Offloading Bulk Cargo into Containers

Hello, and welcome to a Model Railroad Academy video. I don't know how you're managing your freight cargos on your layout. I try to offload and load cargos on destinations because I think that adds an extra dimension to the freight traffic. So you have your cargo cars and waybills and on the waybill it says what type of cargo you should carry and what, obviously, to offload in the other end. And, you know, when it comes to pallets and lumber and things like that, it's kind of easy because it's just to glue it all together and then remove it from the car at destination. So very easy. But for bulk cargo, it's somewhat more difficult. I tried to offload through holes in the bottom of the car and things like that, but it doesn't really work all that well. But then I came up with this system which I'm gonna present now, a kind of smart cargo system, where you can offload and load also bulk cargos, such as coal, ashes, gravel, things like that on your layout and keep it on the layout. You don't have to put it into a bin and it kind of looks prototypic as well. The different type of bulk cargo, in this case, coal, is glued onto sheets of either plastic or wood. Then I build these type of containers, which has the same size as the cargo itself. And they all have these standoff in the middle which allows me to push on one side and then the other side comes up and it's easy to install and remove both in the container line side and in the car itself. This allows me to load and offload cargo at destinations and also store them on layout. And it all looks kind of prototypic. So now our coal cargo here down in the harbor is ready for departure. So I'm kind of switching this diesel to the cars and then the diesel pulls these coal cars up to my locomotive yard. For longer gondolas, I have two center supports supporting the cargo within the car. This is to, if the cargo is very long, then two supports is good. It can most often be added anyway without damaging the prototypic look of the car all that much. It's simply just an extra pair of beams on the inside. So now we're on destination. I just press on the forward part of the cargo and then insert it into one of those containers. So it's really easy. And the containers can be made from styrene strip and pieces of Northeastern scale lumber like this. So here's the ashes. It's handled in a similar way. This is a standard size European car. And also the sawdust from the sawmill is handled the same way, even though this pile here is on the ground. All right. So not all that tricky, is it, but, you know, just to prepare with some boxes in the right dimension which matches the dimensions of the cars who carries that type of cargo and then you're set to go. And I will expand on this on my layout here. And as said, it's definitely possible, since each of these containers can carry six stacks. So six cargos in each. So you only need like, five and you have up to 30 cars of the same type of material. So quite, quite possible on any layout, I would say. All right, I hope you enjoyed this video and have use for the method presented. Thank you very much for watching. See you in the next one.