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  2. Adding weight to a stock car

Re: Adding weight to a stock car

Garth G. Groff <ggg9y@...>
 

Tony,

Pigs and sheep, which were loaded more or less at random, require only enough animals (or blobs) to give the illusion of a complete load. I think if the cattle are supposed to have their bovine butts chock-a-block against the slats for the whole length of the real car, you would need to have to completely fill the model to get the right look. There must be loading diagrams someplace that show how cattle are to be loaded. They did them for everything else from mill stones to steam tractors. Has anyone ever actually modeled a full cattle load correctly, and if so, what was the effect?

As for loaded and unloaded cars, I wonder if you could load the car with some animals on one side, but put in some sort of baffle or curtain on the other (safely back from the slats). Then the cars would appear loaded from one side, and empty from the other. At the start of of an operating session, they could be turned for the appropriate loads/empties direction.

Kind regards,


Garth G. G5roff

Anthony Thompson wrote:

Garth G. Groff wrote:

Just a "few lead cows" won't quite work. Cattle had to be packed tightly in stock cars so they couldn't fall over. If they did, they were usually fatally trampled . . .
But the only goal is to LOOK full. As is readily demonstrated with any stock car model, visibility is pretty darn restricted. If you want a loaded car, make it LOOK full. Richard Hendrickson's use of rough foam approximations of livestock works because you can't really discern what's in there. So I'd say, put a suitable weight in the car center, add some stock at the outside if you want, and you're done.
Personally, I don't put stock in the cars because I don't want them ALWAYS loaded, and since one can't see in very well, it's not normally a problem. Same point regarding weight: I just put it on the floor and paint flat black. It's essentially invisible.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history
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