O scale model of GEGX 21155

Here is another phot of the prototype GEGX 21155.  It shows the full length of the car. Mighty big car!

Wow - your really like long/heavy load cars with lots of axles!  This is a nice car but again, as I said in reply to the (S) car, anything much longer than a Schnabel car is a bit too long to look good on my layouts curves (72" & 84" on the biggest loop).

The longest/most wheels rolling stock on my layout is the railroad cannon I made for my War Train.  It's most scratch built although the wheels and trucks are, of course, store bought.  All over, its about two inches longer than the MTh Schnabel cars and hangs out a good bit in the middle, on curves. 

These very long railcars do track quite well since the multiple axles distribute the load and the multiple trucks with bolsters are able to "rotate" when moving along curves. There will be some clearance problems with the depressed center on curves, but real railroads have the same problem to deal with. The model depressed centers also have a very low center of gravity due to the solid wood construction. With a weighted "load" they are very stable.

these things track amazingly well because of the hierarchical swiveling: trucks that swivel at each end of an arm that swivels at each end of a top arm the swivels, etc.  depressed center flat cars, or particularly the Schnabel approach, keeps the center of gravity low. 

Still, rail "hang over" is a problem.  On my layout I have front boiler stick out issues with an big articulated locos - Big Boy locomotives jut about three inches outside the mid rail.  Schnabel cars, railroad cannon, and any other long types of cars with trucks like these  "hang over" in the middle - like long passenger cars often do, more than the ends, like locos, but more so than with 21" passenger cars.  They do run on my layout but as I said anything like a really long modern Schnable of this GE car would be too, too much - I've tested MTH's Schnabel car with a 24" load on it and it will track around curves but hanges over way too much.

Many of my model O scale railcars can be manually adjusted to shift the "load" side to side like the prototype.  Remember the prototype cars also have to be manually adjusted using hydraulic systems.  To accomplish this on the prototype the train is stopped temporarily and the adjustments performed. Once the car is moved past the curved track or obstruction the train is then stopped temporarily and the car re-adjusted.

If I scaled down all my models to run on O-27 track then there would not be a problem! I prefer scale sized cars and engines and accept the "hangover" problem like the real railroads deal with.

Thanks for the interesting photos and info but have you actually determined what the minimum required O gauge radius is for that car? 

It seems logical that it would only be possible to shift the load horizontally so many feet on a real flat or Schnabel car before the center of gravity of the load is beyond that of the car and then the car tips over.  So is there a limit on how far horizontally a load can be shifted on a real car?  

If so, at what radius curve would that scale down to on an O scale model?  In other words while it may be physically possible to shift a load on an O scale car to clear obstacles to negotiate tight O scale curves, at what radius would the load be so far away from the centerline of the car that it wouldn’t look realistic? 

Thanks,

Bill

Here are the specifications for 2 of the largest Schnabels in use today:

I have not yet determined what radius curves my O scale models will negotiate.

The usual limitation for the prototype cars are the amount of overhang on curves.

Thanks for the table of data with the allowable horizontal shifting specs on the real-life 800-series Schnabel cars in answer to my previous question.  The 40” given in that table for 1:1 scale translates to 0.833” in O scale or about 13/16”.  A shift of only 13/16” would likely not look unrealistic on a full O scale model such as the ones you are building.  Although our MTH Railking Schnabel cars are based on a much shorter prototype than the 800-series cars and it’s not possible to shift their load at all, I removed the transformer load from mine and manually repositioned it 13/16” to one side to see how it would look.  IMO it didn’t look unrealistically too far off-center which was the concern I had.  But I’m not sure how much that would gain in terms of reducing the minimum required radius.  And as you point out, it’s often trackside obstacles that are the limiting factor in real life and that same problem “scales down” when trying to run long cars on an existing model layout with trackside structures already in place.

Thanks again for sharing.

Bill   

The amount of "overhang" depends on the length of the load attached.  On my scale model of the WECX 801 I have built a typical load which is a scale 80 feet long. The actual overhang of the WECX 801 with this length load connected is quite large since the whole assembly pivots.

Note: The stability of the scale model is quite good since it has the load distributed over 36 axles with multiple pivot points.