Can you name some cars and loads that can be loaded & unloaded by the magnet on the Gantry crane.
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Gondolas would be the most common car to carry scrap loads. The containers in the photo work well with a steel disk glued to the top. The flatter the top surface the better the magnet will work. Round objects like steel coils don't work very well.
Pete
I went to a craft store with a magnet, and tried it out on various junk/costume jewelry supplies. It was a bit expensive, but I came away with a lot of "bling" that I used for scrap metal in a gondola.
A video of my gantry crane operation is here:
I was given an old Scout set that was beat up and beyond salvage. I took everything apart and made a “scrap” pile of anything that a magnet would pick up, including running gear, wheels, couplers, etc. It made for a much more realistic scrap load than the pile of nuts and washers I used to use. I would think similar candidates for scrap piles could be found very cheaply in boxes under tables at shows.
I like to use my gantry crane to put O gauge train parts in gondolas. I use mostly wheel sets and coupler parts. I pretty much just looked through my parts bins to find things for the crane to load/unload.
The crane picks up the trucks from a postwar 6362 railway truck car.
I also made the following loads from some cheap Lionel motors. I just surrounded them with wood framing. The crane easily picks them up to place on flatcars.
Bob: Your crane operation is awesome, grea;, great ideas about the crane loads, I may use some of they for my TMCC crane.
I would like to see Lionel make a Bethlehem Steel magnetic crane. That would be cool for a steel operation. I have the one they made with the bucket, but a magnetic version would be nice for scrap steel loads.
