Model Railroading on the Cheap

I was raised with a Farmall H.

     Hauling a row-crop tractor on a stake body truck reminds me of what we did at my first job after graduating from high school at the farm machinery dealer where I worked.  After removing blocking and tie-down wires, we drove them off the side of the flat car onto the stake body truck. Then drove the truck around the corner to a wooden ramp and drove them off the truck and down the ramp to the shop. Kind of a two-step operation to ground level. Then we had to remove the rear wheels and turn them around – being dish shaped they had been mounted on the axles backwards, making the tractor more narrow for shipping, – getting more tractors to a car load. As I recall the tractors were placed on the flat car so close together that a man could not pass between them. There were other chores like deflating the tires from 40 lbs (hard for less bounce during shipping) to about 12 lbs. for normal operation, attaching optional equipment such as hydraulic lift, belt pulley, power takeoff, headlights and extra weight for improved traction.

     These Tractors are by LifeLike and are nicely scaled, but to be correctly colored, need to have the wheel rims painted aluminum and then those very tiny decals from Odd Balls Decals of Kansas applied. The Farmall model H or M by International Harvester-McCormick-Deering of Chicago was a popular tractor in the 1940s and 50s. Some of them are still being used today. I feel qualified to judge these model tractors from experiences acquired in my teen years on the farm fields and the job at the dealership.

     Here these close-up shots represent a scene I participated in as a young man of 18 unloading Farmall tractors off the flat car.  I took these larger than life pictures on my layout with a Sony T100 digital camera in close up mode. The truck has had a body swap and a bit of weathering paint. These tiny decals are the smallest I have ever attempted. This was quite difficult for me. Maybe I am getting too old for them. I solicited help with this job of painting the wheel rims and the decals which are properly scaled and colored and reminiscent of events of the 1950s.

     I think the Farmall tractor by LifeLike is a good scale representation of the real prototype. After a bit of research I learned that the International Harvester Farmall H built from 1939 till 1953, created 27.9 HP on the belt and 25.5 HP at the drawbar. Of greater interest to HO scale modelers is that it was 10.5 feet long and 6.3 feet tall at the steering wheel with rear wheel diameter of about 6 ft. The Model M built during the same time could use the same mounted implements, was about 10% larger, and about 25% more powerful generating 36 hp. on the belt. Production lasted 14 years and 290,000 units. In 1954 they changed the sheet metal a bit calling them 300s & 400s then later 350s & 450s with higher compression ratio engines with more power and better hydraulics and auxiliary control.