On the Schnabel Continuation Page 0:

On the Schnable Continuation Page 1:

On the Schnable Continuation Page 2:

On the Road Load page:

On Road Loads Page 2:

On the Road Loads Page 3:

Something has to lift these giant loads; see Big Cranes.

Jump to SB,III's RAILROAD Page for a goodly set of RR links

  and to SB,III's MODEL RAILROAD Page for a goodly set of model RR links (yea, verily, forsooth!).

SCHNABEL CARS - please note that the Märklin 8620 "Depressed-Center Flat Car" isn't such at all!  It is a SCHNABEL car!  A Schnabel car is one which has two heavy lifting arms on independent trucks (bogies); when the inner ends of the arms are locked together and train lines connected, the two cars act as one.  When the cars are separated and a monster load, usually a giant transformer or a nuclear reactor pressure vessel, is rigidly bolted between the arms, and the trainlines extended under or around the load and connected, the entire set of the two end cars and the load becomes one single car.  The arms are hydraulically operated to lift the load to clear the railhead and to tilt and swing the load to compensate for track irregularities and to clear trackside obstacles.  On tight turns, both arms can be moved outboard to move the load clear of signals or masts inside the curve.  To load heavy objects directly from barges, a wye leads to tracks run along either side of the barge slip and the cars are separated and run down either side of the barge with the arms swung inboard at 45º; the load is swung around 45º on the barge and the arms are then dropped and bolted to the load.  The load is then lifted, the set pulled back until the lead car clears the wye, the turnout thrown, and the set pulled further until second car clears the wye.  At this point, idler cars, cars of spares and tools, passenger cars for the crew, and a caboose are usually added and the consist is ready for over-the-road travel, albeit at greatly restricted speed and clearances.  Such consists are always run as independent trains; virtually never being coupled to regular freights.  The cars normally are equipped with their own generators and hydraulic pumps and automatic sensors and leveling devices.  Some of these cars, usually the smaller 100-ton versions, have a pair of beams which can be bolted rigidly to the arms to carry a load on the beams as a sort of open-bottomed (or through-well) "Well-Flat" car; even so, it still is NOT a depressed-center flat car.  The Pennsy's #470245 FD2 "Queen Mary" was perhaps the world's largest Depressed-Center Flat, but could also be configured as an open-bottomed well-flat (FW1 "Queen Elizabeth", PRR #472048, see below).

Most Schnabel cars have an automotive equivalent with dozens of bogies to move the load locally at the delivery site; there is usually a tractor at each end and one such road monster tipped over on a sharp curve on a country road in Texas ca. 1980 or so - photos showed a veritable sea of tires in the air!

Definition of "SCHNABEL CAR" from R.I.C.A. Glossary (see below):
{New URL as of 01 Sep 00}

"A heavy duty, privately owned railroad freight car composed of two symmetrical halves that carry a load attached between the pivoting arms of each half of the car. The load and any accessories, such as suspension bars, become structurally a part of the entire car assemblage. In some cars, that portion including the load and arms can be hydraulically shifted horizontally or lifted vertically in order to clear fixed obstructions or equipment on an adjacent track."

The largest^@ Schnabel rail car is one made by Krupp in Germany for Combustion Engineering (now part of ABB^#) in America, CEBX 800, which carries 800 tons (!), and has 36 axles (72 wheels) total!  That means there are NINE (count 'em) 4-wheel (2-axle) trucks under EIGHT span bolsters at EACH END:   (05 Jan 06)

 _____      _________________        {Please ignore vertical
|     |    /    LIFTING ARM  |        exaggeration - just what can
      |   /   _______________|        one ask without ASCII
|     |  /   /   _________|_________  box-draw characters in HTML?}
      | /   /   /                   |
|     ||   /   |____________________|
 LOAD ||  /  ____|__           ____|____   SPAN BOLSTERS
|     || /  |____   |____     |         |  (8 per END)
      ||/ ___|__ |       |    |         |
|     |  / _____||_______|    |_________|
      | | |  __|__   __|__   __|__   __|__
|     | |_| |_____| |_____| |_____| |_____|=[]  <-COUPLER
 _____|  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |          
        O=O O=O O=O O=O O=O O=O O=O O=O O=O  <-TRUCKS (9 per END)
===========================================

Here are some grab shots of my wooden tracking mockup in HO - a full meter long!

