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This project started out as a companion project for the Steam Shovel that is in early design stage, but will be finished far in advance of the shovel. When I speak of a side-dump ballast car, I'm not talking about a modern air-dump, but the old 2-axle cars that were the mainstay of construction projects. I've found prototypes at two different facilities, a pair of standard gauge at Camp 6, Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, WA, and a narrow gauge car at the BC Forestry Museum in Duncan.

I've made two trips to Tacoma to take photos and measurements of the standard gauge cars, a friend brought me photos of the cars in Duncan. I've acquired axles for two cars, and am starting to do the formal drawings that will precede bending the archbars.

I'd like to build a train of these, a half-dozen or so, of which the first one will be rough, a proof-of-concept car, to make certain that I get the geometry right for the dumping, hopefully being able to dump a scale car without rolling it with the dump. Sometime in the production run, I'll build one to keep the rivet counters happy, a fine scale model, using appropriate materials and fastenings.

Some basics of what I'll be building.
• Standard gauge car, 33" wheels, 10' long dump box.(prototype dimensions)
• Archbar sideframes, production run will have 1"x2"steel tube centre sill.
• Cars must be able to carry loads and dump with stability.
• While prototypes I saw had no brakes, some of these will have hand brakes for parking purposes.
• Proof-of-concept design will just use plywood for dump box, reinforced with steel in appropriate places; fine-scale care will have board-built box, complete with the truss rods on the dump doors.

Pictures and plans will be forthcoming.

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