Quit yanking our chain. How'd you get those huge Kadee couplers on a prototype hopper? Great job!
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Nice catch.
The tie plant near the BNSF (formerly BN) yard in Galesburg IL frequently gets loads of old ties in hopper cars (also interesting GS type gondolas) and they are loaded just like in your picture and model. Coal hoppers and coal gons went through such rapid changes in the late 1960s to the 1990s that it would seem there are fairly recent cars available that are no longer needed in the coal service for which they were built. In the old days a coal hopper would be used basically until it had to be retired.
That tie plant, which I had the good fortune to tour years ago during a CB&Q Historical Society Convention, takes old ties and through a process of injected resins and high pressure, makes "new" usable ties out of them again - in fact due to the injected resins the useful life might be longer the second time around!
They even have a neat little narrow gauge railroad to serve the heating and pressure plant. It was explained to us that some of the automated track laying machines of the 1950s - 70s would chop a tie in half and toss out the ends to either side, (I have seen such machines at work) but in time it began to be seen as wasteful if the tie could be salvaged provided it was removed intact. I have a 1930s era track cyclopedia and even back then they were bemoaning the rapid decline of trees suitable to providing ties.
A tie plant could be a neat industry on a model railroad, and maybe some Z gauge track could be used for the narrow gauge!
Dave Nelson
Ties are also shipped in gondolas to co-generation facilities to be destroyed, although not necessarily loaded in quite such a tidy manner.
Formerly it was quite common for old railroad ties to be given away or sold for landscaping purposes but today they are considered hazardous waste because of the creosote, etc. Potential long term liability concerns means the railroads want to make sure that the old ties are safely gone forever.
John
Nice work, Kyle, and I also like the job which you've done on those hoppers with the stone loads.
Wayne
Nice, the CB&Q lettering is still visible on that one.
Vincent
Wants: 1. high-quality, sound equipped, SD40-2s, C636s, C30-7s, and F-units in BN. As for ones that don't cost an arm and a leg, that's out of the question....
2. An end to the limited-production and other crap that makes models harder to get and more expensive.