I am building PRR and NYC interchange in HO modelled in mid 1950’s. On my two level layout I have a yard with 6 stub ends and I would like to make one or two of them end loading for trailers on flat cars or loading automobiles on auto cars.
How was this done? I have limited space so trailers cannot be lifted on using an overhead crane or lifted from the side.
I have seen pictures of trailers being backed up a ramp and loaded onto a flat car, but could a loader drive down a number of flat cars to make up a train? Or did an empty flat car have to be brought up for loading each time?
Same to automobiles… how did they load more than one car? Could you drive through?
I think you might be a little early for multilevel auto rack loads if you modeling the 50’s. They came into widespread use in the early sixties. Several roads played around with some form of racks for autos on flat cars earlier than that but nothing in widespread use back then, that I know of.
From the description of available space, it looks like you have to stay with “circus” style loading. That was the norm for your era anyway.
As shown in the video refered to by The Bear, “Circus Loading” was how it was done. And yes the drivers regulary backed the trailers on long strings of specially equipped flat cars.
Automobiles were usually carried in box cars. They were loaded through the side doors. The box cars usually had movable racks inside them so the autos could be stacked to increase capacity. There were also some box cars with large end doors, but on one end only. There was also some carrying of autos on flat cars in the mid 1950’s, but this was rare. Around 1959 and for a short time thereafter some autos were transported on highway auto carrier trailers loaded on flat cars.
Early TOFC was all ‘circus loaded’ by backing trailers down several car lengths. The cars regularly used in this service had fold down plates (to the right when facing the end of the car from the ground) and brake wheels on a bit of car side instead of the car end.
I’ve seen photos of a special train-loading tractor which had a cut down cab, rather like the aircraft tug I used to move KB-50 aircraft. Only the driver’s seat was enclosed.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - auto racks, no TOFC)
In addition to the large multitrack TOFC facilities near cities there were much smaller facilities in outlying communities, often only a single spur only long enough for a few cars. They fell into disuse because they were inefficent to operate.
Details West offers the ramps that were used between the flat cars to allow trailers to be loaded ‘circus style’. They are a bit modern for the 1950s but they can serve as reasonable substitutes by removing a few details:
For the 50s you only need the long ramps. In later years the cars were a bit further apart so they had to add the short ramps to bridge the gap.
Details West also offers the hitches to which the trailers were attached on the flat car. There are several variations but I believe this is the closest to your era:
Pretty much the driver did. There was just enough room for the steer wheels to turn a little and you wouldn’t want more than that anyway. Guys who do this for a living get so they can almost do it in their sleep. Used to work loading trailers at a big grocery outfit with around 120 doors, so they get lots of practice doing that. We called the tractors “jockey” or spotter" trucks and they are specialized for this purpose with lifting 5th wheels so no need to crank dollies anymore, but back in the 50s it was just any old single axle semi-tractor.
In the first video that zstripe linked to, there’s a tractor with two steering wheels so that the driver doesn’t have to look backwards. It’s at the 8:12 mark in the video. It must not have been too much fun in the rain or cold.
2 steering wheels? That is pretty unusual, I’d say, maybe even epxerimental.
I’ll bet someone in mgmt got a big binus for coming up with that idea, then the guy he hired got another bonus for figuring out it was a lot cheaper to force the driver to look in a mirror and pay them even less to do it[;)]
Spent many,many year’s…rain, snow, sleet and freezing cold as a spotter, fuelman, hook-up man. Retired Teamster and believe me…it was worth every minute of it, if You could see my pension check every month. When they invented snowmobile suits…that was truly a Godsend.
One thing to note about “circus” style loading as practiced before the lift-on/lift-off era is all trailers must face the same direction for loading/unloading. This meant that the ramps at the point of origin must be oriented in the same direction as the ones at the destination, or some provision made to turn the consist to properly approach the ramp. In large cities, and at major junctions, wyes might be available, but in smaller towns and intermediate terminals the answer was a portable ramp that could be moved to the end of the cut where it was needed. The Louisville and Nashville had a double ended siding in its Gulfport, Mississippi yard where a couple of city streets crossed the tracks a few hundred yards apart. L&N spread gravel even with the tops of the rails, brought in a portable ramp, and handled the few piggyback loads originated or terminated in Gulfport at the impromptu parking lots adjacent to these crossings, regardless of whether they were east or westbound. Much less common and usually only done for a VERY high priority load, A car might get spun on a locomotive turntable, but only as a last resort.
