Boxcar Full O' Buckets

In the real Hill City, Minnesota, a key industry was the Woodenware Factory, maker of wooden pails, pickle barrels, cracker barrels, cups for peanut butter, and other wooden containers.

This factory will be represented on my layout, and will be the primary industry.  Accordingly, the load for my loaded boxcar will be wooden pails, headed outbound to interchange with the Great Northern Railroad, bound for points west.

To create the illusion of a car loaded with stack upon stack of buckets, I decided to try using pieces cut from a wooden dowel.  I used scale lumber to build makeshift crates around the stacks, much like they would have done in real life to prevent shifting of the load.  This lumber also helps disguise the fact that these aren't buckets.  Light pencil lines drawn horizontally across the stacks help complete the illusion.

The load is constructed so that I can stage the car as a fully loaded car, or as a car being loaded or unloaded.  As a final touch to the interior, I'm going to place some partial stacks, including a couple of carved buckets, along with a figure, in that vacant space.