nice HO scale models of International-Harvester construction equipment that I undertook to weather for a friend. In that post I showed some prototype views to indicate how such equipment can look after time in service. You can view the post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/08/ho-scale-construction-equipment.html . The models were made by First Gear (see their website at: https://firstgearinc.com/diecast-replicas/ ).

I’ll begin with the smallest of the three vehicles, the I-H model 175. As mentioned previously, it has a ROPS cage (Roll Over Protection Structure), and a ripper at the rear. When the loader bucket and ripper are used, the teeth quickly become bare steel, and that’s been added. Tracks become a grayish “dirty steel” appearance. Overall brownish grime was added also, but the unit does not appear too old.

For comparison, here is a similar-sized vehicle from Caterpillar, somewhat different ROPS and a rear winch. Color and degree of dirt, and appearance of tracks, are useful to see (Cam Thompson photo).

The next model, the TD-25 bulldozer, also has a ROPS and ripper. A new, out of the box view was shown in the first post (linked in the first paragraph, above). Here again, the ripper teeth and the bottom edge of the blade would be bare steel after even a little use. Weathered separately from the model 175 shown above, the TD-25 has a little greater degree of grime. 

The third model is a different use of the basic TD-25 model, being equipped with a side boom and a rear winch. On the opposite side from the boom are counterweights (like many parts of the prototype that would be moveable, they are moveable on the model). This is apparently a rare model from First Gear, as it commands impressive prices on the internet. Here is a view of the model when new.

Weathering this model was approached slightly differently. Tracks were still changed to a “dirty bare steel” look, but a more grayish grime and dust was applied to the overall vehicle. Most other details were handled in a similar way to the other two models . 

This was an interesting project, both to learn about the prototype machines and to view some weathered prototypes. It’s been interesting.

Tony Thompson 

HO scale construction equipment

As part of the weathering project of some 1975-era freight cars, about which I posted recently, I also was requested to weather some HO scale models of 1975-era construction equipment (see the freight car post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/08/another-weathering-project.html ). These are era-appropriate models, made by First Gear and very nice (see their website at: https://firstgearinc.com/diecast-replicas/ ).

Below I show First Gear’s International Harvester tracked loader, model TP-25 with ROPS (Roll-Over Protective Structure) and ripper at rear. The prototype, equipped like this, was a 25-ton machine.

The smaller version was the I-H 175 series, around ten tons weight. Below is an internet image of one, helpfully well used, also with ROPS. 

I also benefited from my son’s sending me an image of a very similar Caterpillar vehicle, also with ROPS, useful for seeing what a well-used machine looks like. First, an overall view, very helpful view of the looks of the tracks and overall dirt. Second, a view of the blade, emphasizing the bare steel look of the teeth (Cam Thompson photos).

These give me what I need to start weathering these impressive First Gear models. I will come back to that in a future post.

Tony Thompson 

Acquiring knowledge of your era

Many serious modelers choose a specific era for layout or rolling stock modeling. Richard Hendrickson chose to model rolling stock, mostly for the Santa Fe, for October 1947. Jack Burgess’s superb layout depicts the Yosemite Valley Railroad in the third week of August, 1939, because that was the last period that the YV operated a through Pullman to El Portal, at the National Park’s entrance.

Of course many people want a looser time constraint. I can understand the person who wants, for example, to be able to model some prototype scrapped in 1965, and also to model some new equipment that arrived in 1968. That person might say “I model 1965–68.” But the danger lurking in looser constraint was well expressed once by Tony Koester, who said, “If you say that you model the 1950s, what you’re really doing is modeling 1959 badly.”

But however your choice falls out, especially if it is a period 75 years ago or more, how can you research its character, details, and style? We are all familiar with histories of railroads, locomotives and rolling stock, and likely also with histories of line changes, depot abandonments, etc., for our favorite railroad. What else do we need? What products can you include on billboards? What about clothing for the figures on you layout?

There have, over the years, been effort by various publishers to create “yearbooks,” books highlighting everything of “importance” in a particular year. (I put that word in quotation marks because one person’s importance is another person’s trivia). But certainly these books can provide some information, even if not exactly what we want.

I have such a book for my modeling year of 1953, and in fact that year is in its title. I show the title page below. This is a 6 x 9-inch hardbound book of 448 pages (Unicorn Books, New York, 1954).

To convey its coverage, I show the Contents pages below. 

