Page 10 - NMRA Roundhouse September-October 2019

Adding Weights to Open Cars
Tom Winlow
Photos by Tom Winlow
MODELLING ARTICLE
O ne of the problems with the brake equipment as this detail is er ex-gondola flats were demoted to
flat cars and gondolas
is that they need added weight to give more reli-
able operation. The NMRA recommen- dation for HO is one ounce plus half an ounce for each inch of model car length. Some people prefer even heavier cars. Adding this sort of weight without it be- coming obvious isn’t easy and a common solution is to add a modelled load. For example a flat car may have a lumber load added with a weight concealed within it.
There are some cases where an unload- ed car is preferred. I find a train of un- loaded flatcars has an appeal all its own so I needed some unloaded flat cars.The solution is pretty obvious if you are an “operations” person. Simply remove the under-car details and hide the weight there.You can’t see all that under-car de- tail in normal operation anyway.The rest of this article describes how I took this approach for three different cars. I have included some information on other details and about the prototype cars.
D&H Flat Car No. 16144
This is a ready to run Athearn 60ft flat car.To add weight to the car I removed almost all of the under-floor sections and cut pieces of sheet lead to fit into the exposed open areas.These were glued in place with silicone bathroom sealant.As the lead is exposed and is poi- sonous I painted it using a red paint that is similar to the car body.
I retained the plastic section holding
10 ROUNDHOUSE - September/October 2019
visible when the car is on the track. I also retained the truck bolsters and the centre beam, which was glued in place to provide some stiffness.
The main cosmetic modifications are shown below. I added wire grabs and NBW castings.The metal stirrup steps were made from small stationery staples. I also painted the deck to represent wood and cut slots in the ends of the planks to better represent individual boards.When looking at the photo below for this article I realised I had overlooked the end three planks when doing this.Ain’t that always the way?
Lehigh Valley MOW Car No. 11322
In the late 1950s the Lehigh Valley converted some old gondolas for use as trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC) cars.The gondola sides were cut down to deck level and the “fish belly” area between the trucks was removed.This is a good example of prototype “kitbashing”! The Lehigh Valley data sheet shown in the large photo at the top of this page shows the result.
Later, when single trailer cars gave way to 80 ft flats, some of the short-
maintenance of way flat cars. I found the photo below and decided to build one.
I took the same approach as the Le- high Valley and kitbashed mine from a gondola, in this case a 50ft Athearn “blue box” car. The number and spacing of the side ribs wasn’t correct but I decided
to overlook this.The cutting and filing necessary to produce the car wasn’t particularly difficult but the resultant shallow deck was very flexible. In this case the weight would also have to pro- vide the necessary stiffness. I decided to use brass sheet for this.
A challenge arose because I didn’t want to rely on glue to attach the weight. I wanted to use small screws but this proved a challenge because the deck in the Athearn model is very thin. I came up with the scheme shown below.