Here's a CSX 52-foot gondola with an unusual load that's easy to model. It's a load of the heavy steel breaker balls that steel mills use to begin the slag crushing process. Slag is a red-hot byproduct of iron and steelmaking that looks like molten lava when it's dumped into the slag pits. As the slag cools, it hardens into large chunks that must be broken up before the slag can be crushed into a uniform-sized gray rock that's used for roads and secondary track ballast. The breaker balls are solid steel and weigh up to 20 or 25 tons each. They are lifted with an crane equipped with an electromagnet and dropped into the pit to shatter the hardened slag into chunks. The pieces of slag arc then fed into a crusher. Modeling this load will be easy, since all that's required is a handful of smooth plastic balls and a modern 50-foot gondola. Paint the balls with grimy black, apply a heavy coat of rust weathering to them, and you'll be all set. - Bob Warrick, Barberton, Ohio
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