This kind of source is quite general. One may also need quite specific information. For example, let’s imagine that you want to put a builder logo on a transformer load. Your first choices (in the 20th century) would be General Electric and Westinghouse. But as you may know, the Westinghouse logo changed over the years. This is a good example today of how “Google is your friend.” You will quickly find on-line sources like this one: https://1000logos.net/westinghouse-logo/ .

This would then result in a correct pre-1960 logo on a load like this one (Richard Hendrickson built this  Milwaukee model of a gun-type flat from a cut-down Roundhouse short flat car). 

Another example is advertising. Some companies have retained essentially identical graphics for decades, and these are convenient to use. National brands have the advantage of great recognizability.

Consumer products are the most commonly advertised, so showing advertising images of that kind is appropriate. A good example for a product familiar to everyone is Coca-Cola. I have a period image in the form of a billboard alongside Bromela Road on my layout (one of my interchangeable billboards; see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/04/interchangeable-billboards.html ). 

Another era-identifier is trucks and, especially, automobiles. For my 1953 layout, I have carefully avoided any later vehicle model year after that date. And of course you can reinforce the year with billboards like the one below, alongside Nipomo Street in Ballard on my layout:  

Today, the internet contains astonishing amounts of information about the history of about anything you can image. Remembering to search on historical topics to make sure you have it right is important if you are going to accurately present your modeling era.

Tony Thompson 

 

SP piggyback, Part 6: trailers

This is part of an ongoing series about the beginnings of Southern Pacific piggyback service. That service on the SP began in 1953, the year I model, so I am interested in the characteristics of the operation at its outset. In previous posts, I have discussed both the highway equipment, owned by SP subsidiary Pacific Motor Trucking, and the SP flat cars that carried the trailers. The most recent of these posts, Part 5, can be found here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/02/sp-piggyback-part-5-3d-printed-flat-cars.html . 

In a previous post, I showed the model trailers that had received a coat of white primer (Tamiya “Fine Surface Primer”). That post is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/sp-piggyback-part-4-progress-on-3d.html . My next step was to airbrush them with Daylight Orange, using the excellent Star Brand version of this color, STR-27 (I have discussed this color: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/06/pfe-orange-one-more-time.html ). 

Since in the final paint scheme this color is only on the upper parts of the trailer, most care was taken with coverage in those areas, but each entire model truck body was painted. Otherwise there could be risk of uneven color in the coat of Daylight Red to follow, on the lower parts.  

The next step was to mask off the upper part of the trailer, using the excellent 18-mm Tamiya tape. This tape performs beautifully on the glossy surface of the orange coat, above. Then I could paint the lower body, and the underbody, Daylight Red, using Star Brand STR-34. Here the masking line will be in the upper part, above the “belt rail” on the trailer, because it will be hidden by the black stripe, as is visible seen in the prototype photo, below.

This image is repeated from a PMT history post, which can be found at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/sp-piggyback-part-1-pacific-motor.html . Background: this is a 1940s publicity photo, posed to emphasize the truck–rail connection, shown here as a box car at a freight platform (SP photo, courtesy Steve Peery). The tractor here is a GMC, typical of SP’s long closeness with Chevrolet and GMC motor vehicles, pulling a 22-foot trailer.

The lower trailer bodies, and underbodies, were airbrushed red, and of course the tires will subsequently be painted black by hand as a final painting step. Here are the trailers at this point:

I might mention that there has been some disagreement over the years as to whether the underbodies were black or red. It is a minor point, since one can’t really see the underbody of a trailer on a flat car or on the highway. But SP photos of the trailer tie-down process, several of them reproduced in Chapter 13 of my book, “Automobile Cars and  Flat Cars,” Volume 3 in the series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars (Signature Press, 2004), seem to me to show a color like the bottom section of the trailer sides. 

Lettering follows the prototype photo shown above. Luckily, a Microscale Decals set of some years ago remains in production and in stock, set MC-4027. I used those sets (each of which can do one trailer) for these models. By the way, I should mention that examination of about a dozen photos of these trailers shows all PMT 22-ft. trailer numbers in the 3100 and 3200 number series.

My decaling approach has been to first stand the trailer on its flat end, and drape over the front a piece of stripe, containing the PMT initials at center front. Once that’s well dried, I start adding all the other lettering, along with a second length of stripe around the back, and the back end lettering. Here is a prototype rear view to illustrate (SP photo). And I should mention that locations of some of the lettering varied over time and for slightly different trailer bodies.

