Pulpwood cars

[ICG/SOU]

Growing up, it seemed that what I used to see were the SIECO cars, with angular bulkheads and 50' or so in length, but since Walthers doesn't make them anymore, I have found some other pulpwood cars, by Walthers, that look like their Canadian bulkhead flats (50' or so), but with stakes. The question I have is what is the length of these other pulpwood cars, and who makes a load for them?

Thanks in advance.

 

[UP2CSX]

Most modern pulpwood cars are based on the Canadian prototype, 60 ft in length and solid or perforated flat bulheads. They decks slope inward toward the center so large logs dont usually need stakes. Stakes are usued when the pulpwood logs are 20 feet in length and need support so they don't start falling off. You also see stakes when you have pulpwood logs that are near the length of the car since there are too many voids to keep the load stable. Before the modern era, pulpwood cars were usually made from cut down obsolete box cars and were 36' to 50' long.

Almost all the loads out there are made for the inaccurate Athearn bulkhead flat car they called a pulpwood car. In reality, almost no pulpwood had the projecting sides since contributed nothing but weight and made the car harder to load and unload. The best looking pulp wood loads are the one you make yourself. Just measure the inside diameter of the car and make a styrene box about about one onch narrower and two inches shorter. Go out to the yard or woods and start gathering fallen twigs. Cut some so they are about half the width of the car and about three times as many that are one inch in length. Glue the short ones to the sides of the styrene box. White glue look fine. They were not loaded neatly so some variation in the way the log ends lays is good. For the top of the car, you have about two inches to fill with the longer twigs. That's about enough for three layer of the longer logs. Again, white glue looks fine. When you're done, you'l have a removable load and it will look great because it's real wood. You can even stain it if you you want a different look. I've never seen a resin load that looked as good as the real thing.

 

[ICG/SOU]

Thanks, Jim.

I have a couple of the Athearn ones (L&N) and yeah, they don't look anything like what I saw as a kid. Southern had SIECO ones through my town (as did ICG) which look like the 60' bulkhead flats, but the deck and sides are different. Unfortunately, no one makes the SIECO ones now (I know Walthers did, but retired them).

I have picked up an Atlas General Steel Car pulpwood flat (38' or 40') in GM&O, and will likely pick up a couple more in that and ICG as I can, since I've found documentation that they were used by my railroads and aren't a freelanced car like the Athearn one.

The ones I see for sale now are the ones like Canadian bulkhead flats, but with stakes. I didn't know if they were 50' or larger since Walthers doesn't say, and no shop here has any...I guess because we don't get a lot of pulpwood here. Anyway, I saw some IC marked ones (black with white lettering, so they were post 1980s) outside of Mobile recently, and decided to add a couple to my collection. I'll take your advice, though, and make my own load.

Thanks for the help.