I am looking to find out what would be the accurate flat car to transport sherman tanks during WW2. THanks Bill
I have several railroad books with photos from the ww2 period.
In the US the Shermans were normally carried two per car on flat cars from the railroads fleet. It was possible to identify a car in one of the photos.
Chicago and North Western #45487. According to the 1940 ORER it was a type FM, length 46ft, width 9ft 4in, capacity 100,000 lbs.
A photo in England shows them one per car on British depressed center cars which are identifiied a “Warwell” cars.
In France, a photo shows them two per car on French flat cars that are similar to the US cars.
wonder how they loaded them, crane? back the flat next to a ramp and then drive the tanks on?
There was an article in “Model Rail” about transporting military vehicles by rail a while ago. Over here, we have two types of transport car - both 4-axle. The “Warwell” (depressed centre, used for heavy and tall cargo such as tanks to get them within the loading guage) and the “Warflat” (basically a heavy-duty flatcar). Both types have screw-down jacks at each end to stablise them for loading/unloading. Many years ago, there were specialist 4-wheel flats designed to double as a loading ramp and equipped with a demountable axle at one end - they would be lifted, the axle unhooked and rolled out as a unit, the buffers at both ends folded back out of the way, and the end of the car lowered onto the ground. Earth or ties were used to protect the rails from the vehicles being loaded, the Warflats/Warwells would be rolled up to the ramp, and the vehicles would be driven onto the cars. The British army still uses Warflats/Warwells - the design hasn’t changed much since the 1940s - though now they lay spare ties between the rails and use a couple of prefabricated ramps (I think these are usually part of a prefab bridge, though I could be wrong) to load the cars in place of the old 4-wheel flats with removable axles.
The cars DSchmitt mentioned in France could well be US-built - I know a lot of equipment was shipped over to the UK and then dispatched onward to mainland Europe after D-Day, these were mostly slightly-shrunken (to fit our loading gauge) versions of US designs. Hope this helps!
Both methods were used.
One picture shows a crane loading a Sherman onto a Nickle Plate car at an unidentified military base on the Lehigh Valley RR. Most of the crane is hidden by the tank and flat car but it is probably a wheeled type. There is a crane in the backbround that appears to be on a 3-axel chassis with dual wheels on all around.
There is a picture of Lee’s (the predecessor of the Sherman) being unloaded “circus style” at a Boyce, LA grade crossing using a temporary ramp made from heavy timbers
Possibly:
The cars are narrower than the US cars and appear to set higher on the trucks (like an O gauge hi-rail car as opposed to a scale car), the stirrup steps are several feet from the ends instead of at the corners, they have buffers, and a brake wheel where the stirrup step would be on a US car. The brake wheel and trucks do look like a US design.
There’s a DVD I have that includes a feature called “Lifeline of a Nation” which shows railroads transportinng troops and materiel during WWII. Not sure which railroad is depicted, but one scene shows a line of flats carrying Lee tanks, but only 1 tank per flat car. There is also a shot of some halftracks being loaded circus style from the end car.
–Randy