PS-5 Lionel NYC and Erie Gondolas

Coming from a construction background. I"m guessing the matchsticks are evenly spaced across the bottom of the gondola. They should be as long as the gondola is wide.( if not , cut them.)

My next guess would be. Once you decide on spacing you could glue the wood pieces to the bottom of the I Beam.

This would keep the I beam upright and still allow you to remove it if so desired.

If I'm wrong, I would probably still handle it this way

At some point, there was a post about scratch building chain binders, But I see Narrow gauge modeling  has them.  I would probably place the blocks of wood as Rick described and glue the chain to the ends. The Lionel Ps-4 has pockets to drop the chains into, I don’t think Ps-5 does.

I had been thinking about getting one of these.

Rick - you are correct that the sticks' length are the exact width of the gondo, so they are apparently meant to go across the bottom.  I like both ideas - gluing the wood directly to the beam or maybe try affixing chains to either stick end across the beam top - both ideas should work - THANKS!

Joe