Model Railroading on the Cheap

    Hillton has an overhead crane (modified Bachmann Signal Bridge) to handle trans-loading of heavy items. We have seen it from the other side of the tracks before. I needed to get some photos from this side of the action. After removing the tall building flat of the refrigerated warehouse at Holden City (held upright on the layout with a magnet) to gain access for the camera, I got a few more pictures.

    An overhead crane can be used for many different kinds of heavy loads, just what a railroad is geared to handle. This kind of traffic on flat cars makes your railroad interesting and colorful. With a little imagination we can come up with a story to support the traffic.

   The car is an old Mantua die-cast metal with imitation (closed) stake pockets and a stamped brass foot-steps riveted on the bottom, it has cast metal trucks with brass wheels and steel axels. It may date from the early 1940s. Mantua advertised the slogan “First in HO”.

Another chore for the overhead crane

    This transformer load would probably pass as an antique. It has a control panel in the middle of the other side but not with much detail.  It’s hard to tell what it was intended to be. It is made of a corrugated aluminum wrapper, a couple of somethings as insulators, a bent tube for ventilation? It is mounted on a wood base with no markings.

    As for the ruggedly built cast metal drop center flat car with unusual heavy bent wire steps upon which it is loaded, the same can be said of it, no markings. I added an ounce of weight hidden under the bottom, used better trucks and couplers and I did the paint and decals but I have had both for too long to remember how or where I acquired them. Still I respect it for what it is a dandy (light weight) tall and heavy looking load that you can’t buy today.

   Sometimes it is fun to resurrect old railroad cars and put them to good use on the layout. With quality trucks and couplers they will perform just fine.