Boxcar Grain Loads
by John Carty
photos by Richard Schumacher |
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 On my layout sits the Harrison-Switzer Milling Co. Given my
modeled year of 1955, grain arrives via
boxcar. I lettered a quartet of cars as being leased by the
company owning the mill from my St. Louis &
Belleville Electric.
Since the cars were from Athearn with the requisite
operating doors, I decided to add grain loads. When
bulk grain shipped by boxcar, grain doors were placed within
the door openings of boxcars, usually
reaching about halfway up the opening, to prevent the grain
from spilling prematurely. Most grain doors
consisted of wood, although cardboard braced with boards
also saw usage.
 First I lettered the cars with decals produced using
Microsoft Word and also Champ data sets, which I
secured using Testor's Dull Cote. I then made grain doors. I
scribed part of the cardboard liner from one
of the Athearn boxes every six scale inches using an X-acto
knife. Since the door openings were six scale
feet wide and nine scale feet high, I cut the doors nine
scale feet long and four and a half high. My
seven-year-old daughter, Maggie, painted the doors brown for
me, and I installed them inside the openings
using industrial grade rubber cement.
After installing the grain doors, I measured the inside
dimensions of the car. The interior of the car
measured thirty-eight feet by eight and a quarter. Digging
through some scrap wood, I found some
particleboard, which was nine-sixteenths of an inch thick. I
cut the particleboard into strips measuring
one and an eighth inches (8’ 2”) wide by about five and an
eighth (37’) long. Since it would be difficult
to see the ends of the loads in the cars, the loads need not
reach the ends. On top of these blocks, I
painted thinned white glue. Over this I piled sawdust. I
secured the sawdust using additional diluted
white glue.
After the glue had dried and the car lightly weathered, I
glued the load to the floor of the car. I then
installed the floor into the car body. Now my mill has grain
to grind into flour for the population of
my layout to eat.
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