Open Loads (Part 10) - Athearn 40ft Flat with OMM 3002 Lumber Load

Time to upgrade my old Athearn 40ft flatcar with a new 3002 OwlMtModels Lumber Load!

Many years ago I upgraded an Athearn 40ft flatcar and recently I wanted to put a nice lumber load on it from OwlMtModels' new "Short-Wide" series.  While some of my previous Open Load posts have covered more unique loads, this time I want to cover a more 'classic' load, but with it's own twists.

The Flat Car

Originally, the Athearn flatcar I used was one that had some holes in the deck to attach the plastic blocking for the cabin cruiser boat from Athearn.  The old load supports were simply removed from the car by un-snapping it.

New 'Old" Deck

When I upgraded the car with scratch-built deck from strip-wood sticks.  I also cut-down the plastic deck of the car, even with the steel sides.  The SP's 40ft 1949-built F-50-16, which this car was a stand-in for had overhanging deck boards, which were even with the outer edge of the stake pockets.  The deck was cut back around the stirrup and grab-irons around the car's end, so likewise my deck is notched back.

I also fitted the car many years ago with some scrap wood stakes and also glued a piece to the deck to represent some bit of left over dunnage and blocking nailed to the deck.  Thankfully, it's close to the brake wheel end of the car, so it stays out of the way of the upcoming load I will build for the car.  I can always pull out the two wooden stakes if I want to.

Repainting

The next step was to repaint and then decal the model, I believe I used either Floquil FCR or suitable acrylic paint, I honestly don't remember 25-odd years ago when I did it.  I think the decals I used were a mix of MicroScale 87-911 for the road number, and weight data. and probably the "SOUTHERN PACIFIC" in small font from the old MicroScale SPMW decal set.

Weathering

I weathered the car overall with a dark gray road-grime coat, including over the reporting marks.  I probably would have done more 'clerk wiping' of a rag over the road number to keep it more legible.  The car must have had several bad trips in a row to be this dirty in only 1-2 years given that I now claim to model 1949-1953, and the car was new in 1949!

SP 140195 stand-in Athearn car for SP F-50-16 class car, built in 1949, set up as idler car for over-length gondola load.

In this condition I had the car in service at LMRC for about 20 odd years.  The only real damage was the plastic Tichy brake wheel was broken when I brought the car home.  While it was not accurate for the SP's prototype 40ft F-50-16s, this car acts as a stand-in.  Note that I've posted an article on kitbashing a more accurate car from Red Caboose F-70-7 kit - SP 140234 (Part 1) - Kitbash RC F-50-16 from F-70-7

The Lumber Load

The new OwlMtModels 3002 "Short-Wide" Modular Lumber Load kit is slightly shorter than the 3001 kit from 2015, are ideal to build a load for this car. 

I decided to do a 'messier' load than some of the ones I've built before.  That is a load which isn't exactly stacked cleanly on the length of the car.  Instead I want the upper units of lumber to have shifted and started to impacted into the adjacent stack, but not so much that the boards are damaged or the stakes being broken.

Other end showing.

This load can be shifted around in and out one stake pocket on this car to get more separation between the load.  When close-fitted on the car, the load has started to shift towards the far end, so the train crews should probably keep an eye on this car!

The random-end lumber loads

One of the fun parts of the OwlMtModels lumber load is the busy look of the 'random ends' of the lumber stacks.  This end-view also gives a good angle to see that on this load I left the lateral wooden bracing about 3-4" above the main part of the load.  The longitudinal board bracing was also done with some shorter fragments.  Either to simulate repairs or the original shipper not having enough of the length that they would have ideally had to match AAR standards.  There is photo evidence of some prototype cars being even more jury-rigged than this car!

I'm still working on making my loads with "wonky enough" bracing to match the photos I've seen.  So I've actually been sticking "to the book" more than some loads had.  Although, to be fair many single-car/load photos were actually to document something wrong, so maybe those photos were documenting the poorly braced loads.  So there's always room to critic your work and look for ways to make it more prototypical.

Wood-Color

The final color adjustments was made with Apple Barrel 21186E Golden Sunset, and then a wash of darker gray-brown. to make more accent to the board edges, etc.  

I did some wash on the lumber load to make it more orange.

I like this combination of coloring and accenting wash.  This load is also a fun one to swap around to change the look of it.  If a group of 2-3 loads are finished at the same time, then the stacks could be shuffled between cars, and not kept as a 'set' for a single car, which would obviously vastly increase the lumber of combinations that could be seen on consecutive load/empty cycles.

In Closing

This has been a good old reliable flatcar from 'old school' model railroading with classic tooling.  With a little bit of work, they can be brought up to fairly modern standards and the addition of the modern load brings it in-line with my other examples in my flatcar fleet.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

SP 140234 (Part 1) - Kitbash RC F-50-16 from F-70-7 - Kitbashing a more accurate F-50-16 flatcar.

Open Loads (Part 8) - Modeling High-Tension Steel... - How to use Chart Tape for Steel Banding.

Open Loads (Part 7) - Shifted Lumber Loads - Modeling unique loads which have shifted in transit.