Well Captain Brilliant here again and looking for some suggestions. Lets start with this. I have had these 20 plastic rods (only 18 pictured) in a container in my work bench for way too many years. They are left overs from a couple of Rix bridge kits. I was watching a rail cam the other day and saw a load of what looked like aluminum rods on a bulkhead flat and inspiration struck. Here's what I can do with those rods. Threw a coat of paint on them Let them dry and proceeded to make the loads this morning. So far so good but I was so inspired, I forgot a basic rule of building a load, make sure it fits the car before starting, DOH!!!! So, now for the ask for suggestions. Do I cut them down so I can cave two stacks on the bulkhead flat, use them as is on that yellow flat behind the bulkhead car, or do a single stack load on the bulkhead flat like this? I'm leaning toward cutting them down but would love to hear some thoughts?
I saw that load on Railfans cam on a bulkhead going through Flagstaff the other day. I also saw some shorter loads spread out on a center beam in the same train. Center beams aren't just for lumber loads. As far as long stacked loads of Aluminum bar/rods go just remember Aluminum still has lots of weight. I hauled Aluminum ingots out of North Carolina once. They weren't stacked to high and was surprised that it didn't take a lot of them to get to 80,000 lbs total for the truck ! That being said...I like the looks of the stacked load centered on the bulkhead. JMO
I think all of the options are good plus a stack in the middle of a flat car without bulkheads would be another option. My first choice would be to cut them down so they fill the bulkhead flat car.
A special picture for someone and he knows who he is........ Boughs of Pine OD Green......Really..........
Okay, now that I got that out of my system back to the boring stuff. For the aluminum rod load I messed on, I got the parts cut down and glued back together. You can see the new stack of future gondola scrap off to the side. When that dried, assembled the stacks and started work on the banding. Looks like a mess. Got one stack done and had one band left for the other. Here's the one that's done. Think it is going to work out good now. They will need a little touch up paint and some straps to secure them to the car. I may use some yellow or beige thread for those tie downs instead of black. Not sure yet, I started working on some fixes in this area over the weekend. I painted over the screws that hold on the fascia (I fixed the little paint run after the picture) and started building the cover for under the switch controllers. I need to figure out what I'm doing with that panel where the DCC/DC switch is. It was my one mistake on cutting the fascia. I'm thinking a little filler putty, sanding and touch up paint should do the trick. I installed metal wheels on 6 more cars too but other than that, I really accomplished a whole lot of nothing.
I think you accomplished a lot. Very nice work on the loads. I think the fascia will look fine when you are done with it.
I like the loads, but I think it should only be 2 high stacks. 3 high would overload your car. Either a single long stack 2-high centered on your car, or 2 shorter, 2-high stacks at the car's ends. FRA might cite you for overweight lading!
