Skip to main content

Modeling Loads: Utility Poles

Modeling Loads: Utility Poles

By: Jack Pappas
As I have grown my model train collection, I have gotten to the point where my gondolas and flatcars need loads to make the trains look more realistic. I have tons of ideas for loads and most of them involve scratch building the loads. Today we will take a look at how I built this utility pole load.

The completed load in a Western Pacific 52' Mill Gondola.

I started off with wooden dowels (1/8"x12") obtained from Woodcraft. These came to close to a scale one foot in diameter and 86' in length.  I also obtained dunnage in the form of 1/16"x1/16"x36" balsa wood from Hobby Lobby. Other materials used were India ink, alcohol (71% or 90% works), sand paper, a drill, a cutting saw, and some spare time. I knew that 1' diameter poles would be hard to find a prototype of, especially from the era I model (1965), so I took some modelers license when building this load.
All the tools I used in this process after the dowels had been cut in half.

I started the load by cutting the scale 86' poles in half to 43' so I could have more poles in the load and place it inside a 52' gondola. I experimented with inserting the dowels into the drill and sanding the top three quarters of the pole to attempt to get a taper on the pole. Tapering a dowel this small proved to not be worth the time, as the taper is hardly noticeable when completed. I tapered about 20 poles, but left the rest unsanded and untapered.

The staining process took place with a mix of india ink and alcohol. I learned a lot on staining wood with this method, especially from this article by Mike Chambers. I mixed roughly 3/4 teaspoon of india ink with 12 oz. of 71% isopropyl alcohol in a small mason jar and thoroughly mixed it. Next I started by brushing the solution onto the dowels. This stained them, but not dark enough for my liking. The second coat of stain was applied by dipping half of a group of dowels in the jar at a time. Once the bottom half had dried for 10 minutes, I flipped them over and stained the other half. This produced the final result of the poles in the load.

A view of the staining process. The alcohol/india ink mixture is in the jar at right and the stained wood dries on the left.

For the dunnage, I wanted to form a U to cradle the poles. I started by cutting the balsa wood to fit the bottom of the Walther's Proto 52' mill gondola. Next I cut two 1" pieces of wood for the sides of each U. Once everything was cut and test fit with the poles, I glued the U's together with white glue. Once the glue was dried, I dipped each piece of dunnage in the staining solution 3 times. I did this to simulate old dunnage, which when weather-beaten will be much darker than the wood being transported.

Once all the stains and glue had dried, I began assembling the load. I used white glue to secure everything together since it dries clear. I started by placing the dunnage in the gondola. I wanted the loads to be removable so I did not glue the dunnage to the bottom of the gondola and was careful to not get any glue between the wood and the gondola. To add the poles, I carefully added 3 lines of glue along the bottom of the dunnage, and stacked the poles one by one. When adding poles you don't want all the ends to line up, as the prototype loads were never carefully stacked. Once all the poles were glued in, I let the load sit in the gondola drying for 4 hours. Once the glue had set, I lifted the load out of the gondola, flipped it over and added more glue along the outside of the dunnage to firmly secure it in place.


The result of all this hard work is a nice removable load that will fit in on anyone's model railroad! Some alterations you could do would include adding more or less stain, using a different stain (adding brown ink with the black), using longer or shorter poles, attaching the load to a flatcar, and many more.

Happy modeling!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**All photographs taken by me.

Sources:

Chambers, Mike. 2008. Inking Stripwood. <https://rustystumps.com/RSSMDownloads/Inking%20Stripwood.pdf>

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Santa Fe Mail Trains.

Santa Fe Mail Trains History: Mail trains on the Santa Fe are interesting historical and modeling topics. The Santa Fe had an ideal mail route with a mainline stretching to the California coast and connections to eastern roads in Chicago. I will be focusing on trains running from the 1950s into 1968. While the Santa Fe had mail contracts before this, the equipment used from the 1950s to 1968 generally stayed the same during this period. The Santa Fe's main mail train was the Fast Mail Express, trains 7&8. This train ran from Chicago to Los Angeles with service to Oakland via Barstow. The Fast Mail was made up of all baggage/mail/express cars including lightweight and heavyweight baggage cars, railway post offices, express boxcars, express reefers, flexi-vans, and container on flatcars (COFC). The distinguishing feature of this train was the coach on the rear. This coach was required by law so paying passengers could ride the first class train. The train usually consisted
2 comments
Read more
Great Northern Mail Trains History: The Great Northern Railway had a large part of the Post Office mail contracts serving the Pacific Northwest. The first dedicated mail train was the Fast Mail which began service in 1909 between St. Paul and Seattle. This train had a working railway post office (RPO) and carried any combination of mail/express/baggage cars in and out of Seattle. Before 1941, all cars in the consist would have been painted Pullman Green with gold leaf lettering. The consist of the early Fast Mail trains would have been baggage and storage mail cars with a RPO in the mix and a coach on the rear. This coach acted as a caboose for the crew, and allows passengers to ride the train. Beginning in 1941 and becoming more prevalent in the post-WWII era, more and more cars, including heavyweight storage mail cars were painted in the Empire Builder Scheme. Also in the post-war era, newer express refrigerator cars and express boxcars were used. These cars came in the Empire
Post a Comment
Read more

Review of Great Northern 30' Steel Cabooses

Great Northern 30 foot Steel Cabooses (X199, X229, X250 to X270, X271 to X294) The Great Northern Railway built almost all of its cabooses in-house at the St. Cloud shops just west of St. Cloud, Minnesota. This series of cabooses was built between August 1941 and October 1951. They were constructed completely of steel and measured 30 feet long, 11' 5" to the roof, 14' 6 3/4" to the cupola roof, 10'2" wide, and weighed 57,1000 lbs. The majority of these cars were built after 1945 once world war II was over and steel rationing was over. The cars were equipped with Bettendorf swing motion trucks, 33" wheels, and an underside mounted tool box. The ends of the cars were outfitted with steel handrails, brakes, and handrails. GN X252 in Caboose tracks at Hillyard, WA. Photo by Jerry Quinn The modern cars were painted Scarlet Red with red and black end platforms and under bodies. The entire body, including the underside of the roof extensions and end fas
Post a Comment
Read more