Modeling idea: Vintage railcar for the early 50s! "Evans Autoloader"

By searching OGR forum for Evans Auto-Loaders I found this old post.  I have two Lionel 6 car Evans Auto-Loaders, they are Lionel 9125, N & W Trailer and Train Auto-Loaders, saying Built 1-73. 

They will hold 6 cars but the bottom deck is 1 1/2 inches wide, 1 3/8 inches high and the car body is 12 7/8 inches long.  The bottom will only hold smaller cars.

 The older Lionel 6414 Evans Auto-loader will hold 4 cars and the bottom deck is 2 1/4 inches wide, 1 1/2 inches high and the car body is 10 inches long.  So the K-line 6 car Auto-Loader now has company.  It appears the K-line and Lionel 6 car bodies are different.

The Lionel 9125 is almost 3 inches longer that the Lionel 6414 and looks that much longer on my O27 curves !

Charlie

If you have to haul more cars, you might consider this one, Lionel 6-16208.

How about Menards Bi-Level? 

https://www.menards.com/main/h...39877962&ipos=93

Rusty

I got one of these on my layout.http://postwarlionel.com/freight-cars/flatcars/automobiles-boats/6414-flatcar-w-autos/

pro hobby posted:

These cars were about 50 foot in length since they allowed 3 autos per level (having a length of about 198 inches each). 

 

  

 

Actually, it's "this car."  Only one was built.

Santa Fe and UP had their own versions of a similar car, but they weren't the same as the NYC experiment.

Rusty

Uh...that ain't no '53 Chevy BelAir!  It is a 1954 Chevrolet BelAir!  I learned to drive in my mother's 1954 210, so l know what one looks like.  I went on to make several trips west in it in the 1950's, and then my brother used that 210 through college.  

I took my Menards car and put 1942 Ford pickups on it instead of the modern Buick’s. 

An open auto loader filled with Corvair coupes. The one in the front is the last one built--fifty years ago today.

Post war auto loader,  I got the impression from Pro Hobbys post he  wasn't aware of this,  I guess i'm getting old

Scotie posted:

An open auto loader filled with Corvair coupes. The one in the front is the last one built--fifty years ago today.

 

Actually, the freight cars seem to be filled with Novas; that is indeed a Corvair Coupe in the foreground, a beautiful car, and that from a guy who has never been a bow-tie fan, nor has ever owned one. But, a rear-engined, alloy flat-6, air-cooled ChevyPorsche? Cool. And shocking, from GM.

Ralph Nader was full of it, BTW.

Here is an Autoloader with four red classic 1957 Chevy two door convertibles and three more on the Autoloader forth in line .  Now that is a train load to get excited about and all on my layout !

Charlie

I believe these are Chevy Vegas in 1971  

"Rack 'em, stack 'em, and pack 'em!"*

I suppose the fluids were drained before shipping

*Die Hard II

K-Line is the only one I know of that built one to-scale. I have the NYC car with the Corvettes (which I'm going to 2-rail at some point), and NYC was the only one who had them. I believe K-Line did a couple of "fantasy" units in other roads. The drawings are out there on the web, which is where I got the ones below in case you want to roll your own. Contact me off-list if you want the full set (it'll save you the search).

palallin posted:

"Rack 'em, stack 'em, and pack 'em!"*

I suppose the fluids were drained before shipping

 

*Die Hard II

Haha surprisingly, no.  GM designed the Vega to be able to withstand vertical transport.  Interesting short read on this shipping partnership between GM and Southern Pacific can be found here:  https://www.railwayage.com/mec...-pacific-vert-a-pac/

Since the Vega was intended to be a low cost / low price vehicle, they designed the Vert-a-Pac (and the Vega) to increase the number of cars fitting onto a rail car from 18  to 30 in order to reduce shipping cost per car.

Wow, all these neat posts on Auto loading just for starting up an old Autoloader post.  Keep them coming.  I sure did not know about shipping cars standing on end or how to load an Autoloader like the drawings show.

Charlie

pro hobby posted: 

  

 

 

 

1953 Chevrolet Bel Air

That building in the background looks far, far more interesting than the freight car! Any idea where/what it was/is? It almost looks like a WW2 era industrila facility.

Evans designed/built the loading setup for the automobile box cars. The setup on the flat car appears to be based on the mechanicals used in the box cars. What's interesting is that they also included bridges on the cars so that a string of cars could be loaded from one end. That may have been the impetus for the design considering the hassle factor in loading auto box cars.

On my Lionel 9145 I used 1:64 size cars. On my 6414 I used Road Champs 1:43 1955 Chevrolet's.

AMCDave posted:

I want to build a few too. I thought someone made a 'scale' version,,,,but I scratch built some 80 ft open auto racks.....these will go good as a then and now example.

 

Cars bottom front to back......

53 Chevy

53 Nash

53 Ford...can't tell trim level

Top

53 Hudson Hornet

53 Kaiser  can't really tell...but looks likeone

53 Chrysler of some type....maybe Plymouth.

The last car on top looks like a packard convertible.