Put loads on your freight cars :

It's so easy to create loads for your freight cars... And it could also be a very low-cost operation... No need of special modelling skills ! It's just so easy that it could be done by a kid...

Let's take some examples :

 a ) Steel tubes on a flat car...

 Nothing difficult ! Just take some plastic tubes (like the Plastruct ones) or some recuperation ones. Just paint them flat black, with the ends in Silver (Dark Aluminium also works fine). Just glue them on some layers on your flat car with white glue (yes, it glues plastic!). Once the load in place on the flat car, just add the steel cables that fix them on the car. I use some sewing wire that, once painted, would be just like scale iron cables...

b) Wood load for a Bulkhead flatcar or a Gondola...

To load a car with Pulpwood, here is an easy and inexpensive way that was related in a old issue of Model Railroader magazine... At Xmas time, you'll buy a fine Pine Tree that you won't use after New Year time... Just use the small branches and cut them on right lenght... It'll make a inexpensive and so realistic pulpwood load... Just cut a foam roof for the gondola that will make a pre-load. Then, on this base, put a layer of white glue and put a first layer of pulpwood. Repeat this operation till the car is full. Then, you let this load dry for the night and, the next day, you could drybrush it with a bit of white... It'll be fine, easy to do, and really inexpensive...

c) Coal or gravel load for your Hoppers...

The foam bed could also be used to create a gravel or coal load for a gondola. For the Hoppers, I prefer to use some modelling compound... I make a pre-load, giving him a "coal-load" look, put on a layer of white glue, and put the coal or gravel on it on small bumps... as the top of the load is never flat ! After that, I bond the load with a mix of white glue and water, plus a small drop of dish soap. The load would be the glued like rock, and you'll just have again to highlight it with a small drybrush... For the gravel, I use Woodland Scenics Ballast, but for the coal, I just asked a friend that work in a coal shop to give me some fine coal gravel and dust that I use to load my hoppers. If you've no friend that work in a coal shop like me, just ask at a coal shop... They won't refuse to give you some coal dust that they never use...

That was some examples of easy and inexpensive loads for your freight cars. Just let you imagination work to find other methods (and feedback them to me, I'll put them in those pages...)

The next article will speak about weathering technics..  To help you to wait till January 2000, here are two photographs of my last diorama for wich I used those weathering technics...

A overall view of the Diorama... On the first plan, a Hudson Steamer (plastic kit ameliorated, painted, real coal loading, weathered with acrylics paints and chalks), hand-painted figures, Depot and Freight House fully scratchbuilt out of Balsa wood, village house are Kibri plastic kits updated and weathered. Woodland scenics and Faller ground foam and foliage, trees made from spirea and thymus + foliages (Woodland Scenics). The coache is from Rivarossi (re-painted and lettered, full interior detail with figures), the boxcar (here just the end is shown) is a Bachmann one, repainted, and weathered with chalks). The main line and siding are code 83 Roco Line commercial tracks. The siding one have spaced ties for a more realistic look. The Main ballast is a Foam pre-ballasted bed made for this track (Mossmer like), the Siding is ballasted using Woodlands Scenicks clear gray gravel. The red earth road is made with coke cinders .