Hi there, I am in the proscess of joining a model railroad club and there’s a member that has a Union Pacific U.S. Army train; probably not the most prototypical consist but very interesting indeed! Anyway back to the purpose of this thread; I love oversized rail equipment and I’ve wanted to do a train showcasing the biggest rail equipment of North America for quite some time! The locomotive must of course be the UP DD40AX “Big Jack” and the other cars I would like to be UP or private owned and be somehow related to electrical equipment (transformers, wire spools, poles, tower components) also most importantly they must be mostly cars with over four axles!
Hi Steven:
How about one of these:
If I counted correctly there are more than four axles![swg][(-D]
Seriously, it could allow you to use a couple of Big Jacks in the train. I doubt that the Schnabel car would be towing anything else so you could set up a second train bringing along all of the rest of the equipment.
Dave
I have worked for the UP for 37 years and have NEVER heard anyone refer to a DD40 as the “Big Jack”. 6900, Centennial, DD40 yes. Big Jack no.
Of all of that, the only things that would travel on something more than a 4 axle car is a transformer. Everything else is light enough to move on a regular car. The UP would not have put a DD40 on a wide load special. Huge waste of fuel and horsepower.
Having said all that, since the entire train would be made up, that means you can do whatever you like. Just buy whatever cars you can find and slap behind the engine. You are good to go. Just don’t waste your time looking for a prototype photo of a DD40 pulling a wide load special with poles and cable spools.
Well I’m actually not looking for a prototype train only prototype cars!
And here is where I got “Big Jack” from!
"The DD40AX is a 6,600 hp (4.92 MW) D-D diesel-electric built by the
But I’d be more than happy to refer to it as “Centennial” instead!
…and you believe what wikipedia publishes as fact? fact checking by voluteers…
Jim
NO, but its a good enough source of information for those who do not know much about trains. (like me!)
Now back to the point of this thread, I’m looking for HO scale flat cars, depressed center flat cars, heavy duty flat cars, ect…
The consist I am building is for a large electrical substation therefore a lot of heavy equipment needing large multi axle heavy duty flat cars to transport them to the construction site! Hope that clarifies everything.
Schnabel cars in service
http://southern.railfan.net/schnabel/schnabel_cars.html
Schanbel car train on NS (empty)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFugeAIcff8
Train on CSX (loaded)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s1VgRwdBLs
Review of Bachmann HO model
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewgNEa3YlVI
Scratch built model
[quote user=“cascadenorthernrr”]
And here is where I got “Big Jack” from!
"The DD40AX is a 6,600 hp (4.92 MW) D-D diesel-electric built by the
Ok then, glad that’s settled.
Until Wikipedia can be trusted, you can read some information here:
http://utahrails.net/articles/up-dda40x.php
I cannot attest to its authenticity, but it has some good information.
Somewhere I read that the “Big Jack” name was tossed around by a group of Northern California railfans and, as these things become legend, kind of stuck.
Many railroaders had names for equipment that would sound Greek to us.
For instance, any carbody type i.e. Alco FAs, PAs; EMD F and E units would all be refered to as “Covered Wagons”.
Ed
Ok thanks!
Interestingly enough, utahrails is the listed source for that wikipedia article, but a search of the website yielded no hits for “Big Jack”.
Interesting! Now I’m looking for HO scale freight cars with loads related to electrical substations, trainsmission lines, ect. can anyone help?
Search E-Bay for flat cars, schnabel cars, depressed center cars, etc. Even if you don’t want to buy them it will show a lot of what there might be out there on the market (which isn’t much).
Great! Where can I find loads such as transformers, utility poles, wire spools, transmission tower components, substation parts, ect?
Google is your friend for stuff like this.
When I need this type of data, I find that Google is an ideal source to track it down.
Rich