I have an Athearn 40' flatcar with Kadee trucks/couplers. I plan to use an old weathered 0-4-0 steam engine as the load. The flatcar weighs about 3 oz. but the old steamer weighs about 5+ oz. with a vertical motor.
NMRA says 4 oz is optimal but I'll be double that at 8 oz.
I'm not worried about traction from the locomotives/grades but do you see any issues having that much weight and some of it top heavy from the upright motor? Would I be better off removing the old motor from the steamer to get the weight down?
TIA
Yea, I would remove the motor and anything else not seen by human eyes.
Get the weight down as best as you can.
Also, it's going to be top heavy no matter what you do, so secure it to the flatcar to prevent the load from shifting.
I did something similar, but I built the locomotive from scratch. I used wood for the cab, and a wooden dowel for the boiler. It was nice and light.
Rust...... It's a good thing !
Set it on the car, and see how it works, before you strap it down as a load. You might have to tighten up the trucks so it doesn't wobble back and forth.
The only way to know is to try it.
Prototypically I think it would work, as I think the 40' wood deck flat car had a payload capacity of about 80,000 lbs.
Mike.
My You Tube
I agree with doing what you can to reduce the weight of this interesting load. Not so much due to overall weight but because it is placing the center of gravity so high.
All of us have had the experience that there is a degfee of forgiveness in most weight standards. You simply cannot always match NMRA recommended weight standards with many empty open cars such as flats, gons and hoppers, and yet if whatever weight they have is down low for center of gravity, they usually run just fine.
I mentioned NMRA weight standard but ditto for whatever weight standard you yourself arrive at -- the point being a consistent and logical weight standard. The point to NMRA weight standards is they "work" and enable you to interchange your cars with other modelers, and with luck newly acquired cars are already to NMRA standards. But there is no magic rightness to NMRA weight standards per se.
Whatever the standards, every once in a while the chance combination of cars that do not meet weight standards results in an unhappy derailment.
You might want to take a page out of the prototype's book for special loads and that is run them as a dedicated train rather than in mixed freights. Such loads often have idler flats at either end to add braking power to the train.
There are also some loads which are placed nearer the locomotive in a mixed freight train. The idea is to put the greatest weight near the locomotive rather than near the end of the train where it would create stresses on the entire train. I seen to recall "dead" locomotives (on their own wheels) are usually located close to the head end of a train for this reason.
Dave Nelson
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
mbinsewi ... Prototypically I think it would work, as I think the 40' wood deck flat car had a payload capacity of about 80,000 lbs. Mike.
...
Thanks for the replies. I was able to reduce the weight by 2 oz and lowered the center of gravity.
Hello All,
Just a thought...
Have you considered using a depressed center flat car to reduce the center of gravity of the locomotive?
Walther's produced an HO 81' 8-axle depressed center flat car (unfortunately now discontinued) available on eBay.
The lower deck is 26' long and each end has a 10' platform. The depth of the lower platform is 3' from the two ends.
I have a HO Model Power Lil' Donkey 0-4-0T steamer that fits the lower deck with the couplers removed.
ClassOne Model Works makes a 6-axle car with a 21' lower deck.
You could use some creative blocking of the wheels to raise the height of the locomotive so the ends clear the upper decking if needed.
Bachmann produced a Heavy Duty 6-axle flat car with a log load (again, discontinued) available on eBay for much less than the Walther's 8-axle depressed center car.
I recall seeing photos of steam locomotives transported on flatcars with the wheels removed.
Since you have removed components to lighten the load I'm presuming removing the wheels would not be an issue.
I don't know how much you want to "scrap" this locomotive.
The wheels could be transported with the side rods intact on the 40' flat car.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
xdford Old steamers were usually towed minus the connecting rods over any distance to their final resting place whether that be a park or the scrapyard. Using the idea that 5oz x 87 cubed would equal well over 200000 lbs if scaled up, you would not exactly be prototypical and well over the weight limit unless it was say a balloon stack 4-4-0 and well within clearance and relatively light. In real life, a flat car may well take such a stress under such a load that its steel side frames will crystallize and crack under the strain.
