For a couple years we've been planning to make a gallery page for our customer's models. Here's some of the fine work that some of them have submitted to us. Also visit the page of
Photo Gallery of OwlMtModels Products.
Lumber Load Built by Vic Yoder
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| 3002 (two-stack kit) on SP RedCaboose 42ft AAR flatcar, stand-in for SP F-50-16 class. |
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Here's a classic 'max-cubic' load for a 50-ton 40ft flatcar.
Notice that Vic here put the various split units of lumber to over-hang and show off the features of this kit's 'split' planels, which allow you to combine the various lengths in unique ways. Notice that this is a 50-ton car, and so the load isn't fully 'max-cubic' to the Plate-C limits in physical size, but the load has probably been weight-limited by the density of the wood in the load.
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| 3003 (three-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar. |
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This is the full 3003 kit, stacked to full height and showing off the 'max-cubic' nature of this kit. This is ideal to show off the difference in weight capacity of 70-ton cars, like the SP's F-70-series cars compared to AAR 50-ton cars, such as offered by Walthers/Proto2000's model.
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| 3003 (three-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar. |
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A shorter stack of lumber on F-70-series car. There's no rule preventing you from mixing and matching panels from 3003 and 3002 kits or 3004 and 3005 kits.
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| 3003 (three-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar. |
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Another F-70-series with 1/9th of the kit removed, or one unit of lumber, resulting in this 2-3-3 stack arrangement of the units. This allows the extra unit of lumber to be moved to another car. Aka, make one load smaller, move parts over to another car to enlarge that one, etc.
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| 3003 (three-stack) on Nickle Plate Proto2000/Walthers 53ft AAR WWII flatcar. |
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Here's where the extra units went to, a 3002 kit has been expanded to create a 2-2-3 arrangement on this 50-ton car.
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| 3004 Lumber Load in SP post-war Auto-Boxcar. |
Vic decided to put some lumber inside an SP double-door boxcar. Very nicely done.
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| Shifted 3003 (3-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar. |
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Oh dear... that doesn't look good! The upper units of lumber on this load have shifted. Better pull this car out of the train and send it to the RIP track and 'load shifter' for 're-shifting'. Sometimes shifting loads will also break or damage the stakes and supporting dunnage boards too, requiring their replacement by the carmen at intermediate yards.
One AAR/ARA report showed that just one car needed to be re-shifted or worked on 14 times between Washington and Chicago area... or nearly at every division point! So this problem wasn't unique to single cars, but represents a regular issue that should be addressed on operational layouts running large blocks of our loads!
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| 3002 (two-stack kit) on RC/EspeeModels SP F-70-6/7 flatcar. |
The 'classic' two stacks of lumber, representing 40-50-tons in weight. Some mills shipped 'wetter' lumber or wood that was denser than others. Other times the customers only ordered a certain amount of board-feet, which doesn't fill up the car all the way, and the railroad just supplied the mill with standard 70-ton cars, which they normally order.
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| 3003 (three-stack) on Northern Pacific Proto2000/Walthers 53ft AAR WWII flatcar. |
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Another example of a 50-ton car maxed out. Hopefully the mill is just shipping lighter density woods or the mill (and NP) are hoping not to get caught over-loading the car. Yikes!
Sometimes the railroads would accept over-loaded cars if they were not going to be interchanged to another railroad, as the receiving road could refuse the interchange of over-loaded cars, due to increased risks of the car failing or causing damage to the track. Also too many over-loaded cars in a train would throw off the tonnage and braking calculations of the railroad moving over mountain territory, risking stalling trains or runaways!
Related Articles:
OMM 3000-Series Lumber Load - Article IndexPhoto Gallery of OwlMtModels Products - Photos of various modeler's work with OwlMtModels' products.
