Does anybody have a picture of a WWII era fighter plane being transported via rail? I’ve seen some models of a flatcar with a fighterplane on the back, and I wanted to model one, but I wanted to base it on an actual prototype if possible. I tried google as well as the forum search engine, but couldn’t find anything. I did find a picture of an airliner fuselage on a flatbed, but I was hoping for a fighter plane.
Thanks.
There are two issues here, one regarding construction procedures during WWII and the other driven by the design of the aircraft.
During the war, many fighter and fighter-type airframes were constructed complete to flyable condition at the point where the first tin-bending started. At Bethpage, Long Island, Grumman took in engines, small parts and coils of aluminum alloy sheet at one end, and taxied complete Hellcats out the other. After being test flown and accepted by the Navy, they were fueled up and flown away, mainly by female pilots. I have been told that the same was true of P51s, Avengers and other single-seaters. Complete fully assembled fighters moved by air, not by rail. Complete, partially assembled fighters seldom moved anywhere.
The design factor involved the way the wings were fitted. Hellcats could have been loaded on freight cars since their wings folded (very complex joint) close to the centerline of the fuselage. Mustangs, on the other hand, had the main fuselage structure sitting on the wing joint. The wings themselves were solid from aircraft centerline to wingtip. Once the fuselage was mated to the wings a lot of other structure was wrapped around the joint, making disassembly almost as complex as original manufacture.
It would have been much more probable to see racks of subassemblies (half a dozen horizontal stabilizers, an equal number of vertical stabilizers; four left wings…) on a single flat car than to see a complete, partially-disassembled single aircraft. The parts would have been traveling from subcontractor plants to final assembly.
After WWII, it might have happened that some air museum or similar might have shipped a single aircraft by rail. I think that truck transportation would have been preferred, since air museums don’t have dedicated rail service.
[quote user=“tomikawaTT”]
There are two issues here, one regarding construction procedures during WWII and the other driven by the design of the aircraft.
During the war, many fighter and fighter-type airframes were constructed complete to flyable condition at the point where the first tin-bending started. At Bethpage, Long Island, Grumman took in engines, small parts and coils of aluminum alloy sheet at one end, and taxied complete Hellcats out the other. After being test flown and accepted by the Navy, they were fueled up and flown away, mainly by female pilots. I have been told that the same was true of P51s, Avengers and other single-seaters. Complete fully assembled fighters moved by air, not by rail. Complete, partially assembled fighters seldom moved anywhere.
The design factor involved the way the wings were fitted. Hellcats could have been loaded on freight cars since their wings folded (very complex joint) close to the centerline of the fuselage. Mustangs, on the other hand, had the main fuselage structure sitting on the wing joint. The wings themselves were solid from aircraft centerline to wingtip. Once the fuselage was mated to the wings a lot of other structure was wrapped around the joint, making disassembly almost as complex as original manufacture.
It would have been much more probable to see racks of subassemblies (half a dozen horizontal stabilizers, an equal number of vertical stabilizers; four left wings…) on a single flat car than to see a complete, partially-disassembled single aircraft. The parts would have been traveling from subcontractor plants to final assembly.
After WWII, it might have happened that some air museum or similar might have shipped a single aircraft by rail. I think that truck transportation would have been preferred, since air museums don’t have dedicated rail service.
I know that there has been a flatcar loaded wit
Thanks for the replies. I assumed that what you guys said were both possibilities, and the reason why I couldn’t find any information on it. I may still make the model, might look neat. We’ll see.
Thanks again,
nick
Keep in mind railroad photography - especially of military trains - was effectively disallowed due to fear of the pictures being used by foreign agents for intelligence gathering or sabotage. So it’s possible a train like you picture in your mind did occur, but it just wasn’t photographed.
Look for old military manuals on loading and bracing requirements for open top loads. While they may not have been photographed, if the military shipped them they had a manual on how to load and brace them. I have seen manuals on how to ship all sorts of trucks, tracked vehicles, cannons, boats, plus all the construction supplies used by the military, but can’t recall off hand seeing anything on shipping airplanes.
Dave H.
I’m not an authority on the subject, in the book “Halseys Typhoon” there is a passage by a former fighter pilot that when discharged after the war and driving back east with his new bride, the astonishment of observing his former aircraft complete with markings bouncing along on a flatcar with many others. Perhaps they were on their way to scrap or mothballs? If you heed his tale, fighter aircraft were transported via rail, as to the details, I could not say.