With the entire lettering applied, one can see what an attractive paint scheme this is.

I can hardly wait to finish the flat cars and start putting these trailers onto them! Thanks one more time to A.J. Chier for creating these fine 3D-printed models.

Tony Thompson

SP piggyback, Part 2: modeling PMT

In the preceding post, I presented an overview of the history of Pacific Motor Trucking (PMT), a Southern Pacific subsidiary proving both intra-city and inter-city trucking throughout SP territory, and I showed photos of some representative PMT equipment. You can view that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/sp-piggyback-part-1-pacific-motor.html . 

It is important for modeling purposes to understand the service that SP provided via PMT. What on many railroads would be LCL (Less than Car Load) package service, often in dedicated baggage or box cars, was done by PMT in SP territory, by Southern Pacific Transport Company on T&NO lines, and by Southwestern Transportation Company on the Cotton Belt (begun prior to SP control of the St. Louis Southwestern in 1932). Thus SP did not operate LCL box cars; that service was via PMT.

Naturally SP worked hard at publicizing this arrangement. Below is an example, from SP files in the Shasta Division Archives, an offprint from the Journal of Commerce issue of October 17, 1935. (At the time, PMT’s in-town service was by a separate company called Pacific Motor Transport, the successor to the original Pacific Electric Motor Transport. Pacific Motor Trucking, incorporated on April 1, 1933 to provide trucking services, absorbed the Motor Transport company in 1935).

A consequence of this fact is that modeled locations in SP territory not only do not need any provision of LCL rail service, but also means that there should be a presence of PMT equipment to represent the corresponding truck service. Here one might find anything from highway trailers, to box trucks, to local delivery vehicles. I have tried to represent all of them.

First, of course, is the semi-trailer making a road movement. Both the trailer and tractor were painted by Jim Elliott, and the tractor is in fact a Chevrolet, typical of PMT. This scene is on Bromela Road in my layout town of Ballard.

The local box truck kind of delivery is also essential to be included. Here I show one at the freight dock alongside the team track and depot in Santa Rosalia on my layout. This also is a Jim Elliott product.

Naturally there would be times when a trailer might be spotted for loading or unloading, probably at the freight house section of a depot. This is an example, pictured at the Shumala depot, of how the side door would be handy.

I don’t have a photo of a prototype PMT “step van” type of delivery truck, but the late Paul Koehler, who worked for SP and knew PMT well, told me that they did indeed own such trucks. Here’s one at the depot freight dock in my town of Ballard.

Finally, an example of a flat-bed truck, shown spotted at the freight shed in East Shumala on my layout’s team track, illustrates still another truck type. Here a very large crate is the cargo.

So the point I am making is that my layout does indeed depict railroad LCL services, just not in rail cars, but in highway equipment operated by PMT. My next post will take up the primary topic of this series of posts, namely SP piggyback operation.

Tony Thompson

SP Piggyback, Part 1: Pacific Motor Trucking

Southern Pacific introduced piggyback service, highway trailers moving on railroad cars, in 1953. As 1953 is my modeling year, I have held off from modeling what would be the earliest days of this service (later, of course, to grow to major proportions on SP and all railroads). But SP’s introductory TOFC route (TOFC =Trailer on Flat Car) was in fact the Coast Route, a very small segment of which is depicted on my layout. So I do have the era and location to model a little bit of SP piggyback.

I would like to describe both history and modeling of the early SP piggyback service, and I expect it will require several posts in a series, which is why this one is called Part 1. A strength of the SP concept for TOFC service was that they already had a healthy business in their subsidiary, Pacific Motor Trucking or PMT, which is where I will start.

[I have written before about PMT, in a three-part series in the SP Historical & Technical Society magazine Trainline, in the issues for Spring and Summer, 1995, and Winter 1996, which were issues 43, 44, and 46, so will only summarize here.]

SP began to compete in the trucking business in the Los Angeles area in the 1920s, and one of the original SP subsidiaries was the Pacific Electric Motor Transport Company. At first, PEMT hired local draymen for the trucking, with PE providing freight houses and rail service across the LA basin, then local draymen at destination providing delivery. At that point, PEMT was acting like an express company, providing no transportation itself, but organizing and contracting for it, and providing a single bill to customers.

