Railed Flat Cars for Transporting MOW Equipment

[Rod Carr]

I've quite a few of the little fiddly MOW track repair vehicles and would like to collect them in a train of flat cars.  So far I've found a couple YouTube videos of the flat cars that have rails on them, but nothing detailed enough to serve as a guide for duplicating the cars themselves.  There must be known sources of information out there that I'm simply to simple minded to have found yet.  Any assistance would be more than appreciated.

[mlehman]

The cars used are generally flat cars recently removed from general interchange service due to age and dedicated to MOW service. Typically, that will be because they exceed the 40 year age limit, so look for something that old for starts. If you model a specific prototype, that's a good clue to what they might use if you have nothing more to go on.

The rails would likely be bolted to the car deck, possibly welded. There would be substantial wheel stops at either end, but these should be removeable in many  cases as sometimes these motor cars involved are rolled on and off.

[jjdamnit]

Hello All,

Sounds like what you are describing is a car-float, but rather than a barge a flatcar.

I am not familiar with a flatcar with rails installed.

Most MOW equipment I have seen on flatcars is just tied down and chocked in place.

For larger loads; rolling stock and locomotives, typically the wheels are removed and the units are loaded directly onto the car using cribbing blocks to prevent damage to the car deck.

But as the saying goes..."There is a prototype for everything".

My question is what are the rails for (or, what will you be using them for)?

Are they just there to hold the equipment in place or are the MOW units driven onto the car?

Walthers makes 60' flatcars in HO. These come in 5 variations: Heavy Duty, General Loading, Farm Machinery, Container Loading, and Modernized Version. These are based on TTX cars in service.

The Modernized Version "...is based on later rebuilt cars equipped with two center and two outside channels for farm equipment and machinery loading."

If the rails are just there to hold the cars in place then the rails would probably just be bolted to the car deck and the tie-downs and chocks would hold the cars in place.

On the other hand, if you are going to use the rails to load equipment; circus-style, then I would think the rails would need to be fastened to the car deck more substantially.

Prototypical railroads do use sectional track. These are prefabricated sections that come in single rail lengths of 80-feet.

If you are transporting modern MOW equipment it tends to be not as tall as other rolling stock.

Prefabricated sections of track could be used on the car deck to hold the MOW equipment in place.

These track sections would have to be cut down from the standard 80-feet to fit the 60-foot length of the car. Idler flatcars could be used on each end of the 60-foot car also.

An 89-foot flatcar could be used if you have a minimum track radii of 22-inches.

Hope this helps.

[gmpullman]

Rod Carr

Any assistance would be more than appreciated.

There are Flickr groups dedicated to M-of-W photos:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/trainmow/pool/

You may find a few flats with rails there. Mostly I see these used to carry replacement trucks to a wreck site and carry away damaged ones but there are a few photos of equipment on "railed" flat cars.

CSX Maintenance Of Way Equipment, Hamlet Yard, Hamlet, NC (1 of 14) by gg1electrice60, on Flickr

CSXT 912502 by Curt, on Flickr

Hope that helps,

Good Luck, Ed

[jjdamnit]

Hello All,

gmpullman

(Here)...are a few photos of equipment on "railed" flat cars.

Excellent research and photos!

The flatcars in the second photo seem to confirm that they were loaded circus-style by the slight offset in the rails on both cars.

Man-handled rails could be placed between the cars to offload.

Also of note is the metal deck versus the wooden decking of other flatcars.

This would allow for the welding of the rails to the deck along with being able to weld tie-down points.

gmpullman thanks for the great information.

As I posted before, "There is a prototype for everything".

Hope this helps.

[jeffhergert]

I'm not sure all the MOW on track equipment cars have actual rail.  It's hard to tell from some of the videos, but it looks like many have some other small channel steel beams for the equipment.  The MOW equipment isn't going to be super heavy so they probably don't actual rail to support it. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag4Hzevi8Ug

At about 50 seconds into the video, where the flat cars change to the green MOW, there is a piece of equipment on the very end of the first green car.  This is the folded up ramp used to get the machinery on/off the car.  They do use a bridge piece between the cars when loading/unloading them.

Jeff

 

[zugmann]

jeffhergert

At about 50 seconds into the video, where the flat cars change to the green MOW, there is a piece of equipment on the very end of the first green car.  This is the folded up ramp used to get the machinery on/off the car. 

Known as the "scorpion car"

That photo of the "BST 9704" earlier in this thread looks to be parked on a scorpion car. 

[cv_acr]

Here's detail of the deck of a CP Rail version:

https://railfan.ca/cgi-bin/view.cgi?image=Guelph_Junction_14.06.03_2973.jpg&comments=1&size=1&slideshow=0

https://railfan.ca/cgi-bin/view.cgi?image=Guelph_Junction_14.06.03_2974.jpg&comments=1&size=1&slideshow=0

Close inspection will reveal that the "rails" the light equipment sits on is square/rectangular steel tubing and holes drilled through it allows chain tie downs to be attached to secure the equipment. These CP cars have expanded metal grating for crew walkways when securing equipment.

Small portable pieces would be used to bridge the gap between cars when loading/unloading.

[DSchmitt]

Oc the Santa Fe in Franklin Canyon (east of Martinez CA) there used to be a place to load/unload maintenance equipment on flat cars.

It consisted of two spurs off the mainline.  One for the flat cars. The other had a switchback at it's end. The equipment ran to the end then reversed and ran up a short grade the upper end of which lined up with the track the flats were on.

Saw a HO Fremo module set of it  at train shows in the 1980's.  I am sure there  was a magazine article about the module too. It was full length scaled from plans or aerial photos, there was no selective compression.