Well, I put the finishing touches (for now) on my first military-themed model train project:
The initial inspiration was an on-line heads-up that Menards was offering a pretty good sale price on its nicely detailed deuce and a half military truck, so I ordered a pair, intending to fill an empty Marx flatcar I'd had laying around for some time. Unfortunately, the trucks were a bit too large to fit both on the flatcar, so I either had to do drastic surgery to stretch the flatcar, or use just one, which is the option I chose. I decided to leave the existing center bracket in place, and by moving the one truck forward, I was able to secure it in place temporarily with a couple of rubber bands. Eventually, I will either build some chocks to hold it in place, or add a few drops of "sticky glue" to the tires -- still thinkin' . . . 
But, that left a big empty spot behind the truck, so to fill it, I cut some scrap styrofoam into 1 X 1 X 2 inch cubes, then cut some scrap hardwood laminate I've had laying around for decades to white glue over the sides of the cubes, then decorated the ends with sections of bamboo coffee stirrers I, err, "liberated" from a local bagel shop, then mixed up a roughly olive drab wash and gave the boxes a good coat. I found one box was about right to fill the space, so I secured it to the bed using black jewelry chain and some old wire through the holes on the edge of the flatcar.
Oh, and the flatcar was missing one axle and two wheels on one truck (and yes, the two trucks don't match since I'd swapped another one in earlier to replace one that was missing entirely!), so I had to take an axle that was in my scrap box and grind it down and taper it a bit on my grinder to fit in the truck. So far, it's working fine, but I may have some more work to do. I also decided not to attempt a repaint at this time, and left the original color and decoration.
Speaking of which, any thoughts on what kind of info or lettering should be on the crate? I downloaded a nice stencil font, but haven't thought of anything clever and/or prototypical to put on a military-themed label for the crate.
Here's another view of the completed flatcar, and one of the "scene of the crime" -- my workbench, still in disarray! On it, you can see some of the other crates, one of the core styrofoam cubes, and the leftover olive drab wash, all amongst the scattered tools!
Seems like you have extinguished the fireworks .
)
I'm collecting parts for my S2's that I think will be my next project.
Perfect scene.
) to be living so close to to the rails.
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