Let’s see your Custom or rare flatbed loads!

John Deere tractor Christmas ornaments from Hobby Lobby on Menards flatcars.  Made up about four or five of these cars. I might add some chain tie-downs whenever I can get a round tuit.

 

Stationary boiler.

Scale wheel sets on a car in our MOW/Wreck site train.

I have my 1000 Hour patch from Sikorsky Aircraft, time for the hulk to go to the bone yard. 

I need to make room in our piggyback train for this car.  John in Lansing, ILL

Menards  NS flatcar that previously had an undersized Pepsi delivery truck load. Now carries a special order timber load.

Cat on a flat.

Pete

Spent three years in the Army working on Nike Radar so just had to make this load. Don

 

 

          https://youtu.be/ZmOL3A2ODS4

 

 

This is a pipe load that I made for a Menards flatcar:

Tom

John, 

Great minds think alike. 

On the way to O'Hare airport early one morning i saw two stripped EMD Flexicoil trucks sitting on a flat bed truck.  I thought it was cool because the brakes cylinders were still attached and the brake lines "reached to the sky."  It inspired me to do this:

Those are P&D Trucks, with the journals taken out, and custom built bolster and ends.  That is a Lionel flat car with one of those injection molded plastic tarps as a load.  I tossed the load and rebuilt the deck using board by board construction.  That was quite easy.  I added Kadees and filled in the gaps in the end sills. And obviously I converted it to 2 rail

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple of random shots of  some of my military transport flatcars:

Well I don’t if this counts but this is a Custom made this AHM flat car converted into a Piggyback car and I Custom made the decals for it.

Pipeload from flat car to flatbed trailer.

A heavy (really) generator armature on its way to the customer. Note that the cribbing has since been replaced and the car spruced up a bit. I still need to cover the commutators at each end with protective wood strips.

 

Strange, custom, rare eh?  

Folks keep settin' um up for me to knock down all over today 😊 

Here is an homage to D-Day.  Tanks are by Corgi.  The rest is Menards.

Adriatic posted:

Strange, custom, rare eh?  

Folks keep settin' um up for me to knock down all over today 😊 

Run that flat near the iron furnace to sort of brown the outside a little, put it on a bun, and I am good to go!

Every now and then I take my Smash Bros Amiibo collection off the display shelves and put them on my flatcars. I actually have 26 Amiibo figures (25 Smash Bros, 1 random Princess Daisy) but I've only photographed 5 of them on the flatcars.

I should also note that these are old photos from about two-three years ago. I might re-take some new ones soon.

I moved one of the Menards ISO tanks to the other flat car and added a K-line missle launcher.

A couple of homemade flats with loads.

A few more Menard's 14-1/2" flats with custom loads.

A flat car from our "Bungling Brothers Circus" train. There are several more to be added to the train.

A few Weaver cars. The first three are a custom run from another forum. I have some custom made loads for flat cars, but those photos are on the laptop which I haven't pulled out for several months. I'll have to fire it up and upload those pics.

 

 

Steel coils on flatbed trailer.

rattler21 posted:

NS6770Fan posted:

 I will soon add a separate car for the trucks. I still need to add tie downs and possibly redecal the flat so it doesn’t say Trailer Train.

K-Line 12 1/2  x 2 1/4.   Listed in the For Sale Forum.  John in Lansing, ILL

That’s a nice car, but my load is in HO scale, not O scale.

Lots of great loads. I can only offer some slabs on a Steel Mill flat not for interchange. Roo.

 

Here are some military flat cars.

 

Roo posted:

Lots of great loads. I can only offer some slabs on a Steel Mill flat not for interchange. Roo.

Nice car. I have a similar car in HO that says "PLANT SERVICE ONLY" and has several large steel pieces on it.

Bluetooth speaker on flatbed car.  Non-traditional kludge, but works great.

I am so far out in left field compared to the artists here, but a few loads with Tamiya models in general.  Most of the cars are Menards flat cars.

palallin posted:

Adriatic posted:

Strange, custom, rare eh?  

Folks keep settin' um up for me to knock down all over today 😊 

Run that flat near the iron furnace to sort of brown the outside a little, put it on a bun, and I am good to go!

