If you really want to get the old goats: provide a few walkers with the built in seats. Or lower the layout and give everyone an office chair. You might find an architects stool on casters that could work. Take the strain off the feet and back during a lull in the action.

Cal’s mention of the interlocking squares is good. I’m trying them, but find my office chair does not roll on the tiles, so when doing work under the layout they are a hindrance. I have thought of cutting a Japanese type sandal out of the foam tiles, a piece of Velcro for a strap and you would be set to go. Provide one set for each operator, much cheaper that covering the entire layout room floor, esp for a large layout.

I have used the foam backed carpet, get the end roll cast off strips at a big box store. But water issues in two houses have steered me away from the padded carpet. When the floor gets wet the carpet is a real pain.

Yep, that’s the ticket.  Your email, Johannes, came while I was typing out my last message.

Schuyler

Somebody used to make etched caboose ladders.  They were kind of a bear to assemble but you supplied wire to go through the etched stiles and soldered it all together.  The top ends of the stiles were hook-shaped so that the roof end could be bent to make an attachment tab, and since they were to be bent by the modeler, they could be made uneven to sit properly on a sloping or round roof.  I made a bunch of these for the Club’s caboose fleet.  Unfortunately I cannot recall “Somebody’s” name.

Schuyler

All-

Could the cars have been built for the same type of service (aircraft parts) as the XA-14D raised roof single sheathed 50 ft DD Boxcars rebuilt in 1942 for B-26 Marauder wings and later the B-29 Superfortress fuselage housings applied to 69 FM-14 Flatcars in 1944?

Charlie Vlk  

Group,

I was in the local Dollar Tree store recently and happened to see some “Military Playset” toys.  One of the sets included an Army tank and some sort of short cylindrical apparatus mounted on a pedestal, all molded in plastic in “olive drab,” with black-painted “conduits” and silver “control boxes.”  I don’t know what these are supposed to represent, if anything, but they look similar to some industrial vessels I found on the internet.  The metal and plastic Army tank can be tossed or given to a kid. 

With a minimum of work, mainly on the seams on the vessel itself, and repainting, these look to make pretty good HO gondola or flat car loads.  I haven’t tried it, but it appears the vessel section could be removed from the pedestal.  There is enough space on the underside the pedestal to add weight if desired. 

Three of them fit nicely into a Proto 2000 gondola, as you can see here, with room for wood bracing around each unit.  These would look great as flat car loads too.

For $6.00 total, I bought enough for two car loads, and may go back for some more.  I  happened to be near a Dollar Tree store on the other side of Nashville, so went in to see if they had any different sets with other potential loads, but that store didn’t have any of those military sets at all.  So all stores apparently don’t carry the same items. 

Anyway, I thought some in the group would find this of interest.

Steve Johnson

Nashville, TN