Once they began to offer out-of-town rail service, for example to Santa Barbara via SP, the business took off, and was soon renamed Pacific Motor Transport in February 1930. They quickly became truck operators themselves, with original trucks and equipment painted the dark red familiar on Pacific Electric equipment. Again, this was nothing like piggyback, just package service by truck, to and from freight houses (but now in PMT equipment), and rail service using baggage cars. This soon expanded to a Los-Angeles–-San Francisco route.

As the service grew, SP decided to operate special trains and use dedicated box cars, which initially were Dark Olive Green but soon acquired the famous pre-war “Overnight” scheme of an all-black car with orange lettering and body stripe. This was discontinued as a non-essential service during World War II, but revived as soon as the war ended, still with all-black box cars but  now with an even more famous paint scheme. (photo courtesy Bruce Petty)

What made this go was PMT, still providing pick-up of packages and taking them to an SP freight house, just as in the earliest days, then to be loaded into Overnight cars, and at the other end, delivering those packages to the recipient from a freight house. In other words, it was the same door-to-door service originally conceived. It remained primarily an LA–San Francisco business, with guaranteed next-day (“overnight”) service.

Naturally PMT equipment was decorated to show the SP connection, and in the 1930s became Daylight Red and Orange, as in the GMC box truck shown below, which would have been used for in-town pickup and delivery (SP photo, courtesy Paul Koehler). In addition, PMT owned flat-bed trucks, stake trucks, tank trucks, and a wide variety of other truck equipment, used for inter-city trucking as well as the Overnight door-to-door operation. There were lots of equipment photos in my Trainline articles.

The inter-city work was mostly done with semi-trailers of conventional design, most of them with doors on the right or curb side for in-town delivery, along with end doors for freight platforms. The photo below is a 1940s publicity photo to emphasize the rail connection, shown here as a box car at a freight platform (SP photo, courtesy Steve Peery). The tractor here is a GMC, typical of SP’s long closeness with Chevrolet and GMC motor vehicles, pulling a 22-foot trailer.

Although most PMT tractors were conventional ones like that shown above, PMT did operate a fair number of cab-over tractors. Often they were Internationals, as in the photo below, which shows a 1946 Model D-500 tractor at Los Angeles (SP photo). At right is a dolly which will enable a second trailer to be attached, forming what was known as a “Western double.” The curb-side door is evident.

For a color view of these “Daylight” scheme trailers, the view below near 5th and King streets in San Francisco should suffice. This is an Alden Armstrong photo of Train 132 departing for Los Gatos; power is Class P-7 Pacific no. 2476. The side door PMT trailer is in the freight shed area, with SP’s Grocer’s Terminal building in the distance.

This gives the PMT background. I will continue in following posts with a description of the beginnings of the SP and PMT piggyback story, and of course modeling,

Tony Thompson

More on HO automobile license plates

Every layout has at least a few vehicles on it, and from the earliest days of the 20th century in the United States, license plates have been issued to such vehicles, from almost the beginning by individual states. To me, that means that vehicles on my layout should not only have license plates, but the correct ones for the year I model, 1953. I’ve written about this before (see, for example: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/11/vehicle-license-plates-in-ho-scale.html ).

In the post just cited, I gave links to the history of California license plates (and mentioned that every state appears to have such history on line somewhere). And in a subsequent post, I showed the prototype license plate which was newly issued by California in 1951 (here’s the post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/12/era-and-locale.html ). This original license plate hangs in my layout room and I often point it out to visitors.

But that isn’t the entire story. In that era, California, like most states, only issued new metal plates every several years, and during the years in between, issued something to reflect current registration for that year. In California’s case, it was a little metal corner tag, attached with the bolt in the lower right corner of the full license plate. This covered the year of the underlying plate, “51”  in the example above, with the current year, and naturally in a contrasting color each year. For 1953, it was white, and I have an original one of these also.

For modeling purposes, one could of course start with real metal license plates and digitize them to construct HO scale images; it is easier to use the digital images from the on-line history sites. That is what I have done, as described in the post linked in the second paragraph at the top of the present post. Here’s an example of the kind of image I reduce to HO scale and print out on paper with a copy shop’s high-resolution printer:

The paper license plates are cut out and attached to vehicles, front and back, with canopy glue. So wherever a vehicle may be on my layout, as in the example below, which is on Chamisal Road in my layout town of Shumala, passing the Dolphin & Anchor tavern, it has the correct license.