I went with baked, garlic & sage, then cream and mushroom sauce simmer for about 2 hrs served on noodlles..and then finally slept.

14hrs 😁

   Sooooo many loads look familiar. I LOVE contrasting visual variations of things. (this one needs weight or will bounce off the rails 😁)

Tootsie, revived with a modern pinewood derby helmet

   It doesn't take much gap to let the sound out. (h2o mini?) 

I still don't use sound but a fun project. I even started a second, but as a an hvac crossflow tower... another day though... some things aren't always loaded.

I removed the undersized REA panel truck from the Menards REA flatcar and added a load of heavy timbers for the RJ Corman Company.

Some flatcar loads - Enjoy

A couple for the group. 

rrgeorge posted:

Some flatcar loads - Enjoy

Two Questions.

1) Who made those Panther, Panzer III, Panzer IV, StuG III, and Sd.Kfz. 234 models and where can I find them?

2) Do those particular models I mentioned above fit on a Lionel Postwar-Sized Flatcar?

The Panther I don't know who made it.  The others are by Eagle Moss. I haven't seen them for a couple of years.  The Panzers & Stug are on Lionel and MTH 40 foot scale flat cars.  The flat cars are 10 inches long.  The vehicles are 1/43 scale and the flat cars are 1/48 scale so the vehicles hang over the sides slightly.   I don't know how long / wide a Lionel postwar flat car is.

Had an uncle who was force conscripted into the German Army during the war, and was in a Stug III.  

This has always been on my favorite loads.

Bachmann Spectrum did some fabulous On30 offerings several years back at really good price (I think I bought this Climax for under $100.)  I had hope to incorporate On30 into my layout, but was never able to.  Keep the Climax, however, and mounted in onto a Weaver flatcar:

Not a great picture, however, as this came from when I tore down the old layout.

Jim

Here is another of my flatcar loads.

The backstory is that I use to travel to Europe for 3 - 4 weeks a year for business.  Many of these trips were to non-English speaking countries 15+ years ago when internet was no where near as common as it is now.  At night, TV options were very limited and I ended up watching a lot of Eurosports, watching stuff like Sumo Wrestling or Truck Racing. 

While on one of these trips I found these Corgi Racing Trucks.  Wanting to display them, but having no idea what to do with them, I put them on an Atlas Trainman flatcar with custom decking:

Jim

Inspiration for the novices! excellent work for sure.

Big Jim posted:

   You need a 22" Jimmy Carter figure and a Pepsi Car "or Coke it doesn't matter". RC Cola would work too. Not 7up; it's an un-cola with "Lemmon" 

Could've had posted a V-8 😏

 

Hmm. I've got better shots of that still..(lost tons)

  

There's that yellow flat again.....

 No meat on it!  😬

"Cult of Brady" Not a very Greg-arious idol.      "Bring me some chicken!"

The marble slab load was made using cutoff pieces of vinyl stair tread. The crated stone load was made from foam stone veneer that I sliced into thin strips using a band saw. The crate is made from scrap wood.

 

Very nice Don, would have never thought of a marble load. Hope you don't mind if I copy your idea.

Dave

david1 posted:

Very nice Don, would have never thought of a marble load. Hope you don't mind if I copy your idea.

Dave

Heck no, copy away! I have a ton of the tread material, I could package some and send it your way.

Marble; it never fails to remind me of a sculpted black oynx clawfoot bathtub I wood worked around for a week or two. It was just stunning.  "Filthy rich" as this one is filthy dirty; Robin Hobo stealing a dip from the rich; and "giving it" to the poor hygiene.

                      Weaver 50' flat cars w/swiveling homemade pipe load.

BAR GP7 #63 posted:

Wow! Now that is an awesome load. Thanks for posting.

PAUL ROMANO posted:

 

                      Weaver 50' flat cars w/swiveling homemade pipe load.

That's interesting!

Can you explain briefly what happens in curves?  Is there some minimum diameter of track it can navigate (I suspect it's something like at least O54 or O72?). 

Is it truly just a pivot or swivel on just the center point of each mount, or do the pipe holder pieces slide (side to side) along the wood supports they rest on?  If so, is there some sort of mechanism in there to re-center them once on straight track again?

