That 'Railroad on the Moon' article was an April First special. IIRC, one of the cars was a partially-opened key-roll sardine can...
Bader Skyport, which serves the Capital City of the Confederation of Galactic Civilizations, is served by the tube transportation system - which is, unfortunately, entirely underground. Large and awkward cargoes are moved by heavy-lift freight skimmers, which are road vehicles (sort of) and not constrained by rigid rail geometries. Tube capsules handle people (of all kinds - there are capsules available with several kinds of life support systems) and containerized freight.
Yes, the containers have the same standard dimensions as international containers in use today. Champion Line and Monolith Corporation containers might look odd, but they would fit 20th century and later well cars. So, how would you placard one containing a popular snack food that's a deadly poison to Humans? Morrells grow on planets with chlorine atmospheres...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - when not writing about the Confederation Universe circa 3626)
... and I thought you meant the beautiful blonde next to that funny looking motor
Sir MadogThis page may be of interest for you: NASA Railroad Rocket Transport
And... if that ain't interesting enough—
The NASA Crawler-Transporter is (or soon to be "was") driven by two ALCO 251-C 16 cylinder engines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawler-transporter
The same engine used in the Century series locomotives...
Ed
This page may be of interest for you:
NASA Railroad Rocket Transport
If you are a little less patriotic - the Russian Cosmodrome rocket launching site at Baikonour also uses rail transport to move the rockets from storage to the launching facility.
MR did an article on a lunar model in the mid-1970s- probably an April issue, but Kalmbach's server continues to insist that I am not a digital archive subscriber (at least on my iPad). Can't tell you the exact one until my son gets off the computer (I know....1st world problems)
http://mprailway.blogspot.com
"The first transition era - wood to steel!"
I went to school at FIT during the Apollo launches. A launch is a spectacular thing, a night launch even more so. They were also major party events.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
NASA Railroad shut down last year. No idea how they plan on getting booster segments for SLS in. Maybe by air.
They use Trackmobiles to move Delta IIs and Atlas Vs, as I recall.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Actually, Kennedy Space Center is served by the NASA railroad, so such a layout would be prototypical. The railroad interchanged with FEC and was primarily used to bring the solid rocket booster in and out for the space shuttle.
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
Does anyone out there have a space port layout ?. I saw one in an old 1960s or 70s copy of Model Railroader ( I believe) many years ago that showed this really cool layout of a train that serviced an Apollo rocket and space center. The fact is it was a total fantasy layout because I don't think there is actually such a train at NASA in Florida...
Tracklayer