I should also mention that California had a separate series of license plates for trucks, both light and heavy trucks (and they still do today), which were similar but with different numbering. I’ve written about model truck licenses previously: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/12/vehicle-license-plates-trucks.html .

I continue to occasionally acquire a new vehicle for my 1953 layout, and before it appears on the layout, it will definitely acquire a correct license plate. It’s a small detail, but one that contributes to identifying the layout’s era.

Tony Thompson

More about vehicles on flat cars

 I have posted several descriptions of vehicles loaded on flat cars, and using the search box at right, with “vehicle load” as the search term, you will readily find them. In particular, I wrote a series of ten posts about upgrading a Roco “Army” heavy-duty flat car, 6-wheel trucks and 100-ton capacity, and choosing a variety of armor and other military loads. All those posts are most easily found using “Roco flat car” as the search term.

My topic for today is about an important part of such loads if they are placed on flat cars. That is the blocking required to immobilize these heavy vehicles on the flat car, while it moves over the railroad. There are many approaches that can be taken, including starting with the appropriate military Manual, but I just want to mention one of them. That is the set of parts from Heiser’s Models. I show below the label of the kit. Heiser’s is now in business as Lakewood Heiser’s Models. These do show up on eBay and other on-line sellers.

What is contained in this kit is two resin “sheets” of chocks, and two resin sheets of boards of varying length, and some short flat car stakes. The chock sheets, shown below, have two different angles, 31 and 38 degrees, with the steeper ones better for wheeled vehicles, the lower angles better for tracked vehicles. About half also have a short timber behind the chock, which would be nailed to the flat car deck to hold the chock in place. Obviously I’ve already used some from these two sheets.

To further demonstrate what is intended with these chocks, I show below the Heiser directions, showing chock placement and use of boards alongside the vehicle. In previous posts, I have shown prototype views that illustrate these same features. (You can click on the image to enlarge it, if you wish.)

In the past, I have cut the chocks as 45-degree angles in a scale 6 x 6-inch timber, but these are pretty small. They really should be built up with a flat piece and an angled piece, so they have more height. I show below a pair of Roco Sherman tanks, with the one at left having the chocks cut from scale 6 x 6. I think it is obvious that the more substantial Heiser chocks at right are more credible looking. The tank at right doesn’t have the board alongside yet.

As I mentioned, the set of chocks includes steeper-angled ones that are more suitable for wheeled vehicles. Below I show a military tractor, a Herpa model. This one also is photographed to show the chocks, but boards will be added along the length of the wheels.

[Let me observe in passing, though I’m not remotely an expert on military vehicles, or even very knowledgeable about them, that I’m told this is an M931 tractor, a late 1970s vehicle. That’s long after my modeling era, but these vehicles were in fact rebuilt from M809 6x6 trucks that in turn came from the M39 series, a 1949 6x6 design first produced in 1951. The M809 series emerged from, but did not replace, the M39 designs in 1969. So I decided it’s not so severe a time warp to imagine this vehicle as an M39. Now wasn’t that admirably clear? Corrections or additions welcome.] 

Of course, the same kinds of chocks can readily be made from stripwood, and setting up an assembly line to turn them out in quantity would work fine. But the Heiser chocks are definitely a shortcut, and I enjoy using them for a variety of vehicle loads. I will show more of them in a future post. 

Tony Thompson

Modeling highway trucks, Part 9: another tank

I have posted a whole series of descriptions of my efforts to model highway trucks in HO scale, as part of the scenery on my layout. Many of these are the old cast-metal Ulrich models, not because they are great models, but because they suit my 1953 modeling year. {You can find these posts by using the search box at right, with the search term “modeling highway trucks.”) One of those posts was about creating a tank trailer for Signal Oil (read that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/07/modeling-highway-trucks-part-5.html ). 

I wanted to make more of these highway tank trailers, and for a time regularly watched eBay and other sites for a reasonably priced example. The problem is that Ulrich produced the tank trailer for some years decorated for Cities Service, with raised lettering and emblem cast onto the tank. Here’s a box photo. The lettering in white on the tank is the raised part.

The Mack cab-over tractor makes a nice change too, though the Cities Service company was really not suitable for my West Coast modeling locale. But finally, failing to find another Ulrich tank without the raised lettering, as I had been able to do when I made the trailer that became Signal Oil, I gave up and acquired one of these Cities Service trailers.