Maybe I am over thinking it.  I guess it looks like it could be similar to a Schnabel car, which I'm pretty sure is is just a pivot point (that happens to have three trucks under it) under both ends (at least for our models - I don't know if the prototype is different).  Of course the Schnabel doesn't have a coupler in the middle holding the ends, just the structure of the transformer and girders holding it mounted to each set of trucks at each end.

Sorry for the long question...   Geometric issues sometimes fascinate me a little too much.

-Dave

 

Dave45681 posted:

PAUL ROMANO posted:

 

                      Weaver 50' flat cars w/swiveling homemade pipe load.

That's interesting!

Can you explain briefly what happens in curves?  Is there some minimum diameter of track it can navigate (I suspect it's something like at least O54 or O72?). 

Is it truly just a pivot or swivel on just the center point of each mount, or do the pipe holder pieces slide (side to side) along the wood supports they rest on?  If so, is there some sort of mechanism in there to re-center them once on straight track again?

Maybe I am over thinking it.  I guess it looks like it could be similar to a Schnabel car, which I'm pretty sure is is just a pivot point (that happens to have three trucks under it) under both ends (at least for our models - I don't know if the prototype is different).  Of course the Schnabel doesn't have a coupler in the middle holding the ends, just the structure of the transformer and girders holding it mounted to each set of trucks at each end.

Sorry for the long question...   Geometric issues sometimes fascinate me a little too much.

-Dave

 At least one end of the pipe must slide.  Take two points marked on a straight line and the distance between them, now bend the line into an arc. Another new straight line measurement of distance between the new positions of the points is now shorter shorter. The old measurement along the arc stays the same, but you can now call it the circumference because of the arc formed.

Someone can likely explain a little better. I'm about 40 years out of practice for geometry and 45 since my last serious drafting class. 

I'm interested too; guessing one mount slides and one is fixed in place so it remains centered front to rear. How ever if the coupling slack was great enough, or one coupler shaft slides fwd/back, OR they are not coupled by anything but the pipe firmly secured to each, that would work too.

  In real life, the latters chances depends on what the structure of the pipe can withstand. Wood cribbing means they are coupled normally and solid though, so I say it slides  

PAUL ROMANO posted:

BAR GP7 #63 posted:

Wow! Now that is an awesome load. Thanks for posting.

Paul Romano. Thank you.

Johan

Johan, like most of your work that home made engine-generator is fantastic.  Did you start out with something that was supposed to be an engine or is it made entirely out of random shapes and pieces assembled into that very realistic load?

I recently acquired a Western Maryland TOFC and quickly discovered that the trailer is too tall to clear my upper level line. So what's a modeler to do? Get creative!

I had two trailer frames that were sitting around collecting dust. Found a good use for them and I'm happy with the way the car looks.

Adriatic,

Thanks for trying to help explain. 

I do understand the problem pretty well from a pure mathematical standpoint  (engineer- halfway decent at basic math ), but was curious how much effect was seen in real life, and how it was dealt with. 

What also occurred to me (though obviously would not work for a real concrete pipe) was that it could benefit from slight flexing of the plastic (if the pipe is some sort of styrene), combined with either the pipe sliding along the long axis of the car within the mounts or the mounts shifting a little left to right along the short axis of the cars as I was trying to suggest in my original post (would have been easier to describe on a white board with some markers ).

Hopefully Paul will chime in to confirm or deny.

-Dave

 

Dave45681 posted:

PAUL ROMANO posted:

 

                      Weaver 50' flat cars w/swiveling homemade pipe load.

That's interesting!

Can you explain briefly what happens in curves?  Is there some minimum diameter of track it can navigate (I suspect it's something like at least O54 or O72?). 

Is it truly just a pivot or swivel on just the center point of each mount, or do the pipe holder pieces slide (side to side) along the wood supports they rest on?  If so, is there some sort of mechanism in there to re-center them once on straight track again?

Maybe I am over thinking it.  I guess it looks like it could be similar to a Schnabel car, which I'm pretty sure is is just a pivot point (that happens to have three trucks under it) under both ends (at least for our models - I don't know if the prototype is different).  Of course the Schnabel doesn't have a coupler in the middle holding the ends, just the structure of the transformer and girders holding it mounted to each set of trucks at each end.

