I have a handful of 50’ flatcars that I’d like to turn into bulkhead flatcars or centerbeam cars. Doing a Google and Walthers search, I can only find 72’ or rarely 60’ flatcars. Were shorter bulkhead/centerbeam cars ever used, and would they still be used today? (Another reason I won’t just buy long cars is due to the relatively tight curves I’m using).
The 1966 Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia shows no centerbeam flats of any length. By the 1970 edition, Thrall was advertising a centerbeam car with 66 foot loading space. That may well have been a 73’ foot car. By the time centerbeams came into use, then, a 50’ flatcar would already have been rather short for usual service and was an unlikely candidate for centerbeam use.
That much said the 1970 Cyc does show a drawing and photo of an unsual removable or collapsible A frame on a 53 ft car that has some resemblance to a centerbeam.
If tight curves are the issue why not just create a 50’ centerbeam and regard it as you would the “shorty” passenger cars that people have run for years, where cars of 60’, 70’, and 73’ have “stood in” for 80’ and 85’ cars? The August 2002 issue of Model Railroader had an article by Dean Foster on how to take the Walthers 73 foot “opera window” centerbeam and convert it to the Thrall 64 ft opera window centerbeam. The BN had some of the shorter 64’ cars. I’d think the same ideas could be used to create a 50’ center beam.
Dave Nelson
Thank you very much for the info, Dave!
At one time there was a modest fleet of 36-foot single-bulkhead flatcars in use on the Yosemite Valley - the bulkhead was on the downhill end of cars used on the logging inclines.
Of course, that was a railroad-specific non-interchange car. When incline operations ended in November, 1942, most of them were sold to other Western state logging operations.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
A centerbeam flat shorter than 60’ must be a very rare bird indeed, so much so that I’ve never seen a picture of one and in my own extensive research on the car type I’ve found nothing on a CBF shorter than 60 feet. You’ll have to make up a fanciful freelance story to accomodate a less than 60’ centerbeam flat, or look the other way in making a compromise.
When they were introduced, centerbeam flats were all in that 60’ range, I believe with 61’ being the launch type, and these days the 62’ centerbeam being the predominant type in that range today. Subsequently, as all car types seem to do today, CBFs were expanded in size and introduced in the 73’ centerbeams you see today. I think that was an 1980’s/90s trend.
Many people seem to regard the 73’ centerbeam as the ubiquitous type now, but many of those earlier 60’+ centerbeam flats are still in service and they’re a lot more commoner than most folks think, almost as common as 73 footers. For instance, CSX has 1,819 73 foot CBFs in service, but also has 1,366 62’ CBFs, and 46 61 foot CBF cars. The vast majority of these are TTX cars in CSX service, with only a couple hundred in CSXT colors. All of the older 61’ cars are CSXT however.
I don’t know whether there is a specific speciality lading for the 62’ cars, though I see them often in shipping of telephone poles and know they’re used for shipping wallboard, which is a heavier lading. With the decline in the housing/building market, a lot of CBFs are sitting on storage tracks these days, and coupled with the increase in the price of scrap metal one might assume that some of those older 61 and 62’ cars may meet their demise soon.
It’s always annoyed me that you cannot find a decent HO model of the 62’ CBF, when the 73’ cars are so easy to find. Like you, I’m operating on relatively tight radius, and j
Centerbeam flats are newer so they will be longer cars. They also wouldn’t be made from an older flatcar since the center beam is structural, so the fishbelly frame on a regualr flatcar would just be wasted weight.
On the other hand, there were lots of 50 foot (actually 53’6") bulkhead flats. Many models of 53’6" GSC flat cars came with optional bulkheads in the kits. I would turn the 50 ft cars into bulkhead flats. if you had to have shorter centerbeams, look for newer flat cars with straight welded side sills (as opposed to cast or riveted fishbelly side sills) and convert them.
Dave H.
CN and BC Rail both converted some 52’ and 66’ regular bulkhead flatcars to lumber cars of the same concept and usage of a centrebeam by adding rows of centre posts, deck risers and ratchet tie downs. You could kitbash these from Walthers’s model of the “Canadian Bulkhead Flatcar”
http://freight.railfan.ca/cn/cn604751.jpg
Dehusman, you’re right- I never noticed that centerbeams are flat along the bottom, unlike older flatcars. Thanks for pointing that out! I’ll see if my LHS has some newer flatcars in.
Shawnee and cv acr- thanks for the prototype info, and those pictures especially. Now I know I’m not being too far-fetched with this idea.
Anyone know of a source for scale drawings of the 62’ CBFs? Since no models are available, I was thinking about scratchbuilding some.
Thanks
I did a little bit of rough work converting an older “fish belly” flatcar into a newer type. First is my comparison store-bought bulkhead flat.
And here’s what I did quickly to the older car. It’s not yet finished.
Is that a close enough facsimile, or should I just get some newer flatcars?
I don’t see what scale you’re in, but if it’s HO there are actually centerbeam kits available if you look around. McKean made some of the 60+ foot opera window cars, and I think they might have made some of the other cars with the straight vertical members. They weren’t exactly easy to build, primarily because some of the parts didn’t exactly fit without some manipulation. But it might be easier to use one of these instead of scratchbuilding. Or maybe not! Microscale did make a set of decals for this car, and I believe that set is still available.
Regards
Hi Maxman
Yes, HO. I do have the McKean kit and yes it is a bit rough. I doubt I will ever build it. But between the kit and some proto photos maybe I can come up with enough info to build some. The angled parts and ratchets will be the tough part. I’d like 10 or so for my fleet. I’m sure as soon as I seriously start to build some a kit will come out.
There was an article in the January 1996 issue of Railmodel Journal that had pictures of centerbeam flats. Two of these are of the 60 foot variety, one a Milwaukee and the other Trailer Train. The article also makes mention of “an entirely new HO kit for the same Thrall 60-foot girder center beam (not a reissue of the Front Range {McKean} kit. It will come pre-assembled.” If this kit was ever actually produced, I don’t know. Maybe someone else knows the answer to that. Possibly it ended up just being Vaporware.
And maybe you just want to give that McKean kit you have a try, since you already have it. I think the major issue folks had with the thing was that the floor piece sandwich caused problems. I think the cause of this was that the winch pieces did not exactly fit in the associated slots, caused the floor to not assembly properly. But I could be wrong on this as it’s been a long time since I put the one I built together. I still have a bunch of them to put together. Maybe this thread will give me the incentive.
Regards