“How bad could it be,” I asked myself, “just file off the raised lettering.” Well, I found out. The white metal Ulrich casting isn’t too hard a metal, but soon you are filing on an almost flat surface. It was a long and tedious process, but finally I did get the lettering removed and the tank surface smooth. 

I then sprayed on a coat of light gray, partly as a “witness coat,” which would show up any flaws in my file work, and partly as a primer coat for subsequent paint. The trailer looked pretty good and only required a little touch-up, so I added a final coat of medium gray.

To letter the tank, I once again turned to the fine products of Graphics on Demand. This is a source I have really valued for truck graphics (you can visit them at: http://store.graphicsdemand.com/ ). As with all my highway trucks, I like to select suitable regional truck owners. In the case of an oil company, there were certainly a variety of West Coast companies to choose from, like Signal Oil, that I chose for the trailer I have already done. 

This new trailer I decided to letter for Standard Oil of California, a major retailer, marketing under the “Chevron” name (today the corporate name is even changed to “Chevron,” but in my modeling era, the company was still called Standard). I also have a Standard bulk oil dealer in my layout town of Ballard.

Having purchased Chevron lettering from Graphics on Demand, I applied the lettering to the trailer. These are not water-slide decals, as we are accustomed to use for model railroading, but are a vinyl adhesive peel-and-stick product. This sounds inferior, but certainly is not. They are glossy and stick down well, and when given a coat of flat finish, look quite good.

The finished tank trailer is shown below on the layout behind an Ulrich Kenworth tractor. It’s just passing another Ulrich tractor-trailer, powered by the Mack COE, with an original Ulrich Illinois-California (ICX) trailer, on busy Pismo Dunes Road in east Shumala.

Another semi-trailer I have lettered with Graphics on Demand is a trailer for Lucky Lager beer. A familiar “Western” beer of the 1950s in California, it seemed like a good choice for a passing truck. Here the trailer is from Classic Metal Works, but this 32-foot “Aerovan” trailer, as CMW produces it, is odd in having only a single rear axle. I replaced that axle with a double-axle bogie from an Athearn trailer, as I showed in an earlier post (it can be found at:  https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/07/modeling-highway-trucks-part-3-more.html ). Here is the the trailer, with its side delivery door.

In this photo at my layout town of Santa Rosalia, the rig is on Willow Lake Road, just crossing the SP’s Santa Rosalia branch, which ends here at the ocean. The depot is at left. In the distance is the usual marine fog bank out over the Pacific.

I continue to enjoy researching and modeling highway trucks that are appropriate for my era and locale, and no doubt will find opportuinties to do more of them in the future.

Tony Thompson

Roco flat car, Part 10: still more loads

I have posted several descriptions of armored vehicle loads in recent posts, primarily intended for the heavy-duty Army flat car modeled by Roco and which I upgraded for use on my layout. The most recent post about those loads was this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/10/roco-flat-car-part-9-more-armor-loads.html . But beyond those loads, there are several additional opportunities for military loads.
     One opportunity is for non-fighting vehicles to be loaded on flat cars. Military units rely on an extensive fleet of motor vehicles, many of them with no fighting capability at all. Among these are trucks, various kinds of trailers, and Jeeps (if not modified to carry weapons). Large trucks have been shown in a previous post here, on a Richard Hendrickson model, at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/09/more-richard-hendrickson-open-car-loads.html . Here is a repeat of that photo, loaded on a railroad flat car (Illinois Terminal) and blocked for loading according to the relevant AAR diagram:

     In addition, Richard modeled a load of fuel trailers. These are in fact Roco U.S. military trailer models, but in the unmarked state could well represent military surplus equipment or even civilian copies of the same designs. They are loaded on Santa Fe Class FT-V flat car 91506.

     Still another choice for military loads is non-vehicular ones. Here again, there are lots of possibilities. My choice was a artillery piece, the Army’s 8-inch field howitzer, model M2A1, widely used in both World War II and Korea for its excellent accuracy in the field. Though not excessively heavy, a gun like this made a large load and might be found on a variety of types of flat car. There is a  nice Roco HO model of this piece, which I acquired years ago when it was still in production (they can still be obtained on eBay from time to time). The model even comes with a limber, used for towing. My model has attached blocking of the type seen in World War II photos.

