thanks brakeman, theres a nice looking picture if a scrathbuilt cattle car on the home page , I noticed its white looking wood , mine are tradithonal burnt orange in color . wonder if I should paint mine white ?
Hi Shawn,
I imagine that would be my scratch built Cattle car your refering to, thanks for the compliment! These cars were more properly named Stock Cars as some could be fitted to carry sheep & Hogs by adding either a double deck. I'm modeling a late 1800's theme to about 1920's as well as my a rural area in my time period so possibly, depending on the time period your modeling, some info may not be relevent.
I intentionally stained the wood with Floquils' thinned Driftwood [light Grey] to give it a very weatrhered look and also should use some thined white to simulate the lime on the inside boards part way up for added detail.
Also I'm sure in earlier times, and probably up until at least the mid 50's, when cows got smarter, the floors of the cattle cars would have been quite a mess as I'm sure the cows were eating and craping considerably during the journey as well as peeing a lot too, not to mentioning what was tracked in from the stock yards when they were loaded.
I'm not sure if they ever learned not to crap in the cars or on one another especially in the tight quarters?
From the 1880's on a new design of stock car was built which incorporated both watering trowths and feeding stalls and each car had a Drover to take care of the animals during their journey to market and hence the need for the Drovers Caboose to house these guys.
The cattle or other animals could only be in transit for 28 hours and then had to be given 5 hours of rest was one of the new humane rules that also came from around that time too.
Another interesting thing, but again from ther earlier 1800's the stock were hauled in open top cars buy even after the roofs were put on the cars the rain could still b blown into the cars too as they were totally open to the elements. A person also has to realize that cattle grazing on the range or in most stock yards were out in the open an being rained on without any real cover and they are used to that.
**The above information was obtained from Wikapedia.
So again, modeling the newer 40' cattle/stock cars things improved a bit more but were still fairly much the same
I was just thinking that possibly candel dripings might make decent cow flaps.
I don't know about being able to paint it though to look correct. Maybe a dark green candel could be used. Of course you could always use bits of melted choclate and have a snack now and then too. That should gross some of the guest out for sure!