Dave
Though I know that ground vehicles were regularly transported by rail (military trains used to run through Truckee when I was a wee child full of tanks, trucks, jeeps and howitzers), the other posters are right, most military aircraft was flown to ports of embarcation, or in the case of heavy bombers, flown to their destinations either in the Pacific or European theaters. About the only fighter plane that could have comfortably fitted on a flatcar would have been the Hellcat, due to its ‘folding’ wings, and probably then, only under a tarp. During WWII, nobody wanted to chance a major improvement in aircraft design being possibly leaked to the enemy by rail photographers.
Tom
found a link with a pic for you. its a french hurricane on a gondola.
www.mixedtraffic.net/…/interestingprojects.htm
it says its heading for the coast and being shipped to england where it was used in a training squadron agter the war. it had to be shipped instead of flown because it was in dissrepair.
there is also a model of it where the fuseloge is on one flat bed and the wings on another.
Thanks for all of the advice regarding this project. Sorry I didn’t respond to all of them, just moved, so I’ve been busy. Anyway,
I couldn’t get the link to work, but I found it -
http://www.mixedtraffic.net/mixedtraffic3.htm
Anyway, thanks for the website. I hadn’t seen it before. I actually want to use a Spitfire, so that’s perfect.
Thanks!
nick
Browsed around for a bit on that website, found this link:
http://www.mixedtraffic.net/war/war.htm
Down towards the bottom of the page.
Sure - if you are modelling the desperate days of the Battle of France/Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940, then it may make sense to model the occational wrecked plane being shipped back to a factory for an extensive rebuild.
According to book “Hurricane Aces 1939-1940” by Tony Holmes (available at google books), the picture you are referring to is showing Hurrican mk 1 no L2045 of No 501 squadron Royal Air Force being shipped back from France to Britain in the spring of 1940.
This particular airplane was delivered to 501 squadron at RAF in July 1939, and flown into France on 10 May 1940, when No 501 squadron was deployed to France as Nazi Germany started their Blitzkrieg into Western Europe.
This airplane was involved in its first dogfight the next day, May 11th 1940 and was shot up some in the wing area as Flying Office Gus Hold
I used to work in Grand Prairie, Texas, home of LTV, maker of the F4U Crusader, the F8 Crusader, and the A7 Corsair. The Corsair was made from parts and pieces of Crusaders. In the mid 80’s, LTV was trying for one last contract to build a ground attack fighter, and they shipped in 5 F8’s from Davis Monthan AFB by rail to build 2 prototypes. LTV’s plan was to add an afterburning engine to the A7 so it would have more “getaway” power from the target. Alas, LTV lost the competition to General Dynamic’s F-16. My uncle worked as an engineer at the plant, and this was one of his final projects.
My recollection is that the F8 fuselage was crated/framed and placed in a gondola, and the wings were placed in a separate gondola. I do have pictures of these, somewhere. I have always wanted to model these loads; I don’t know how 1/72 parts would look in 1/87 gondolas…
A few years ago Walthers offered P51 mustangs kits in HO. I thought they would make a great flat car load so I built one kit, then cut it apart. put it on a flat car and build a frame around it. My story is the box contained the props.
I know P51s would have been flown to Europe but I thought they might have been ship deck cargo to the Pacific. P51s first flew in WWII but were also used during the Korean Conflict. Since I model the port of Astoria, Oregon in 1053, the idea seemed natural. 
wow, that was a bit confusing. i’m sort of a WWII aircraft buff (ok i’ll admit at one point i could identify 70% of WWII aircraft, no matter the country, by sillouette. don’t ask about american planes, there wasn’t one i didn’t know). i’ll stick to fighters since that’s what the question was about. i’d have to agree with one thing said, it could happen! WWII did make the government a little funky (if you look at it enough you tend to realize the government didn’t have too many top secret things or hide stuff from John Q. Public before that time) so it is possible they were hauled around by trains. i’ve seen lots of pics. there were two main ways to get short range aircraft to Europe. they folded up the wing and wrapped them up then stuck them on a ship like a Liberty (not a boat, submarines and smaller vessels were reffered to as boats. as the saying goes, "You can put a boat on a ship deck, but you can’t put a ship on a boat deck) then floated to Europe. the other big way was the same way they do it now-a-days, flew the plane onto an aircraft carrier then strapped it down for the ride. i haven’t really seen any stuff on how they would get the aircraft to the ship ports though. but one thing i think should be said, which was touched on. most of the fixed wing aircraft in WWII had skin panels that would be riveted in place to the wing frame and the air frame. the planes i mentioned above were built like that. just some food for thought
What about modern military aircraft - 1970s and later? Boeing transports half-completed airliner airframe’s on flatcars, and subassemblies on special airplane parts containers. Military aircraft are most likely fully completed on site, though subassemblies might be transported by rail. An F-16 airframe could probably fit on a flat car, as well as most helicopters.
