[MLC] Logging Flatcars – part 2

Good morning,

the new logging flatcars for the Moody Lumber Company are ready.

Once the side sills were ready for assembling, I took all parts together to create the basic car frames. Once a frame was done, I painted it in my prefered freight car color and laid them into the sun. Once the third frame was also assembled, the paint on the first was already dry, so I could continue work immediately. In the second step, I attached the pre-painted stack pockets and gave the whole car frame a second coat of paint.

As before, I was able to continue work in loops. Once the second coat was dry, I attached the truss rods and final details. I installed the span locks and chain holder from the old log bunks, which will help to secure loads on the flat cars. I also glued and nailed the deck planks in place.

In the last step, I placed each car frame on a pair of disconnects, which are now acting as trucks. Instead of the previous design, the trucks are now permanently mounted to the car bodies, which gave the whole cars mor stability on track. The new cars are now resting in the rebuild train shelf, awaiting the next operation session.

Still missing is the lettering, which will be done some what later, as I’m short on matching stencils at the time.

Regards, Gerd

[MLC] Logging Flatcars – part 1

Hello,

when I cleaned the workshop two weeks ago, I found lots of timber cut-offs and I decided to use them for a project I had in mind for a long time. During the last Moody Lumber operation session at Zürich, I had several derailments with the loaded disconnects. The heavy log loads. Most were caused by the log load. While the disconnect log cars make trouble, the truck based freight cars do not.

So I started to build 3 more logging flatcars similar to the one I made some while ago and I’ll use the disconnects as trucks as I do on the other equipment.

I re-saw the timbers on my little sawmill (circular table saw) to get all the sills, beams and bolsters to make three flatcar frames. Some are already equipped with hardware. Next step is to prepare the side sills and finally assembling and painting of the frames.

Another big advantage on the flat cars is, that I can easily add some gondola walls to haul ballast or other freight as well, so I’m more flexible. And I can choose which kind of lumber/logs I like to haul from huge redwoods, to pulpwood.

Cheers, Gerd

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