So I have been trying to find good photos of the North Shore piggyback service. I have found a couple of very blurry photo’s of the flat cars, but nothing very good. Is there anything out there that is close to the cars used? And by close I mean Volkswagon Bug/ Porsche 911 close.
I can find pics of the trailers, and they are pretty close to the Athearn shorties, that I got last year for a road that probably wouldn’t end up on a very small short line.
I model 50’s piggyback and use mostly the Athearn 50’ flat with the two trailers - BUt, I do modify them a bit. Most 25/26’ vans only had one axle, so I remove the forward axle fro mthe vans and move the alnding gear back.
Them I cut up the “floor plate” that Athean uses and only keep the side rails and glue them in place on the flat car. I make fith wheel supports and spare tires for the trailers from the left over trailer wheels. Then I add bridge plates in the “up” position.
Jeff Willson has a great book published by our host on Intermodal operations and it covers early piggyback pretty well, at least for beginners or casual modeling.
I do also build some other slight more accuarate cars, but wanted a big and affordable fleet. Most early piggyback flats where just 50’ or 53’ flats with side rails and bride plates added. Trailers where jacked under the 5th wheel and chained down. Every railroad modified their cars slightly differently. Some also bult large fleets of 40’ flats to carry a single 32’/35’ van, and many 50’ cars could be seen carrying a single 32’/35’ van in the early days.
I will try to post a picture or two later. Feel free to ask more specific questions as I have done a lot of research on early piggyback.
Hope this helps.
Sheldon