Back in the early days of my career, the studio I worked for was hired
to photograph the loading of a very long vessel on a mill gon. Each end
had a idler flat for the overhang. The fabrication company brought out
everything they had for the lift--forklifts, and couple of crawler
overheads and a wide assortment of smaller truck mounted cranes. I
imagine they had to add up the lift capacity of each lifting element to
avoid dropping it. Wish I would have borrowed (long term) the
negatives. That scene would have made a neat diorama, mainly because
'normal' equipment was used for everything.
The Houston area, still having a active fabrication industry still sends
out many similar loads all the time--some via rail and some via barge/ship.
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
On 7/16/13 7:01 AM, Bud Rindfleisch wrote:
Jace, Just as info, the Wisconsin Central/Regal gondola kit was
mistakenly produced in standard gon width. I built one of these way
back when first getting into S around 1965. I recall using the sanding
sealer, etc and filling the hollow center sill with weights. It wasn't
until years later that I realized the width discrepancy.
The kit could be narrowed to proper width easy enough before assembly
and if doing it today, I would either use thin styrene as an overlay
(or just replace the wood altogether) on the sides and use Evergreen
styrene for ribs with Archer rivets on the flanges.
One very neat feature of this kit was the fact that the ends could be
made removable, in the event that one wanted to add an extended I beam
load with idler flats.
Bud Rindfleisch
