On Deck

I think this will be my next truck project...marrying an Athearn Freightliner COE to a grain body.

Jack, Love your work. Grain

Jack,

Love your work. Grain trucks are such unique beasts.

I imagine many are built in farm workshops all over the US.

If only I could get truck models like this in O scale 1:48 to bash.

Regards Daryl

Looks like one of our old

Looks like one of our old grain trucks my dad used to own,  Like the red bed with pinstripe.  

One thing to note, on my dads grain trucks is the last axle is a dead axle or tag axle on all the grain trucks and would lift up when not in use. 

For what ever reason it is hard to find a grain truck with the axle lifted

Nice looking trucks

Some really nice looking trucks you have.

Athearn grain trucks

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but the Athearn model does not have a grain door in the back panel. Seems odd, since back in the day those rear panels were fixed. But, it's the primary game in town. Small detail.

Remember, that in the 1960s and 1970s, grain elevators had lifts to dump the grain from regular trucks and flatbed tractor trailers. If you see a truck enclosure with a tall door on it, it probably had a lift dump for tractor trailers. This was before the era when most grain trucks had built in hydraulic lifts.

70s in General

Like the grain trucks! 
 

‘’Joe

"I don't know if anyone has

On my dads trucks they all had a small grain door in one one of the back gates.  Once the grain was almost done draining you would open one or both gates to finish the transfer.   Some of the grain trucks had what looked like a solid back, but it pivoted at the top like a dump truck.  All The trucks were Dump Truck style with a lifting bed.  

My dad worked in Arizona and Texas shipping the equipment between Arizona and Texas via rail flatcar  Cotton Pickers and Combines back and forth,  Seems the season between the states were shifted to that point that he could work year round as one season ended the next started etc.  When shipping my dad would load the pickup tucks and Supply/Parts trailers (I still own one of those trailers) into the back of the grain trucks,  Then load grain trucks onto the flat cars.  

Back to the grain doors,   Why the gates...?  It was to avoid this...

Canadian grain trucks

I grew up on a grain farm on the Canadian Prairies and am intimately familiar with grain trucks as that was my job during harvest from 15 to my early 20's.  We had a 1965 Chevy with a wood box with hydraulic lift (box was later replaced with a steel box), 2 mid 70's Chevy trucks with hydraulic lift steel boxes, one with a single rear axle and one with a tandem rear axle.  As well there was an early 1980's International with tadem rear axles and a steel box.  It's box (also hydraulic lift) had curved sides for increased capacity - it was the "big" truck.  

All boxes had a small dump door on the rear as previously stated and a large rear door that could be swung open to clear the remaining grain when the box was empty.  The wooden elevators had limited capacity to move the grain out of the unloading hopper so you had to use the small door to control the grain flow.  And in spite of all your best efforts you always seemed to have to shovel out the back corners of the box.  

 1976 single axle grain truck - cheap camera and cheap film so not so great image.

 Wood boxed grain truck and Cockshutt combine in 1975 on my family farm.  You can see the center grain unloading gate on the back of the truck.  

Great Conversation

Thanks for the feedback and insight gentlemen. Great thoughts and photos!

Here's a very preliminary mock-up of the Freightliner. Lots of work and painting to do yet:

And good call on the missing rear grain door. I will add one to the Athearn bed, doing something similar to what I did on the Promotex gravel trailer gate:

Marc: love that Cockshutt combine!

Cheers,

Jack    

Gravel trailer gate

Jack,

I love that gate - was it part of the original trailer, or did you add it?  If you added it, how did you do it?

You have some great modeling

You have some great modeling going on here!

I'm also a grain truck nut and I've built up a small fleet over the years. I have one of those red and white Mack R tractors, too. Great minds think alike, huh? 

Here's an overview of the fleet:

The Super B was built from some Walthers containers, a Lonestar trailer for the hopper bays and some American Limited container chassis for the suspension and wheels. The hopper bays were donated by the trailer being pulled by the orange frame Freightliner which has a new super hopper bay made from brass sheet.

Here is a comparison of the super hopper I made from brass sheet and a new improved 3D printed version:

I've got a few more in the works based on the Lonestar Wilson Pacesetter trailer, but nothing else complete yet. 

Grain Chute

Thanks Jeff!

I made the chute sides by cutting off the ends of a spare locomotive cab sunshade. I used styrene strip for the bottom of the chute. The opening mechanism is brass wire bent to shape and mounted using a pair of uncoupling lever brackets.

I spliced together two Athearn 20' container chassis as an underframe for the shortened Promotex bed. A benefit is being able to easily swap landing gear, raised or lowered 

Wow Ryan

Your truck models are fantastic...and the weathering is superb! There's something very utilitarian about those Mack R models  The red and white scheme just screams grain truck to me for some reason. Love your Transtar COE too!

I was perusing your website and Shapeways store. Great stuff. I'll be placing a parts order. lol

Jack  

Thanks, Jack. Very clever use

Thanks, Jack.

Very clever use of the Athearn container chassis under that dump body. And the gate is a nice touch. That's just too cool using a sunshade for that!

I've got some grain pups sketched out in AutoCAD but nothing printed yet. The two pups I have were cut up from a Lonestar trailer. I printed a Fruehauf dump trailer awhile back that turned out pretty good (though it was expensive), so I'm hopeful the grain pups will turn out as nice. Here's one of the dump trailer:

This is as far as I've gotten on the pups:

Progress

Made more progress on the Freightliner this week. Here's the original victim:

and here's where I am so far:

Thanks to the great comments and insight on this thread, I added a rear chute to the Athearn grain box and was sure to provide the driver with a shovel

More details to add this coming week, like the extra large fuel tank, mudflaps, license plates, etc. But it's getting close!  Thanks again for the conversation and inspiration. 

Jack

Ryan H

By the way Ryan, that Fruehauf trailer looks awesome! That's some incredible modeling my friend!

Jack

The coe freightliner grain

The coe freightliner grain wagon.

Really looks the part don't forget to add a light grain dust to the cab roof.

Ran those cabovers and the roof was a catch-all for the cement dust we delivered

More progress

More work on the truck...as well as the rail-to-truck auger. 

Ryan - your extra large fuel tank worked great!

@ Vince

Vince - I will definitely add spillage to the roof, great call. Is that your Kenworth behind you in your profile pic? Nice.

Help id'ing a grain truck?

JD,

I'm wondering if you can help id the grain truck or provide any helpful information from these two photos of a grain truck that I eventually want to model in 1/25 (I think there is a 1/25th cabover kit) for my 1/29 layout stuff.

About all I can figure out is that it's a peterbilt cab over... And I think it's got a pup and trailer setup? Any clues?

Craig 

Outstanding

What about 1920/1930 ...

Dont do Bull Racks

Dont do Bull Racks

Craig ID

That is Peterbilt CabOver.No bunk...day trip use. The air "dam"...the thing on top of the cab....went out of service mid 80s. You adjust its height depending on the height of the trailer/load behind you.

In the photo you posted...looks like it had a single lift axle on the frame..right behind the fuel tank....not common in US but very prevelent in Canada,....Canada had some very unique axle set ups.

Era...1970....1980s  Used in bigger urban areas....and garbage hauling firms.,..axle set up is a joke if you read the Laws.

Canada has some very interesting axle set ups...

Notice the length between the drive axles of this Heavy Haul tractor....Canada Law...

Feed mill in WA state

JD, 

The pictures are from a suburban feed mill outside of Seattle, Wa that lasted until 2000. Not sure how long that truck lasted, but the photo is from the late 80's-90's based on my dating of the mill expansions.