helicopters definetly could be, but most likely not. specially early ones which tended to be narrow and only had 2 prop blades. they looked like a shoe box with the long sides pointed in the air in cross-section. wasn’t really untill the Iriqous (ok fine, “Huey” but Iriqous was the actual name given to it) that they started making em fatter and looking like a shoe box tipped over with the short ends looking to the air. even thing still 2 prop blades, and the skis were still close enough together to fit on a flat car. then like everything else they started makin choppers bigger with more power and then started needing larger 4 blade propellers. as for the F-16…maybe. but even by the end of WWII air planes had enough range to be put together in Seattle and flown across the states to like VA then take a boat ride. then they came up with this wonderful in-flight refueling. leave Lockheed in CA, hit up a tanker on the east coast, fly to green land hit up another tanker, one more in the france/spain/england area and then finally the little F16 can hit it’s home base in irag or kuwait or wherever. fun fun. wanna know what thats like? go put on one of those old fashioned 1-piece mechanics suits, get in your car, set a cardboard wall against the passenger seat between you and the seat, and then go driving for around what, 17-18 hours? i’m sure some air force guy will chime in saying it takes longer or it takes shorter, but that would an infield figure of how it would feel. oh and make sure it’s a car not a truck, F16 cockpits were a little roomier but not much. ooh, hell, trying about 250 and squeezing into an A4 cockpit. that was tight. i’m glad it was only a museum exhibit (i used to live 30 minute drive from a pretty decent air museum).
I am an airplane fan along with all my other interests. Awhile ago I saw a radial engine US fighter,maybe Hell Cat,that was crated and sent overseas where the wings were then installed. I would bet it traveled by rail in the crate. In many WWII US rail photos I have seen the freights were loaded with many,many crates of equipment. Not easy to tell exactly what was in the crates just by looking at the photo.
Remember the women ferry pilots, they picked everything up at the factorys flew them away. I believe the fighters were flown to the coast and put on ships. The bombers may have been ferryed all the way to England. My memory may not be accurate. My [2c]
Lee
Bombers would NOT have been chopped up to be put on a flat car. Even if you look at a small one like a B-25, B-26, A-26 of the like. One car for the wings, tail planes, and vertivle stabalizer, another one or two flats for the body. I know back then nothing was really over 50 feet, so even using 50 foot flats a shorter bomber like a B-25 would not fit on a flat car. I’m sticking to WWII era because once you get into the 50’s you’re talking about jets that got twice the range and had in-flight refueling invented so they would never have the need for being shipped in a crate.
The only real fesable reason a plane would have it’s wings lopped off and packed in a crate to ship on a box car is if like an air museum bought it or it was donated to one and the airplane couldn’t fly for one reason or another. And even then idea would have to compete with shipping the plane by truck, which would be most likely. I mean I don’t think too many air museums had a set of tracks for RR delivery. Plus as I menioned before at that time period the test flight was often also the ferry flight to get it to a ship yard. They were taken apart and crated and shipped in Liberty boats and such. The longer range planes where just flown. East they just followed coast and into Greenland, basically Island hopping. West ways, well unless you’re talking about a B-29 which could fly from Haiwaii to Guam non stop (so long as it was stripped of guns, had no bomb load, minimal crew, and over filled with fuel) but everything else wouldn’t make it. I think I mentioned before that some planes would have been ferried across the ponds by carrier but I was thinking Navy planes there. Land based planes would have had no way of stopping in time. WWII didn’t use steam canons or launchers, but they did use arresting wire devices.
What might be more interesting is to model a “bomb train”. I know rail roads delivered explosives to bomb factories, I imagine that shipping finished bombs by rail
Also don’t over look the “jeep carriers” these was small escort carriers that could ferry the planes to where they was needed.
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/cv-escrt.html
As far as bombers they could fly where needed and be refitted with armament at their assigned air base.
I don’t think there was a need to transport any plane by rail…