Ideas for a 1960s/70s Austrian wagon load?

[jameshilton]

Chaps - I'm looking for ideas, photos and inspiration to load my open wagons on the EJ&KLR.
The line could be agricultural or forestry, it's not fixed yet - I've tried looking for farm and forestry equipment models for under £20 that I could bash myself but not much luck...

So far I've considered:
The Bruder Unimog bashed to be a forestry vehicle: http://www.scalefarm.com/d-02471_sc...nz_unimog_with_loading_platform_and_winch.htm < Link To http://www.scalefarm.com/...platform_and_winch.htm (Bit cliched as it's the same as the one shipped with hundreds of LGB starter sets)

The Bruder log splitter: http://www.scalefarm.com/d-02303_scale-1-16-bruder_bruder_posch_log_splitter_with_4_logs.htm < Link To http://www.scalefarm.com/...litter_with_4_logs.htm

A big set of tractor wheels: http://www.scalefarm.com/d-02014_sc...r_twin_tyres_with_white_rims_02000_series.htm < Link To http://www.scalefarm.com/..._rims_02000_series.htm

A Bruder hedge cutter: http://www.scalefarm.com/d-02579_scale-1-16-bruder_bruder_bush_mower_attachment.htm < Link To http://www.scalefarm.com/...h_mower_attachment.htm

A tractor trailor: http://www.scalefarm.com/d-02205_scale-1-16-bruder_bruder_vacuum_tanker.htm < Link To http://www.scalefarm.com/...uder_vacuum_tanker.htm



Any other ideas? Or prototype photo inspiration please!!?

 

[jameshilton]

I've been trawling all my photos and books and all I can find is open wagons loaded with timber!! I do plan on a timber load for my 10 plank open wagon - but it's the low 2 plank one I'm struggling for ideas with...

 

[ladyb]

Bruce suggests looking out for the pola lanz bulldog tractor kits. They are often quite expensive but are sometimes available on special offer.

Guagemaster have got a discontinued item sale on at the moment but we do not know if they have anything like this.

 

[jameshilton]

Thanks Gillian - and thanks Bruce too...
I've trawled Google and have found the Lanz Bulldog - looks perfect - problem is now tracking one down!

 

[jameshilton]

I managed to track down a Pola kit of the Lanz tractor from G&M Farm Models for a very reasonable £25 (compared to the £50+ ones from Germany) so I'm looking forward to having a load for the open wagon - and something a little bit different to all the timber loads in my other wagons.

 

[jameshilton]

Bruce - I know what you mean, they seemed very expensive for what they are at £50+, but £25 seems much more reasonable.

I discovered that although my kit was complete, it was without instructions so I've spent a pleasant day relaxing, working it out myself and assembling the kit. The only modifications to the finish are I have painted the brass steering control wires black, otherwise this is how it builds out of the box. An excellent kit, and despite being 20 odd years old, one that went together very well.

and of course I had to put it on a wagon and see how it looked!

 

[ladyb]

Pefect I would say James - as you say it will make a change from all the log wagons you see

 

[jameshilton]

 

[trammayo]

It looks a nice model (always reminds me of the Field Marshall) and a nice load too.

As you say the models are pricey unless you get a bargain. I bought the Goli 3-wheeler at about 70% below market price - well detailed - but I suppose they consider themselves specialist suppliers (as indeed they are).

 

[dunnyrail]

James, yes the Lanz looks good but it is not the ordinary everyday type of load that you would see on a Railway (unless it had a Lanz Tractor factory). You know that boring old stuff that the railway moves every day. So why not make the load removable and add a few different loads to change things now and again. First would be to make a false floor or two, then you can chain the Lanz down so that it looks like it will not move about. Other loads could then be made and swopped at will. I have not yet had time to look at my pics of Austria to see what the Low Open you have could take. But New or Spent ballast would be a good bet for two loads. Then you could make up a load of packing cases, old bits of Timber well sanded and made to look like packing cases with lines drawn on carefully with a pencil work well.
Hope this gives you some more inspiration,
JonD

 

[C&S]

A load covered with a tarpaulin can save a bit of work. Just use a shape made from scraps of wood and cover with an old handkerchief, or a scrap cut from a worn out pillowcase, painted with oil paint to harden it. I think I have a picture somewhere of a load of hay being transported on a German railway; as the load is light it completely fills the loading gauge - makes it look like they're carrying a barrage balloon! When I locate it, I'll add it here.

Edit: This is it. Actually a 1914 picture, though I don't see why hay or fodder shouldn't have continued as a load. By the 1960s it might be those oblong bales, so the tarpaulin shape would perhaps be squarer.

 

[jameshilton]

Fantastic - thanks guys.
Yes the Lanz will be removeable. I'm going to do some log loads for my other open wagon next, and then I might do an alternative load for this wagon. It's good to have a bit of variety, rule 8 etc, but really all I need is lots and lots of different timber loads if I am truly just replicating Austrian narrow gauge.

 

[garrymartin]

I have just returned from the pub after a refreshing pint or 3, whilst there I notice part of a christmas decoration that included 3 bells, of differing sizes. These could have been painted to look more prototypical, mounted on some wooden beams,put on a truck & off they go to one of your local churches.
Storage tanks, anything that could be bashed to look like one & painted .
Lake in the area of your railway ? then some sort of boat could be utilised as freight.
Using the Tarpaulin as a disguise method, get some air drying clay & make some sack shapes to represent animal feed/ fertiliser which by this period was sold in polythene sacks. make enough to go around the edge ( With your daughter ), paint up, fill the void in the middle with somethig to keep the weight down , then a tarpaulin over the top.
In fact all the methods described in this thread could be used to give 1 flat wagon a multitude of looks.

 

[vannerley]

Some interesting replies! Breitfuss Die Pinzgauer Lokalbahn, p. 48,, does indeed have a pic of four bells being moved on a two-plank wagon in 1941 ... bell metal is very similar to gun metal and they were off to be smelted down. Ballast, whether old or new, would not really be appropriate as all the n.g. lines had Draisine for the Bahnmasterei, with their own small low sided trailers.

There is a nice picture in Bahn-im-Bild 25 Die Steyrtalbahn, p. 92, of a short train on the former Bad Hal branch with a 2pw carrying a plough. Such wagons were used for bound stacks of sawn timber sometimes (Rabanser & Hebenstreit Die Bregenzerwaldbahn, p. 95) and I have seen - this summer - bits of a loco sitting on one at Steyrlokalbahnhof.

Broadly speaking, post 1960 practice was not to carry hay - standard gauge vans would take it to the nearest siding and then granny* would spend the day pitch-forking the bales into a farm vehicle. By this stage OeBB had a policy of turning down difficult loads on the n.g. as they wished to be shot of the lines by fair means or foul ... a policy aim that they have now achieved.

The trouble is that these lines only had one freight train a day as a rule so that pix of them are relatively rare and very few of the published examples show a 2pw in the train. This might also be because the OeBB had very few such wagons ... maybe because there was little call for them?

Stick with the tractor, I'd say!

* Austria has a special breed of frighteningly fit grannies ...