Model Railroading > Time to spread a little ballast......

Moving a little ballast using a 45' Difco air activated side dump car.  Great addition to any MOW lash-up!   Mark   <>< 

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Thats quite a load of ballast there. That must be the new WKW Plymouth, no?

Stanley Jackowski
Valrico, FL

Hi Stanley. Yep, big load but these cars are real work horses. You can see them in action on the web side dumping massive amounts of material. The Plymouth is indeed the Walthers unit. DCC and has a built in current keeper that gives it FLAWLESS performance over any kind of poor electrical track work including the dreaded insulated frogs on turnouts. Although I know that the LED lights draw very little current, it was still a bit unnerving to see the headlight still lit a couple of minutes after complete layout shut down!   So pleased, I bought several.  Mark  <><.

Love the weathering on the Difco car.
Purchased Plymouth ML-8 as well, and absolutely outstading with DCC "keep alive" decoder. Runs smoother and better than some of my six axle engines!!
I know its a cost/space issue but looking forward to either dead rail days or at least "keep alives" as standard in all Locomotives.
I would happily pay extra for "keep alive" type decoder in any Locomotive purchase.
Beautiful photo and scenery.

Question, how does one spread ballast from a side dump? these cars were normally used in RIP - RAP  stone service. Wish they would release side dump cab car too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/17 04:58 by EL-SD45-3632.

Probably with a skip loader...or?    Anyway, if you like, you can see a side dump on youtube at      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_7NhUqQ_Ek

One use for side dump delivery of ballast is for grade crossing or turnout replacement projects; an end loader will take it from the stockpile and put in where the old crossing/turnout was.
 

D&RGW  definintely used cars of the type shown above although they also had a fleet of ballast cars which was made up from older offset hart ballast cars, old 2-bay cement hoppers rebuilt into ballast cars, and newer ribside ballast cars which looked abit like the Bethlehem quads.

Cheers, Jim Fitch

railstiesballast Wrote:
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> One use for side dump delivery of ballast is for
> grade crossing or turnout replacement projects; an
> end loader will take it from the stockpile and put
> in where the old crossing/turnout was.
>  

This! Same as stockpiling ballast with a conveyor ballast train. The pile might also be used to make a gravel road on an existing dirt ROW.

To the OP, great work on that dumper! On the bnSF ones i've handled, there are some with their handbrake wheels protected under a steel, pitched hood; this is to deflect stray rip-rap from banging the wheel up.

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