Moving melons by rail
of strokes that followed the length of the melon. I also added a white dot at the ends to represent the disinfectant applied to the stem-root.
Strips of basswood were added to rep-
resent the door barriers, and then the whole assembly was placed inside the al- ready painted carbody so
it showed
The Seaboard 36-foot V9 produce car (above) is loaded with watermelons visible through the ventilator door. This model was built from the Wright-Trak resin kit. A total of 1,500 of the rail- road’s class V9 cars, Nos. 2800-29249, were produced for the Seaboard by Chickasaw Car Company of Fairfield, Alabama, in 1922. A further 900 class V9 cars (8900-8999) were also built in 1922 by Pullman. Many cars were rebuilt over the years and a few remained on the roster until the mid-1960’s. This FEC car (below) is from Westerfield kit No. 6301 and is mod- eled with the ventilator door offset to the left and the general freight door in place. Florida East Coast 17002 was one of 500 cars purchased by the railroad in 1920 from the Standard Steel Car Company. They follow the basic USRA steel underframe car design of 1919 with the addition of end vents and the second side door with four vents. Although they had FEC re- porting marks, the 17000-series cars were owned by the Florida East Coast Car Ferry Corpo- ration and leased to the FEC. A second series of 400 cars was delivered in 1923-24, but dif- fered in details of ladders and the side and end vents. The USRA design was famous for leaking roofs and most cars were rebuilt with new roofs and appliances during their service. The last few cars from the later series stayed on the FEC roster until the early 1960’s.
through the door screens. While painting the stripes may seem to be overdoing it, in fact it is the stripes that show through the door screen and lead the viewer to recognize the watermelon load. With the melon load inside the car the roof could be applied and finished. As can be seen in the illustrations, I usually add some extra interior parti- tions to the carbody to strengthen the sides and to support the roof ridge. Af- ter the roof was glued in place the final roof details were added and the roof painted after masking the previously painted sides. The Seaboard car kit had a one-piece
body. The body and the floor were fin- ished separately and the melon load put in place before the floor was set into the body. The Atlantic Coast Line car was so
much fun to build that I purchased some additional watermelon car kits, including the Florida East Coast car from Westerfield and the Seaboard Air Line V9 car from Wright-Trak models.
Mike Shchepanek and Tom Hood modeled this ACL class O-15 series car as it might have appeared in its later years in 1946 (be- low). By this time the roof and doors had been replaced and the underframe refitted with modern AB brake appliances, Ajax brake wheel and cast steel truck frames. It has the standard style reporting marks of the time and the simplified Atlantic Coast Line herald. Typically, loaded produce cars such as this would be marshalled at the head end of the train to reduce possibility of cargo damage due to violent slack run- in experienced by cars at the back end of the train. This blocking provides an addi- tional detail for the switching crews to master on operating nights.
24-inch size of market watermelons in HO scale. I sorted through the bag un- til I separated what I thought would be enough stones of the right size and shape to represent melon loads. To model the load I cut a piece of styrene sheet about the size of the floor area visible through the door. The stones/melons were then affixed in lay- ers with white glue to make a load about five high.
When the visible stack of melons was assembled, they were painted with Tamyia Flat Dark Green, and once that was dry, yellow stripes were ap- plied using a fine brush. The stripes were randomly applied but in a series
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