Charlie,

Thanks for the article.  I especially like the cardboard boxes and have wondered about how to construct them - now I'll make some for my railroad.  If you think about it boxes are almost everywhere in real life.

Rick

Not much shrink wrapping in 1952, when the BC&SJ appears. Not even sure if large barrels would have been handled on pallets in that era. For the modern era, Blue is right, though.

The Presier pallets are nice, but they're a bit too Eupoean in dimension for me.  My prefered pallet is the AM Models HO Scale #501-36 Pallets & Skids (36).  They are nearly square, 4'x4' or so, and look perfect once assembled.

https://tomarindustries.com/am.htm

Thanks for the tip Benny.

Charlie

Joe Brugger wrote:

Not much shrink wrapping in 1952, when the BC&SJ appears. Not even sure if large barrels would have been handled on pallets in that era.

DOH! LOL!

Good point Joe!  Because of Charlies era the plastic wrap would be all wrong.  I guess I was looking at it from my era's point of view.  Sorry Charlie!  Now I'll fix that post. [grin]

When I go to detail a dock on my modern era layout, I'll use the same method of making boxes I think.  I'd like to have a couple loaded pallets with shrink wrap on them and one being broken down by dock workers.

Should I model the whole pallets as one block or make them up with fitted styrene boxes?

A couple of barrels strapped to pallets might make a nice detail on a modern dock too.

The pallets Bernie uses look really good.  Those are what I'd want to use too.

or the company practice.  At the transport refrigeration dealerships I worked at as well as the trucking companies I worked for during my career, lube oils and antifreeze were frequently delivered in 55 gallon drums, often on pallets, sometimes not.  I've never seen them shrink wrapped to the pallets.  They may have been shrink wrapped when delivered to the oil dealer, but generally when delivered to us they came in on a stake bed truck held in place with load straps.  Usually they were not on pallets, but were rolled off the truck onto a lift gate and lowered, but we put them on pallets because it was easier for the mechanics to grab a fork lift and move the barrel to the truck or refrigeration unit they were working on. 

This was particularly true of the trucking companies I worked for.  They were all small companies with relatively simple shop set ups.  The bigger companies  have their oil delivered in tankers and pumped into oil storage tanks.  The oil is then pumped directly from a nozzle on a hose into the truck or refrigeration unit engine.  With the smaller companies, they often would just leave the barrels on a pallet, and move it to the shop bay where they were working on a piece of equipment that needed the oil, antifreeze, etc. by forklift.