Loads for Standard Gauge Gondolas

You might try the little cardboard boxes that raisins come in. Marx used to have little cardboard boxes labeled for stuff like corn flakes and other food stuffs. These were carried in gondola cars.

Styrofoam blocks cut to fit in the cars and rounded over on top can be painted to look like piles of coal or dirt or whatever. Glossy paint would add to the toy-like look.

ca. 1930 Lionel started shipping the 212 and 512 Gondolas with four wooden barrels (#209).

 

Ron M

 

Something I've been meaning to do but haven't got around to yet is making some crates. 

John.

I don't have pictures at the moment but G gauge loads work well for standard gauge gondolas.  Crates,barrels ect.  Give them a high gloss spray to give them more of a tinplate toy look to them. Check out craft stores where they have the doll house accessories. You can find cloth sack loads that have printing on them with there contents. 

when I run my standard gauge on the floor around my train board

at shows, I leave them empty. when the kids come over, if they have a

toy in their hand I have them put it in the empty gondola and they watch

it disappear in the tunnel and come around the other side of the board.

they always smile when their toy "load" is delivered back to where it started!!

I will be putting little Christmas presents nicely wrapped.(cheap)  Another will contain toy soldiers and/or nut crackers(expensive)

You can get repro Lionel Standard Gauge barrels. They come in two kinds - cylindrical ones that look like oil drums and old-fashioned wooden barrels that bulge in the middle. I think Lionel called them wine barrels. The Train Tender and other parts suppliers can fix you up if that's what you decide on. 

LGB made some nice pipe loads that will fill a standard gauge 200 series gon.

Old Lionel small cardboard boxes, light bulbs, contactors, smoke pellets and the like. I saw a guy use that idea on a freight station platform and it really looks cool.

Some great ideas guys. Thank you.

Joe, go to the G Scale section on ebay, and type in "cargo to go" in the search line.  Pallets, crates, sacks, cable reels, barrels, straw bales, cotton bales, lumber, pipe, etc etc.  Great stuff, scaled just right for Standard Gauge.  I use it in my Standard Gauge gondolas. The ones that aren't filled with M&M's, that is.

 

 

 

I have used Starbuck's wooden coffee stirs for lumber, used the sides of Splenda and other food boxes that have an aluminum coating on the inside for sheets of steel, the heavy foil used to seal food containers wrinkled up for metal scrap and pieces of large wooden dowels painted silver for coils of steel. All cheap and light. I used to do a lot of rail photography at the Conway yards in the Conrail days and there would be gondola loads of scrapped rail cars,even the cabs of smaller engines. Some would have the sides of hopper cars laying stacked on the floor so you could simulate that with any old cars or engines that are junk.

Just picked these up at the snack shop at my Grandsons hockey game tonight. Would also look good on the loading platform of a Marx freight station. A bit tongue in cheek, but then we are talking about tin toy trains. Each 6 pack was $3.00. I searched Soda Can Candy and found them at a number of places, mostly more than at the snack shop. For loads in a gondola or on a flat, I would leave them in the package so they don't fall over and roll around.

 http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UT...f=pd_sl_4i5066sn3z_e

 

Steve

 

 

Steve,

Very cool

Crayola Jumbo Crayons...I mean logs

 

original erector set pieces

As I sit here looking at mine,, it sure looks like a 12 oz beer can would fit.  Maybe two standing up.  Haven't tried it, but I don't think my eyes are lying to me.

I have been thinking( ??!!) that an old O or S gauge steam engine shell lashed to a flat car or in a gondola would be a cool load in a Standard gauge car. I need t look at the TCA show coming up for a flat car. I have both the older, smaller freight crs and the newer ones in the 800 series.

...unless they're empty beer cans

I've got two of them.  If they will deliver a six pack, it might be worth getting another.

I braved a foot of fallen and still falling snow so I could field test my theory and I can verify that 4 regular 12 oz cans of your favorite beverage fit snugly in a 512 gondola car.  Almost perfectly in fact, just tight enough lengthways, which will hold the load upright during transit.  I would post a pic, but I understand some people aren't fond of seeing four cans of Milwaukee's Best Ice Light riding in the belly of a prized postwar piece.  Cheers!

Jelly beans.

 

I've run a Lionel #12 gondola on a few SGMA layouts with a jelly bean load and it was very popular. Neat colorful toy themed load. It did make kids want to reach out and touch the train tho...

 

I fabricated a simple cardboard deck insert for the gon to make it more shallow and so use fewer beans, a trick you can do for most any load.

 

 

 

 

Metallic wrapping paper wrapped around an inexpensive toy truck.

 

Andrew

 

We put our gerbil in a boxcar once.  That got a little hectic.

These are fantastic ideas. Very helpful.

 

We once put our guinea pig in a G scale gondola and took her for a ride. 

Whoa, for safety and humane reasons, should that have been a stock car you put the gerbil in?  LOL

 

Ewww, now here's an idea, a stock car loaded with little white mice! Don't know how you'd keep them in the corral during rest stops though!  LOL

Old Erector was said, but you can make a "machine" from them that fits just right.  Old toys or pieces of old toys with colorful appearance.  Like stuff from the old Marx playsets. 

 

I also like other construction sets  Kenner prewar brick and block sets.

MTH has made some nice repro wood "wine barrels" and 55 gallon-type drums in BOTH O gauge and standard gauge sizes. These barrels and drums can be opened and closed.

 

The LGB pipe loads (light gray) come ten to a package and are the original German-made product.

 

The pipes will fill a 200 series gon with room for a couple of barrels at the end.

 

I prefer the wood barrels and drums or the pipes over the more whimsical loads, but that is ME! 

I can definitely see loading them up with candy for a public display type atmosphere.  I can also see a standard gauge sized culvert loader that is rigged to a cooler or fridge loading  3 - 12 oz cans per car and then being delivered to the side of my lazyboy chair.  Now you got something.

CORRECTION:

 

MTH only made the "wine barrels" in the standard gauge size. The drums came in TWO sizes.