range of 54 to 60 inches to about 48 inches in order to fit two logs across the width of the car.
Maple twigs cover my backyard by the ton, and they can represent many hardwoods. There are also plenty of cedar and other evergreens around here. Small holly twigs and dried climbing rose stems added variety, but small birch twigs are dark and don’t look at all like birch logs. For that species I found sticks with a bark that, except for color, looked passably like birch. However, a few coats of thin white craft paint followed by some Payne’s gray scars fixed that. The logs were glued in place with
Weldbond®
glue. Part way up the load I realized that only the outside faces of the lower logs would be seen, so where logs did not fit tightly next to each oth- er, noticeable gaps were filled with short snips of smaller twigs. The stubs would be hidden by the rows above it. The top row needed extra care to make
Small bumps and dents in the gondola (top) were created with the heat from a low wattage soldering iron. A pine block was cut as a filler to reduce the amount of logs need- ed. It is ¹₈″ lower than the car sides, and the stacked pulpwood logs (twigs) were glued to it. Bamboo skewers (below left) were blast- ed with a heat gun and slightly bent to make standing logs at the end of the car that hold the load. The logs (below right) show the va- riety of shades and colors for the pieces.
paints were applied thick, thin, very wet or almost dry. A few spots were scraped to “debark” some paint. Notches were filed into the ends of the pine to hold the standing logs. The block was glued into the gon and the posts were glued in place.
Because the NEB&W strives for ac-
curacy, I searched on-line for 1950 northeast pulpwood and found that be- sides fir, pine, hemlock and spruce, hardwoods like maple, poplar, birch, beech and other species made up a smaller percentage of the forest har-
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
vests. The trees cut for pulp were too crooked or small or dead, or had too many low branches to be used for lum- ber. The dead twigs I gathered reflect- ed that mix. (Popping them in an oven set at a low temperature eliminated any stowaway tiny critters). Most trees cut for pulp were between three and 15 inches in diameter. That is noticeably smaller and a broader size range than most models loads I have seen, so even with the pine block there was a lot of chopping to fill the gon. I also reduced the log length from a prototypical
sure that no glue was visible yet have the logs remain securely attached. When all the logs were finally
loaded, the top layer showed a lot of hardwood. Since most of the logs would have been fir and pine, a bit more acrylic paint quickly “converted” them. The result looked passably like the old photos, something the men actually loading those gons never had to worry about. After that, I cut a piece of cake– with maple walnut frosting–looked over the finished cars and wondered what would be next.
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