A gun like this might well move on an Army USAX flat car, like the Roco model I have been showing in this series of posts, but was light enough (one source says 17 tons) that it could easily be moved on a typical 50-ton or 70-ton railroad flat car, as you see in this photo of a Westrail NP flat car. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

     At this point I want to mention another resource for modeling. In the previous posts, I have cited several good books about prototype armored vehicles, but there are also extensive resources on modeling. To choose just one example, I like the softbound book shown below, a collection of articles from Fine Scale Modeler magazine (it’s a Kalmbach book from 1995). It almost entirely describes large models, 1:35 scale, and not all models are American armor, but it contains lots of fascinating details one could add to HO scale armor, including Shermans and half-tracks.

     Finally, at the Cocoa Beach, Florida meeting last January (my post about that meeting is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/01/cocoa-beach-meeting-2019.html ), I photographed a very well-done model by Larry Lawler of a Tank Recovery Vehicle or TRV. This too was built on an M4 Sherman hull. He placed it on a reworked Roco flat car like mine, though both his armor markings and the flat car represent a later era than I model, as does the type of blocking shown, But it makes a terrific military load.

     With these models, I can bring this series to a close. I like the Roco heavy-duty flat car for its 6-wheel trucks, and it can readily host a rather wide variety of loads, as I have tried to show in these posts.
Tony Thompson

Roco flat car, Part 9: more armor loads

In the previous post in this series, Part 8, I showed how I like to vary my loads of armored vehicles, so that I don’t only model loads of M4 Sherman tanks or M3 half-tracks, as have been described earlier in this series, but added a self-propelled gun, model M7. That post can be found here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/09/roco-flat-car-part-8-additional-armor.html . In the present post I want to show another example.
     One of the attractive possibilities in this context might be a tank destroyer. In World War II, it was initially U.S. doctrine that tanks need not be able to take on other tanks, but would only assist infantry in breaking through enemy lines. The job of confronting enemy tanks was assigned to a vehicle called a tank destroyer, which mounted a much larger gun. The American tank destroyers did well during the war, but by war’s end, the doctrine was abandoned in favor of up-gunned and up-armored tanks.
     If you find this topic interesting, there are lots of publications that go into it thoroughly. George Forty’s book about the M4 Sherman also goes into tank doctrine and tank variants built on the Sherman hull, such as tank destroyers (M4 Sherman, Blandford Press, New York, 1987). Two more good sources are Fighting Tanks, by Ian Hogg ( Grosset & Dunlap, 1977), and Sherman: A History of the American Medium Tank, by R.P. Hunnicutt (Presidio Press, 1978), along with several of the Vanguard paperback accounts of U.S. tanks in World War II and Korea.
     I have an HO-scale model of a tank destroyer, not the most common World War II version, which was the M10, but probably the late-war M36, also used in Korea (I express uncertainty because the model is unlabeled). These had more powerful guns than did gun tanks, 90-mm high-velocity guns, and open fighting compartments instead of turrets, so that the bigger gun could be accommodated. The photo below, from Forty’s book, shows an overhead view of the M36 turret, though mounted here on an M18 chassis, not the modified M4 chassis used for production M36 vehicles.

The length of the 90-mm gun is striking in this view.
     Shown below is the model I have, which obviously lacks the muzzle brake seen above but otherwise has a fighting compartment much like the prototype photo. I may try and make a muzzle brake, as they are so obvious on many (but not all) photos of the prototype.

Here is that same model vehicle, paired with a Sherman, on my Roco flat car. The tank destroyers weighed somewhere in the vicinity of the weight of an M4 Sherman, so these two vehicles are well within the 100-ton capacity of the flat car.

Note above that both vehicles are loaded with guns facing forward. This was the most common practice in this era, though photos exist of tanks shipped with turrets turned to the rear.
     These kinds of armor loads are, as I have mentioned previously, appropriate for SP’s Coast Line because of the presence of Camp Roberts, home of the 7th Armored Division in my modeling era. Here is another example of a waybill I might use, a U.S. Government waybill since this is government property:

This bill, which happens to have been filled out with a Teletype type face, reflects a movement from what was the primary Army armor training center in 1953, Fort Irwin, near Barstow, California, to Camp Roberts.
     Armor loads allow some indication of the recent (for my layout) Korean War and training in its aftermath, and in addition are suitable for my layout’s locale on SP’s Coast Line.
Tony Thompson