A removable flat car load

I enjoy having removable loads on open cars.  In the past I've used removable scrap loads in gondolas, removable coal loads in open hoppers, and removable lumber loads on center beam flat cars.  Links to these posts below.

• Removable loads for center beam flat cars
• Removable scrap metal loads for gondolas
• Removable coal loads for Micro-Train hopper cars

This time I wanted to have loads that could be removed from a flat car after it has been offloaded at the team track in Lovelock.  I had some nice Fine N Scale cast resin crates and came up with the idea of crated farm machinery and parts.  With a bit of research I was able to determine that a major John Deere facility was in East Moline, Illinois and in my era would have been served by the Burlington Northern.  No BN flats in my collection so I used a CB&Q which was one of the BN predecessors.

To create a false deck I cut a section of Evergreen V groove siding to fit the length and within the post holes on a Micro-Trains 50 foot flat car.  The pattern closely matched the existing pattern on the deck of the car.  This sheet is only .020 thick so would not add a noticeable thickness to the deck.  One section was cut off at each end of the sheet and glued to the car deck with ACC so that the remaining sheet would fit within those two end pieces. 

The crates were painted with Vallejo Iraqi sand and after that dried, were given a light wash with Model Master black detail wash.  I was able to make some 1970's era John Deere decals from a photo on the internet and applied those to the sides of the crates.  Both the false deck and the deck of the flat car were painted with Model Master box car red which is a very close match to the original paint on the flat car.

To hold the false deck in place from side to side I made bars from staples and inserted them into the stake holes along the sides of the flat car.  Only three were needed as the brake wheel stand will do the job in that corner of the car.  They are hardly noticeable so shown here before being painted to match the rest of the car.

HO scale 2x4 wood was cut and stained with Model Master brown detail wash and glued to the deck with canopy glue.  The crates were also secured to the false deck with canopy glue.

Here is the finished project.  The false deck with the load rest securely between the sections on the ends and the rails along the sides but can be lifted off the car by picking it one of the crates. Not much to weather on a flat car but I did weather the trucks in the same way shown in my previous post on the covered hopper.