How about grain?
BNSF and UP both run unit grain trains.
You could also do a farm machinery train. All you would need are 50 foot flat cars and any kind of farm tractor or construction machinery.
Will
Maybe ethanol ? Gives you a chance to use longish trains of tank cars (where you can't see if the cars are empty or full), and you could get away with prototypical 26 or 52 car trains closer to smaller ethanol plants - whereas prototype intermodal or coal tends to be longer (100+ car) trains.
Smile, Stein
coil steel.
grizlump
Don't know if the cars are available commercially, but a ribbonrail train would be interestingly different.
Of course, you'd have to run it empty - unless you can find a source for rubber rail.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Grain train of large cylindrical hoppers
tomikawaTT Don't know if the cars are available commercially, but a ribbonrail train would be interestingly different. Of course, you'd have to run it empty - unless you can find a source for rubber rail. Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Okay... so I'm mad... I've been wondering for ages whether it would be possible to heat up old model rail to soften it enough to make it flexible so that - well secured - it could ride on some well weighted flat cars?
Modern very long ribbon rail would need both a very long train and a very long carrying box but some of the earlier ribbon rails were much shorter - the new track having some of the welding done in situ.
Another possibility - for the right era - would be panel track... new to go in or old being removed... maybe for re-use...
Then there are tie trains, ballast trains and spoil trains...
Hey! There's even garbage trains!
don't forget the dried sewer sludge that came out of Chicago on the ICBM.
i don't think heating the rail will help much. as a matter of fact, i don't even want to think about it. i am having enough trouble with a double load of poles and a 120' HO scale I beam using an idler flat in the middle.
Refrigerator cars can be an interesting unit train. In the modern era, Tropicana runs unit trains from Florida up to New Jersey. In the older days, ice-bunker reefers brought produce from California to points east. As an operational train, these add interest because even a through freight of reefers still needed to pull up to icing platforms and be re-iced every few hundred miles across the country.
Today's freight is heavy on intermodal traffic. This is good to model, because you can have a train of similar intermodal cars, but the containers themselves can be a multi-colored assortment, with brand new boxes stacked on abused ones with rust showing.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
wholeman How about grain? BNSF and UP both run unit grain trains.
Thats what I would run, specifically 5161 Trinity's. Check out this video....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bg_V7KA4eE
N Scale Diesels......I like 'em
Jimmydieselfan wholeman How about grain? BNSF and UP both run unit grain trains. Thats what I would run, specifically 5161 Trinity's. Check out this video.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bg_V7KA4eE
That's a nice video. I have 12 of those Trinity's in HO scale in BNSF. They are nice cars. I might buy more though.
OK, I'll toss-in a couple of ideas:
1) a unit train of corn syrup. I recently saw pics of one that originates at ADM in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and is sent to the KCS for hauling to a plant in Mexico.
2) "The Salad Shooter," a solid unit train of modern reefers full of produce, ran weekly by UP from somewhere on the west coast to somewhere...on the east?
3) If you do the ethanol train idea, don't forget the spacer car between the locomotives and the tankers. From what I've seen on the UP, the spacer can be just about anything.
FWIW, I'd love to see someone figure out a rail train, the Continuous Welded Rail type. Aside from getting the rail to flex around our sharp curves, just trying to model all the racks, guides, and what-not would be a challenge.
Chris
The Cedar cRapids Industrial Branch: Proudly Shipping Yesterday's CrunchBerries Tomorrow!
Its not really a unit train, but you could run what my son and I refer to as a special special. 2 diesel locomotives, an empty flatcar,a loaded articulated flatcar with mutiple axles ( I think Walthers makes one) with some type of tranformer or generator load, and then a caboose. We still see these types of trains occasionally in our area.
This looks like a unit train... http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=308160
Wouldn't want to derail there!
Dave-the-Train This looks like a unit train... http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=308160 Wouldn't want to derail there!
YIKES!
I just recalled something that might be a bit more useful to the OP.
If you go with a train of covered hoppers... and use a string of RR or car company/leased hoppers... you can change the load,,,
Sounds daft doesn't it?
What you do is have a car or two in the train that is specifically marked "grain", "rice", "soya" or whatever. By switching just these cars around you appear to get different trains - may help if you change the locos as well... oh, and locate the cars in different places in the consist.
The one snag is that, to avoid contaminating loads, you have to clean out all the RR/leaser cars at each change...
Or... how about this?
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=103647&skip=2
Dave-the-TrainOr... how about this? http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=103647&skip=2
Cool load, and cool picture.
Bob
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