Sorry for the long question...   Geometric issues sometimes fascinate me a little too much.

-Dave

      Dave- 072 curves and swivel details. Hope this answers your questions. 

coach joe posted:

Johan, like most of your work that home made engine-generator is fantastic.  Did you start out with something that was supposed to be an engine or is it made entirely out of random shapes and pieces assembled into that very realistic load?

Joe. Thank you. This EMD -engine-generator is a only load, i don´t have any plan put that anywhere else than flat car. This is a my third steam boiler/engine load and i think more comes.

Johan

Well, a while back I wanted some flatcars for my "work-train". So I made 2-3 that fit what I was attempting to represent. (please remember these are home made for a specific need at the time)

Two tractors being delivered via flat car. 

That's a very handsome delivery of tractors on the team track Patrick.

PAUL ROMANO posted:

   Dave- 072 curves and swivel details. Hope this answers your questions. 

  I can't say for sure for Dave; but no, it was great to see but missed one part .

Does sliding of the pipe occur?      ( Why? To compensate for the changed distance of pivot points fom  "a"to"b" once the cars are in a curve vs straight).

If not, does the pipe flex some? (Dave asks)

Or does cribbing slide and pivot? (seems to only pivot)

No compensation for it needed at 0-72?

The whole point (reason😊)  being at some max angle between cars in curves there is bind with stationary pivot alone.

Would it run on say 64" or 58" ? (ugly overhang, etc. aside )  If the pipe slides it "could/might/"almost but trucks hit"/etc.)

In real life the pipe is either cupped loosely or is making up part of the rolling structure. So does the pipe slide loose, or does the cribbing below allow fore and aft shifts to allow for slack travel between cars well as the angle shifts without putting pulling stresses on the pipe?  

Adriatic posted:

PAUL ROMANO posted:

   Dave- 072 curves and swivel details. Hope this answers your questions. 

  I can't say for sure for Dave; but no, it was great to see but missed one part .

Does sliding of the pipe occur?      ( Why? To compensate for the changed distance of pivot points fom  "a"to"b" once the cars are in a curve vs straight).

If not, does the pipe flex some? (Dave asks)

Or does cribbing slide and pivot? (seems to only pivot)

No compensation for it needed at 0-72?

The whole point (reason😊)  being at some max angle between cars in curves there is bind with stationary pivot alone.

Would it run on say 64" or 58" ? (ugly overhang, etc. aside )  If the pipe slides it "could/might/"almost but trucks hit"/etc.)

In real life the pipe is either cupped loosely or is making up part of the rolling structure. So does the pipe slide loose, or does the cribbing below allow fore and aft shifts to allow for slack travel between cars well as the angle shifts without putting pulling stresses on the pipe?  

No, the pipe does not slide or flex, nor does the cribbing slide or pivot. No compensation needed for it on 072 curves. I ran this car at my club, NJ Hirailers, through reverse curves of 072 and greater with no problem and no binding at the pivot points simply because the pipe just swivels on curves.  

Boom section from a Manitowoc 16000

 

                        Weaver 50' flatcar w/Weaver Alco truck load.  

coach joe posted:

That's a very handsome delivery of tractors on the team track Patrick.

Thanks Coach Joe!  The photos of the semi - tractors on flats cars are some re-runs from past episodes of  TTT.

I figured arc length from the chord length (stringline of pivot) of 12.5"(50'cars) and 36R (0-72") and the difference between chord and arc length is about 1/16" give or take 1/64" (3/64-5/64). I couldn't find a calculator to get arc length from the chord and radius without figuring the angle without stigilli ..... it would've been easier to draw it all " 1/16" play/slack is needed on 0-72 " to stop bind.

Not such an unusual flat car load, however a not so common layout scene, demonstrating the circus style unloading process employed during the early piggyback era. 

Love the thread, thanks to all the posters. there are a ton of great ideas here.

 I wanted to encourage Paul to consider the Alaska pipe line car next time with the pipe situated on cribbing like this.

