Home Made Lumber Loads
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– by Steve Pirosko
Photos by the author
Make lumber loads for your center-beam flat cars in no time!
H
ere’s an easy method to make removable lumber loads for your center-beam flat cars or any other car. These loads do not have the detail of the kits you can build that install as individual loads, with all the string and wood
Page 53 • Issue 11-07 • Jul 2011 • Lumber Loads, page 1
separators. But these loads will do in a pinch until you find the funds or the time to do more detailed loads. You may find that in the end they never get replaced with more detailed kits because they look darned good on a freight car as is! You need two things – a computer to print out the logos from various websites and some wood blocks cut to fit your cars. I have included some lumber load pages with this article.
Once you scale them to size, the separator line between vertical loads is a 3-point thick black line for HO. The “rigging” is a vertical 0.25-point line. To make the wood blocks I use .50” thick plywood cut to length and height to fit the various size cars. Adjust the sizing and spacing of the logos and lines to make an exact fit for your specific car. It may take a bit of trial and error with your printer, but usually close is good enough.
Apply a very thin coat of white glue to the backside of the logo sheets and place a block on the sheet, making sure to keep the vertical and horizontal lines square. I find it easier to use a thin ruler to create the first fold before applying the glue.
Figure 1: Having center-beam flats loaded with lumber makes your railroad more interesting since it’s now moving freight to market.
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