I am a G-scale model railroad enthusiast - mostly around Christmas. I know there are serious enthusiasts who run garden railroads year round. I’m a seasonal enthusiast, then.
In the nineties, my brothers got “soap on a rope” packaged in wooden crates that were the perfect size for the train. We filled them, emptied them, loaded them on the train, unloaded them, stacked them at the lincoln-log train depot, and generally played with them for hours.
2-ply 1/8" baltic birch is maybe overkill; but I like the dimensions and I like the strength for heavy-duty use 5 weeks out of the year.
My initial box was set for a 3.2" inside square.
Once I made it 2-ply, it was just a bit too big for my open-top gondola - which means it will definitely be too big for the rest of my rolling stock.
Back to the drawing board: I lopped off .6" from each dimension.
My kids walked into the kitchen and saw these three boxes. (gondola was already put away.)
“Hey! we can use this in the train!”
Meanwhile, the 4-year old ran to the car bin to fetch some hot wheels to load into the boxes.
That did it for me. This design fit the criteria I was aiming for.
I haven’t had much luck attaching svg files, and I hear that not all programs play nicely with svg files created in other programs, so I’m including some pdf versions as well.
g scale cargo crate.zip (438.4 KB)
[edited: Version 3 has Fragile stencil for exercise in cut, score, and engrave.]
those little boxes! A lot of uses come to mind!
