My HO layout is set in the late 50s and early 60s so piggy back flat cars are on the roster. I use a variety of 50 foot cars which I decal in C.P.R. block lettering. I modify the car by adding guide rails down the length of the car on eihter side. But, I haven’t found any 5th wheel kits for securing the trailer to the deck. I’ve been in the hobby since 1961 so there are always bits and pieces in my scrapbox. One day when i was looking for something else I noticed a number of surplus KD draft boxes I had and the idea hit. The height of the box is almost the perfect height of the 5th wheel stand and with a little modification it looks very much like the real thing. A piece of styrene cut to length makes a perfect angled brace. For the actual hitch on the top, I take another box and cut and file it to the shape of the actual hitch and glue it to the top of upright section. The centre hole on this piece perfectly accommodates the little pin found on the underside of most model trailers.
Now I have a reasonable looking hitch that actually holds the trailers in place. Model Railroading is fun.
You can also find suitable hitches that folks have left over from their modelling. I recently sold some of the original hitches that came with Walthers flatcar kits to another forum member. These were the early style that looked more like a plate on two pogo sticks. That kit also had reasonable replicas of the more modern supports which I have in my spare parts box waiting for a good home. I’m sure other modellers have similar unused items if you search for them.
I have a related question. I hope the OP doesn’t mind me horning in on his thread.
I have several Athearn Canadian Pacific piggy back cars with trailers. There are no hitches on these cars. The retractable wheels and the rear wheels simply sit in cradles. Is this correct or are they missing hitches?
Correct? No. Will they stay on the flat car? Generally, yes.
In the “olden days” before the 5th wheel ACF hitch, trailers were held on flat cars with screw jacks, chocks, blocks of wood, steel plates, and chains.
After “landing” the trailer on the flat car (putting the landing gear on U-shaped metal plates to prevent damage to the wood deck), the workers would then chock the wheels with 4 chocks. Then a pair of screw jacks would be positioned under both ends of the trailer and a wooden beam placed on top of them. The screw jacks would then be jacked to take the weight off both the landing gear and the rubber wheels. At this point, they would then attach chains to the underframe of the trailer to hardpoints on the flat car. These chains had special “come along”-type tighteners that were used to snug up the chains.
The Athearn twin 50’ TOFC is roughly like this idea, which started and was patented by the CGW in 1937. The New Haven paid for this idea and used it shortly thereafter. I don’t know for certain if the CP ever transported TOFC’s before the ACF hitch, but they probably did. Therefore, the cars might be sorta close.
If you want to make them more “realistic”, you’d need to add 4 jacks and 4 chains. The chocks are sort of molded in place.
In some cases I can remember when I saw trailers being loaded the wheel chocks were secured in place with large long screws. I didn’t have much of an idea what they were doing as I was only five at the time.
If not, can you describe or show a picture of what they used. The screw jack in the Walthers listing doesn’t seem to have a large enough base to have been very stable IMHO.
This is turning into a very interesting detailing project!
I always found the combination of struts, screw-jacks, chains, winches etc needed by early ‘Piggyback’ equipement to be fascinating - and can see why, with all the labor required to set that up, that railroads offering intermodal switched to 5th wheel hitches as soon as feasible. Imagine this requiring that screw/chain set-up, not so fast loading in that case.
The earliest reference to the “ACF Hitch” in Trains Magazine is in the June 1960 issue. It is refered to as the “overwelming favorite of all tiedowns”. I have not found any info on when it was developed or how long it had been in use, but I can’t see the hitch in any of the photos in a May 1960 article. From articles in Trains I get the impression appears that chain tiedowns were still common in the early 1960’s.
Thanks very much for the pictures. Clearly the jacks are purpose built and the cross bracing between the jacks answers my concerns about the stability of the jack system. I also note in the pictures that the chain tie downs seem to have a spring loaded shock absorbing system built into them. Another interesting detail.
Does anyone know if models of the piggy back trailer jacks or spring shock absorbers are available?
When I posted my tip on building piggy back trailer hitches I should have been more specific. The hitch I model is that built by American Car and Foundry. Pictures and diagrams of it can be found on pages 136 and 137 of the Car Builders Cyclopedia, 20th Edition. It was retractable and could be raised or lowered with a mechanical wrench by one person in about three minutes. I should also have mentioned that the cars I build also have retractable off-set ramps on either end of the car (the ramp is on the right side of the car as you view it end on). When lowered these ramps permitted driving the trailers over the gaps between the cars or between the car and the loading dock.
Not to take any business away from any manufacturer who provides models of the hitch, but the method described is a fun project, that doesn’t take long, costs very little and adds significantly to both the look of the car and its functionality. With the guard rails on the sides holding the wheels in place and with the trailer’s king-pin in the hitch, it is extremely unlikely that any of your trailers are going to “join the birds.”
I should add that there were other varities of hitches…some railroads built their own. And there were methods other than hitches that were used, especially in the early days of piggy backing. Those who want to be faithful to the practices of any particular prototype road will have some research to do.
That over-grown forklift sure makes the job of loading a trailer look easy. I wondered just how they did that. Not having a loading/unloading point close at hand has it’s disadvantages.
As I tried to mention above, those jacks were included on the part spue for some model kits Walthers made for their GSC flatcars. Those kits could be built as a straight flat, as a bulkhead flat, or a trailer on flat model. The part sprues had the necessary parts for the bulkheads, the hitches, and end of car bridge plates. They also had parts included for the later style, probably similar to ACF style, hitches.
I don’t know of anyone who makes the early style hitches as an after-market part. You would also be on your own for the spring shock absorbers.
So that’s what you meant by plate on pogo sticks. I owned a Walthers GSC flatcar (the bulkhead pieces from the kit still inhabit my scrapbox, although I can’t figure where the actual flatcar is), and I thought (but wasn’t sure) that the kit did come with the old style CGW-patented jacks/chains/chocks trailer tie-down method - seriously, it was patented by the CGW and licensed by New Haven until the advent of the ACF hitch. (from that link to the C&NW historical society
I know people have modeled that style of TOFC tie-down before, but of course I can’t remember which magazines/issues. If you’re modeling the mid-late 1950s, then maybe one or two trailers w/ such tie-downs (out of dozens with ACF hitches) would be cool. Thinking about it, it’s not that hard - some rod and strip styrene for the jacks, chunky strip tapered down for the wheel chocks, some fine chain to the jacks and the trailer corners to the flatcar sidewalls (eyebolts?), maybe an old tightly coiled pen spring (not the more common loose spring) for the jack front supports, paint and weather and there you go - nice looking old-school patented! TOFC.
Kalmbach has a book about intermodal shipments and it covers equipment and processes from the 50’s when things were getting started to the creation of today’s containers by Sealand (at least I believe it was Sealand that invented them). It also talks a little about the development of the double stack trains and how trucks move the containers as well. Good book all and all.