Decorative stones (above left) were poured into a plastic tray and the suitable sized stones were separated out. Using tweezers, the load of “melons” was stacked on a styrene base and affixed with white glue (above center). When the stack of melons was assem- bled, they were painted with Tamyia Flat Dark Green paint. Once that was dry, yellow stripes were applied using a fine brush. The stripes, and a white dot added at the ends, help the melons to visu- ally standout from behind the ventilator door. Strips of basswood were added to represent the door barriers (above right). The whole
assembly was then placed inside the painted carbody where it shows through the door screens (below left). Once the melon load is in place, the roof can be applied and finished. As can be seen in the picture, the author has added some extra interior partitions to the Westerfield carbody to strengthen the sides and to support the roof ridge. The Seaboard Air Line car kit from Wright-Trak (below right) has a one-piece body. The body and the floor were finished separately and the melon load placed on the interior before the floor was inset into the body. Note the added weights at each end.
ons and subsequently thrown into and out of the railway cars. A missed mel- on-catch on loading or unloading could result in bruising that would translate into cracks and damage that would be- come visible at the destination and cre- ate a railway damage report. The shift to the cross-packing alignment oc- curred in the early 1950’s and so mod- elers of that era or later should be care- ful to pack their melons according to the new recommendations! I chose to pack my cars in the traditional, longi- tudinal arrangement to match the 1930’s car configuration. Once the car was filled, boards were usually placed across the door openings to protect the screening of the door from the melons during motion in transit and to also protect the melons from the door. The ventilator side doors had metal rods to give the door strength and a mesh screen to keep out rats and other small animals while the load was in transit. It was general practice that, while in transit, the upper end-ventila- tors would be opened to force the air
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
flow. The lower vents were closed during transit to keep out rain water and road dust. When parked for loading or un- loading the lower vents could be opened to improve the static air flow.
The car models There are a number of fine resin kits
available for watermelon cars in HO scale. I modeled my cars using kits by Westerfield and Wright-Trak Railroad Models. These were assembled more- or-less according to the instructions. Usually I drill all the holes in the castings first and then assemble the box body. For these cars, the load would need to be inserted after the car was painted to avoid over-painting the mel- on load through the screen door, so I deviated from the Westerfield instruc- tions and the roof was not completed until the carbody and underframe were done and painted. A further change in construction
technique was to place the car weights in blocks at the ends of the interior of the body to leave the space clear at the
door for the watermelon load rather than using a long flat floor weight. I usually use scrap tire weights for box- cars, but this time I used some of the rectangular half-ounce lead weights sold in the model shops. These had self- stick adhesive on them, but I rein- forced this with beads of silicone rub- ber caulking to keep them in place forever. As these cars are fun to build, I usually add a few extra details beyond the instructions, as illustrated in the accompanying photos.
Making watermelons I puzzled for quite a while over how
to represent the watermelons. Eventu- ally, after a morning of wandering around the local craft “shoppe” looking for suitable glass beads, I found a bag of small polished stones intended for use as a base filler in flower arranging. The bag had a wide variety of sizes of smooth, oblong stones, and included a significant number that were in the one-eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch range, ideal to imitate the 15- to
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