shipping a light rail car on a main line flat car.

[Anonymous]

i want to model a p.c.c.street car in route to a railroad museum,loaded on a 52ft flat car. in the real world would the car be transported with the trucks attached to the street car body? if so are rails spiked to the flat car deck? if not, how would the car be supported to prevent damage? when tying it down would it be crossed chained on both ends,or would some other method be used? thanks in advance,bob t.

[ndbprr]

Good question! As I recall many years ago some of the public transit systems had the equivalent of an autorack ramp with rails and a special car for delivering new transit cars. The car would but against the end and they would just push/pull/operate ? the car onto home rails. You are probably safe either way. I would mount some 6 x 6 timbers or larger in place of rails being careful of clearance and have at it. Reason I would do that is because you aren't goingt o have the level of deatil needed on the tops of the trucks without a lot of work

[tomikawaTT]

The PCC car would probably be shipped with the trucks attached, since removing them would create problems without having much effect on the overall height of the load. (Note that most model PCCs ride way too high on their trucks!)

Either a couple of scroungy rails or timbers set at gauge width would be under the trucks. If the car was to be ramp-unloaded at destination, they would extend the full length of the car, while they might just be under the trucks if the unloading point planned to use a crane to get the PCC off the flat car. The wheels would be chocked, and I'm sure that there would be some very substantial tiedown chains (or possibly rods with turnbuckles) used to anchor the load to the structure of the flat car.

[Anonymous]

thank you for your help,great information! bob

[dknelson]

I have seen modern light rail cars being shipped on flatcars to the cities that will use them and in all cases the LRV cars were wrapped in heavy plastic presumably to deter taggers. I'd think the same concern would exist for something being sent to a museum -- perhaps even more so. So perhaps your PCC load could be a simply shaped piece of wood or plastic foam covered with a tarp
Dave Nelson