 

Here's a fairly obscure flatcar and load - Fandor flatcar with an airplane. The painted and lithographed tin for the plane is very thin.

just a few pictures...

 

One of these days will get around to blocking and chaining it down per Mil Specs.  Guess am waiting until get the Paladin (M109) assembled and painted for a related load.

Ron

PRRronbh posted:

One of these days will get around to blocking and chaining it down per Mil Specs.  Guess am waiting until get the Paladin (M109) assembled and painted for a related load.

Ron

Im hoping to make a custom flatcar with a custom tank in the future too. I have glimmers of hope now that the 50' Sherman Flatcars have been announced.

...although the Shermans I want to add to the flatcars are a bit different than normal.

Transformer loads, on depressed center flat cars, headed for the local power plant. 

Custom made Santa's Sleigh on my flatbed tin plate Christmas Train.

 

Ertl Case and IH tractors on 50ft flats loaded and chocked for maximum qty.

Bachmann On30 ET&WNC ten wheeler loaded and blocked just like when #12 was shipped to Harrisonburg VA in the mid 1950's.

A little cheat as a gon instead of a flat.  Based on an actual N&W prototype.  Pola gon cut down to 30 inch high sides with Weaver trucks.

Northwest drag line with magnet instead of bucket on a modified Weaver pig flat painted in MoW colors.

Just finished converting another Williams flatcar for military service.  Next comes weathering and mounting of a Korean War tiger faced Sherman. He’ll be joining his brothers very soon!  - 

Heavy boiler on Lionel depressed center 8 axle flat car.  I painted the boiler flat black,  used some chain which I painted olive green, and weathered the flat car.  Here is the delivery of the load spotted on the team track and the subsequent  transfer by crane to a flatbed trailer.   Last photo shows the empty flat with pieces of wood bracing used in transporting the boiler.

My favorite flatcar. I've never seen another one locally.

John

Here is a Super Tiger on a flat car, will have chains on next week.

 

Here’s some Pig Flats I Custom  Weathered 

Load leaves REMCO Valve Co.

Tis the season!

Great loads, everyone!  Military is well represented, here are some of mine, working to finish several other.  Included is a captured German for Aberdeen for testing and inspection.  As you see, many need completion, and Shermans on flats are not shown, as are other military loads.  Will have consists from WWII era, early 50's, troop transport/medical consist, and an AAF loads consist.  Time, all we need is more time... and less projects in the works at same time!  Also making more turnbuckles as used on the tie down of the captured German.

Jesse   TCA

TheRWBYRailfan posted:

PRRronbh posted:

One of these days will get around to blocking and chaining it down per Mil Specs.  Guess am waiting until get the Paladin (M109) assembled and painted for a related load.

Ron

Im hoping to make a custom flatcar with a custom tank in the future too. I have glimmers of hope now that the 50' Sherman Flatcars have been announced.

...although the Shermans I want to add to the flatcars are a bit different than normal.

Kelly's heroes is a great movie.

The Shadow posted:

Here are a couple of random shots of  some of my military transport flatcars:

Tanks for the pictures

M4 Sherman Welded Hull,

M4A1 Sherman  Cast Hull

M3A3 Stewart Light Tank,   M3A1 Stewart Light Tank

I got hungry and ordered another load:

ETS flat with a Marder IIIM:

Custom built truss

TBF Avenger Flown by George H. W. Bush in WWII  

rattler21 posted:

njfist posted:

Custom built truss

How is the truss secured to the deck?  John in Lansing, ILL

Lionel elastic strap

Steve24944 posted:

The Shadow posted:

Here are a couple of random shots of  some of my military transport flatcars:

Tanks for the pictures

M4 Sherman Welded Hull,

M4A1 Sherman  Cast Hull

M3A3 Stewart Light Tank,   M3A1 Stewart Light Tank

Steve,

Who made the Stewart tanks, they look great?

JohnB

The Stewarts both came from the Master Fighter line of kits and built-ups.  I don’t know how readily available they are here in the US.  I got these from a French company called Gasoline.  They produce a wonderful collection of resin kits for “obscure” prototypes that aren’t covered by Tamiya, Academy, Bandai, etc.