AEP528 xdford Old steamers were usually towed minus the connecting rods over any distance to their final resting place whether that be a park or the scrapyard. Using the idea that 5oz x 87 cubed would equal well over 200000 lbs if scaled up, you would not exactly be prototypical and well over the weight limit unless it was say a balloon stack 4-4-0 and well within clearance and relatively light. In real life, a flat car may well take such a stress under such a load that its steel side frames will crystallize and crack under the strain. There is absolutely no relation between the weight of a model and the real locomotive. It does not scale in the way you state. Narrow gauge locomotives were often shipped on flatcars for the obvious reason. Today there are a few operational, restored 0-4-0 locomotives that travel to tourist railroads on semi-trailers. Those trailers are suprisingly not as heavy-duty as one would think; pictures show Flagg Coal 75 on a trailer with only three axles. The tractor also had three rear axles. Wikipedia says that #75 (which is a tank locomotive) weighs 82,000 pounds (see my first comment regarding scaling weight).
I don't know what size loco the OP intends to put on the flat car and a small prototype engine may well fit on a flat car and be within load constraints. A check of USRA engine weights on Google showed the USRA 0-6-0 - not the tender - weighed 165,000 lbs. I have one of those as a Proto model and the engine on our kitchen scale weighed about 5 ozs in round figures, vix twice the weight limit printed on the side of an Athearn 40ft Flat.
Of course as you state, the loco is not scaled down mechanically not can it be. Electric motors, plastic shells and lead weights do not scale down a set of boiler tubes, a firebox, lagging, siderods etc and I only ever use the 87 cubed as a gauge but it has served me well enough. I mainly use it to assess traction and one of my locos with 2oz of drawbar pull = about 90,000 lbs of tractive effort. Pretty powerful but the drag of model freight cars is much higher than the real thing so the trains even if I could fit true length in would not be as long.
I have also seen locos behind semis usually with multiple axles to spread the load in both England and Australia but they have been special movements here and (like one of the posts suggests for a rail depressed centre) on a depressed centre trailer.
Cheers from Australia
Trevor
xdford I don't know what size loco the OP intends to put on the flat car and a small prototype engine may well fit on a flat car and be within load constraints. A check of USRA engine weights on Google showed the USRA 0-6-0 - not the tender - weighed 165,000 lbs. I have one of those as a Proto model and the engine on our kitchen scale weighed about 5 ozs in round figures, vix twice the weight limit printed on the side of an Athearn 40ft Flat. Of course as you state, the loco is not scaled down mechanically not can it be. Electric motors, plastic shells and lead weights do not scale down a set of boiler tubes, a firebox, lagging, siderods etc and I only ever use the 87 cubed as a gauge but it has served me well enough. I mainly use it to assess traction and one of my locos with 2oz of drawbar pull = about 90,000 lbs of tractive effort. Pretty powerful but the drag of model freight cars is much higher than the real thing so the trains even if I could fit true length in would not be as long. I have also seen locos behind semis usually with multiple axles to spread the load in both England and Australia but they have been special movements here and (like one of the posts suggests for a rail depressed centre) on a depressed centre trailer. Cheers from Australia Trevor
The OP clearly stated it was an 0-4-0. I gave an example of an 0-4-0 that currently travels around the country on a road trailer, and it's not as heavy as one would expect.
The reason I brought up the number of axles is that the truck only had two more axles than a traditional semi. To carry a steam locomotive.
Regarding my other point about narrow gauge steam locomotvies on flatcars, examples are not hard to find. None of the example pictures I've seen have used depressed center flatcars.
https://ngtrainpics.photoshelter.com/image/I0000Snr2XqRNoIw
I'd worry more about vertical clearance than too much weight, unless you don't have any tunnels, overpasses, or other things that the load might bash into above the tracks! If it's a non-functional tank engine you don't care about keeping intact, removing the drivers would lower the center of gravity a bit, lower the overall height, and provide a good reason why the loco isn't being transported on its own wheels (if it ain't got none) but might need some wooden cribbing on either side to help secure the load.