Forest Products Train on the Manitoba & Minnesota Sub.

It's a pretty common sight here on the prairies: Long trains of bulkhead flatcars and boxcars headed east loaded with lumber from B.C.

Since I model a line which features trains running from western Canada down to the U.S. heartland (based on the historic Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific, now CN), I needed to have a train like that on the M & M Sub.

My unit forest products train is in keeping with my overall philosophy of simplicity and plausibility. That's why it doesn't bother me to use MDC 60 foot flats (not prototypically correct, I know) or lumber loads with the loads painted on them.

(Darned if I can remember who made those loads, though. There is no name on them. They were pretty easy to find up here in Canada in the 1990s. Anyone know the manufacturer?)

The train also contains Proto 1000 and Walthers Thrall All-Door boxcars, and one or two from other makers, too.

On the M & M Sub., the train comes from Winnipeg (upper level staging) and winds its way down to Duluth/Superior on the lower level.

Upon arrival, the loads are removed and its ready to head back to B.C. to get more lumber for those home-hungry Americans.

Which is a good thing; when loaded, the 18-car train is heavy. It's much easier for it to go down that way than up.

The forest products train is one of five unit trains that operate on the M & M Sub.: Forest products plus a double-stack, two grain trains, and a coal train.

To me, it looks fine. For anyone who is bothered, I can only say: Stand back three feet and enjoy the view!

Another Look at Cheap & Easy Coal Loads

A discussion on a model railroad forum about using real coal for coal loads caught my attention. What, a poster wanted to know, was the best way to make a realistic looking HO scale coal load?

The poster wanted to use real coal. He had tried smashing it with a hammer; but it was too messy and taking too long.

Someone suggested putting the coal in a bag to limit the mess. Another said that he put lumps of coal between two sheets of plywood, then drove over them with his truck. That sped things up.

Hey--do whatever works for you, I say. But for me mattress foam was the answer. Cut it to size, spray paint it black and insert into coal cars.

In 2010, I wrote about this cheap and easy method. With over 3,000 views to date, it's one of the more popular posts on this blog.

Cheap & Easy Guide to Model Railroading: Popular Posts from 2013

Making easy pulpwood loads--a popular post in 2013.

I was looking over stats from the past year, and was surprised to find that three older posts were among the more popular articles on the blog.

One of them was about making pulpwood loads; the other about making coal loads; and the third about making cork roadbed.

All three had a common word in the title: Easy. Maybe that's why they were so popular!

In the post about log loads, I described how I used home-grown grape ivy to make realistic loads for Roundhouse flat cars and Walther's log cars.

In the post about coal loads, I described how I used a leftover foam from a mattress cover to make realistic coal loads.

In the post about cork roadbed, I described how I used inexpensive (compared to model railroad prices) sheet cork from home improvement stores to make good looking cork roadbed.

One post with the word "easy" in the title that didn't get as much traffic was about making easy numberboards for locomotives using standard word processing programs. With so many locomotives coming ready to run these days, that's not surprising; fewer modellers actually need to make their own numberboards anymore.

Other posts describing what I consider to be easy ways of making a good-looking layout include using various weeds and shrubs to make trees; using paint and glass medium to make water;  using fridge magnets to make a dispatcher's panel; and an easy way to make realistic building interiors using photos from real windows.

One thing all these methods also have in common is they are cheap; almost anything a model railroader wants these days can be had--for a price. Which is OK if you have the money, which not everyone does.

For the rest of us, maybe that's what we need: A blog titled The Cheap and Easy Guide to Model Railroading. It might be very popular!

Unusual Non-Model Railroad Items For Your Layout

An old printer cartridge makes a unique load.

What's the most unusual or creative non-model railroad item you have used for your hobby?

For me it would be whiskers. One day--back when I still had black facial hair--I dumped out the contents of my electric razor and thought they sure looked like scale-size cinders. I collected subsequent emptyings and placed the contents trackside. They looked OK, even if the supply was a little limited. (With my gray hair today, this doesn't work as well.)

Then there was the time I tried dryer lint to make thick grass. I sprinkled on ground foam, thinking it might look half decent. Wrong! Too bad, though, since dryer lint comes in an almost limitless supply.

A less strange, but still unusual non-model railroad item is in the photo above--and old printer cartridge. In this case, it's really old; I think it comes from an old dot matrix printer. (Remember those?) I'm slowly adding bits and pieces to make it look more like a realistic load--a transformer, perhaps.

Other non-model railroad items I have tried include kitty litter for rip rap; tops off spray paint bans and other containers for roof vents and stacks; old-style artificial Christmas trees for fir trees; and straws for pipe loads.

