Athearn Heavy Duty Flatcar

[tankertoad70]

Say folks, I was recently given an Athearn heavy duty flatcar and I decalled the puppy with Champ's Westinghouse decal.  Now, any suggestions for what would be a load to place on this puppy??  I am at a loss.  Thanks y'all.

[SeeYou190]

I giant 480 volt 3 phase alternator, 8-10 megawatts ought to do it.

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-Kevi.

["JaBear"]

Gidday Don, have a look at fellow forum member, Tom Daspit, excellent site...

http://www.garlic.com/~tomd/?

or more specifically...

http://southern.railfan.net/flat/cars/loads/loads.html

Cheers, the Bear.

[SeeYou190]

In the "Generators" section of the link JaBear provided there are some great pictures of the large alternators I was talking about.

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Thank you Bear, great link.

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-Kevin

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[mobilman44]

If no generator can be found, build yourself a "crate" to fit the car, complete with tie downs and bracing.  I've used blocks of wood, and then glued sized stripwood to it and paint accordingly...........

[gmpullman]

Hi,

Depending on your budget, AmB Laserkit has some nice open-top loads:

http://www.laserkit.com/laserkit.htm

Click on HO at the left then Car Loads when the next menu comes up. I've always liked the big crankshaft. The Athearn flat sits kind of high so some loads like power transformers may pose a clearance problem for you.

IMG_9716_fix_web by Edmund, on Flickr

Walthers, Kibri and maybe Faller all make transformers. You can leave things such as the insulators and cooling fins off, and crate them separately to make the clearances better.

This box beam fabrication is long but you could have an idler flat on either side of it which was common when hauling longer loads:

IMG_6701 by Edmund, on Flickr

AMB makes these crated motors, too, but they aren't really heavy enough to warrant an HD flat:

IMG_6707_fix by Edmund, on Flickr

Chooch makes some resin loads, some are nice, some are painted in garish colors.

http://www.choochenterprises.com/freightloads.html

IMG_9796_fix by Edmund, on Flickr

The Walthers EMD Prime mover is always a favorite, again, not that heavy to warrant a HD flat but still visually interesting.

EMD_567b by Edmund, on Flickr

 Of course, there's the old trick of making up some kind of "machinery" then tarping it with paper tissue soaked in thinned white glue to simulate a big tarp. It is anybody's guess what's underneath.

Have Fun, Ed

[mbinsewi]

When you search for Athearn Heavy Duty Flatcar, you get the 8 axle car, with a flat deck.

So I wonder if he has that car? or the depressed center car?

Either way I guess, a heavy transformer seems to fit the bill.

Bear's link seems to be just right.

Mike.

[gmpullman]

mbinsewi

When you search for Athearn Heavy Duty Flatcar, you get the 8 axle car, with a flat deck.

I figured that was the car he was refering to as well. I had a bunch of them back in the Blue Box days. I had one in Westinghouse lettering on a silver car.

This 'blog" has a photo of a similar car with a heavy-duty MESTA load on it:

https://myp48.wordpress.com/2018/05/01/modeling-new-products-latest-lee-turner-project-and-a-new-kit/

scroll down a little.

I only mentioned the transformers as a possible choice. Mine happened to be on deperssed center cars.

I started a flat car load thread a while back:

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/t/225148.aspx

 

 There's a couple of other MESTA loads pictured there. I see these come up every now and then:

https://www.brasstrains.com/Classic/Product/Detail/060715/HO-Scale-Diecast-Brass-Mesta-Machine-Company-Flat-Car-Load

Saw one once go for around $200 or so 

This site:

http://southern.railfan.net/flat/cars/loads/loads.html

Has some good photos of various flat car loads.

Here's a Chooch tarped machinery load and a flywheel:

Machinery_flat by Edmund, on Flickr

...and one of my favorites, a locomotive boiler to be repaired:

Boiler_on_flatcar1 by Edmund, on Flickr

Cheers, Ed

[tankertoad70]

Thanks for the ideas and suggestion guys.  Here is a previous Athearn HD flat car I acquired, but figured "what the heck" and modified it with Athearn's Buckeye trucks and afixed a load.

The other car I have kept its trucks and is painted black.

[G Paine]

mbinsewi

When you search for Athearn Heavy Duty Flatcar, you get the 8 axle car, with a flat deck.

I was going to ask the same question. With that car, one has to think about an over height load, which may need special routing on the prototype and could cause problems on the scale layout as well.