Modelling Scale Pumpkins

While I’ve been working on the layout I’ve been trying to decide how to justify the existence of a narrow gauge railway on a pumpkin farm. I decided that the only reason a pumpkin farmer would need a railway would be because either he has a high volume of goods to transport, or the goods are quite heavy. It seemed unlikely that a farmer would use a railway to transport pumpkins when a tractor and wagon would suffice – however – it seemed reasonable to presume that if the pumpkins were large, too large to load onto a wagon, that a farmer might use a railway. Hence, I’ve decided that Pete of Pete’s Pumpkins specializes in growing competition-grade monster pumpkins.

With the industry of the model railway finally decided upon, I set to work in creating a flatcar and some pumpkins for Pete. I shortened the underside of an old N scale boxcar, and glued on a new deck I built using some bits of styrene. I gave the flatcar a quick coat of flat-black spray paint, as well as some red oxide and dark brown.

I next modeled some ‘monster’ pumpkins. Using the leftover Sculpy I managed to model four very large pumpkins. Monster pumpkins aren’t the typical pumpkin shape – they look like they’ve collapsed under their own weight and have a pancake-like look. The models I created represent competition-grade pumpkins with an approximate weight of 350-500lbs each – which now makes having a railway much more plausible!