A friend used the insider container of a Kinder Egg, the children's chocolate egg with a toy surprise inside, to make a unique large compressor-type load. Americans who want to try this will have to smuggle their Kinder Eggs in from Canada, though; they are illegal in the U.S.

When I posed this question about non-model railroad items on the Atlas HO forum, things people said they used included fake eyelashes for splash strips on trailers; Scotch tape rollers for tanks; and Grape Nuts cereal flakes spray painted black, silver and gray for a scrap metal load. (Just make sure you don't have mice!)

What are the most creative or unusual non-model railroad items you have employed?

Easy & Cheap Pulpwood Loads

Recently, on a model railroad forum, someone asked if anyone knew of a manufacturer that made pulpwood loads for Walthers pulpwood flatcars.

I have to admit that my first thought was: Doesn’t anyone make anything by themselves anymore? Do we need to buy everything ready-to-run? Whatever happened to making things yourself?

But that thought was left unspoken. Instead, I described how I made my my own pulpwood loads, using ivy.

The ivy that I use grows on the side my house. It grows long vines with a tough, slender stalk. In fall, when the leaves die, the ivy needs to be pruned. These brown, lightweight stalks are perfect for making log loads for the Walthers’ cars.

To make the loads, start by saving the piece of Styrofoam that Walthers includes in the package to prevent the sides of the cars from breaking. Cut the Styrofoam to make it narrower, so that the ivy can be glued to each side (and the piece of Styrofoam can still fit into the car).

For the loads themselves, I built a simple jig that enabled me to cut the stalks to uniform lengths. After they were cut, I glued them (with white glue) to the sides and top of the piece of Styrofoam. When dry, I touched up the “logs” with a bit of brown and black paint to simulate different shades of bark. I also added a twig or two to break up any uniformity.

Since the load is attached to the piece of Styrofoam, it is easy to take out when the car is returning empty from the paper mill.

Ivy stalks can also be used to load bulkhead flats which lack side pieces to keep logs in the car; see photo below. For this I glued the first layer of "logs" to a piece of wax paper; when dry, I added the rest, using the car itself as a template for the load.

That’s it—a simple, lightweight, realistic and cheap way to make log loads, and no manufacturers (or money) required.


A bottoms-up view of the Styrofoam insert, with
the "logs" glued to the sides.


Another view of loaded pulpwood cars.


Ivy stalks can also be loaded into bulkhead flats.

Easy Coal Loads From Foam

A foam coal load.

Looking for an easy way to make good-looking coal loads? You might be sleeping on it. At least, that's what I was doing. For a long time we used a foam mattress topper—a piece of foam that went on top of the regular mattress.


The foam mattress topper and a load. Loaded
cars in the background.
Eventually, like most things, it wore out. I was going to throw it out when I thought: I could make coal loads out of this!

Of course, I wasn’t the first person to think of using foam to make coal loads. Locally, my friend and fellow modeler Ron Einarson had written about making coal out of foam. When I saw the mattress topper, I thought of his article and knew I could do the same thing.


Unpainted and painted coal loads.
To make the loads, I cut the foam to fit my MDC bathtub gondolas. (I know these aren’t prototypical; the InterMountain coal cars would be much better. I just haven’t been able to persuade myself to spring for the string of 20 hoppers I’d need for my unit train.) Since I model the modern era, my coal loads needed to be flat, which makes this process even easier.

After cutting out the loads, I spray painted them glossy black. When dry, I popped them into the cars. Done!

I used mattress foam, but any piece of one-inch thick foam would do.


Unpainted and painted loads in cars.

As a bonus, these loads are easily removable. On the CP Rail Manitoba & Minnesota Sub., I run them loaded from B.C. to power plants in the east and empty going back.


A final look at a foam coal load.

Planes On Trains

I was in Newton, Kansas in early November on business. After work I'd head down to the station to watch trains on the BNSF transcontinental mainline that goes through the town. The last day I was there I found five Boeing 737 fuselages parked on specialized flat cars across from the station.

While I was taking some pictures, BNSF C44-9W 5470 came out of the nearby engine terminal, coupled up to the cars and then proceeded west out of town.

The planes are made in nearby Wichita and shipped to Renton, WA (near Seattle) for final assembly.

If you want more information about these unique flatcar loads, visit Chris Camp's page at http://www.nwownrailfan.com/archives/features/0204camp.html

Brian Keay of Calgary made a model of one of the cars and planes. You can see it, and learn more about how he made it, at http://www.ucalgary.ca/~keay/planedoc.html

More photos are below.