 
(all photos taken 03 Nov 99 by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - All Rights Reserved)

The side of the "800-ton load" reads, "WOULD YOU BELIEVE THIS IS AN 800-TON LOAD?".  [The other mock-up is a really old one of the WECX 102 or 301 (I forget which).]

The C-E half cars each weigh 40 tons unladen, so the whole rig comes to 880 TONS fully loaded with a giant transformer or reactor vessel!  My HO operating mock-up measures exactly a metre (39") long and is a nightmare to keep on the track (it does NOT have automatic swing and tilt)!  The Westinghouse mock-up tracks a little better but is actually much harder to rerail (it's far more rigid).

(Autosketch image by and © 1997, 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved;
converted to *.wmf and then, however oddly, to *.gif and *.jpg)
[thumbnail image - click on picture for larger (147Kb) image.]

Schnabel Car Loading Sequence.
(reverse moves for unloading)

(photo from Eisenbahn Magazin, by special permission - All Rights Reserved)
[Thumbnail image - click on photo for very much larger (>300Kb) image]

(photo from Eisenbahn Magazin, by special permission - All Rights Reserved)
[Thumbnail image - click on photo for much larger (~100Kb) image]

(illustration from Eisenbahn Magazin, by special permission - All Rights Reserved)
[Thumbnail image - click on illustration for much larger (~140Kb) image]

Note that in the configuration shown, CEBX 800 is a cross between a drop-center flat and a Schnabel,using a tension beam for draft and the load (ih part) for buff.   (05 Jan 06)

To honor this very special courtesy, I have used lots of memory to bring these images to you uncut.

SCHNABEL (and other Giant Cars) MODELS LIST moved to Continuation Page.

Here are three images of that giant Combustion Engineering* 880-ton car, taken in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, ca. 1988², by Jeff Reid, then a Conductor for C.P.Rail.  When "called for the trip on the Schnable, I made sure to bring my camera."   (05 Jan 06)

² - A correspondent who lived just east of Regina, Sask., then, photographed the rig on its way to Regina's Co-op Refinery.  There were, as he recalls, three full-sized units and one half-sized unit used in a heavy-oil upgrader there and a similar upgrader was built in Lloydminster after he moved away in '90.  This obviously-knowledgeable correspondent advises that Jeff's pictures had to have been taken in 1987.

Nine (9) trucks at each end, just as I said - COUNT 'EM!

Swinging a really-tight curve (probably in a yard)!  The car would be "walked" through and the pivot centers hydraulically shifted outboard to compensate for the inward underhang and center-of-gravity shift.

Notice that the vessel (possibly an oil processing reactor) is on tension beams, thus making the car into a cross between a drop-center flat and a Schnabel.   (05 Jan 06)

Notice also that the hydraulics and controls have been enclosed in weather cabs at each end (probably added for the severe weather conditions in the Canadian northland); they weren't on the CE car as built.

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ABB Power Generation's 20-axle BBCX 1000 at 115' 10" (35.31M) empty, with travel link in place,
    161' (49.07M) with load platform in place, 1,000,000 pounds (453.59MT) load limit.
General Electric Company's 20-axle GECX 40010 at 109' 6.75" (33.39M) empty, with travel link in place,
    1,000,000 pounds (453.59MT) load limit.
  (ditto) 12-axle GECX 40013 at 106' 6" (32.46M) empty, with travel link in place,
    750,000 pounds (340.19MT) load limit.
  (ditto) 12-axle GECX 40017 at 105'10" (32.26M) empty, with travel link in place,
    750,000 pounds (340.19MT) load limit.
  (ditto) 12-axle GECX 40018 at 105'10" (32.26M) empty, with travel link in place,
    750,000 pounds (340.19MT) load limit.
TransAlta Utilities Corp.'s 18-axle* CAPX 1001 at 146' 2" (44.55M) with a 35' (10.67M) platform length,
    792,000 pounds (359.25MT) load limit; this is NOT the car in Jeff Reid's pictures, above.
    The TransAlta car is described by the R.I.C.A. as "actually a depressed center flatcar
    with load platform shifting capacity either vertically or horizontally".

* - This was a mess!  The 880-ton 36-axle car was mis-identified in the earlier photos from Canada as TransAlta's CAPX 1001, instead of the C-E/ABB car.  As this photo clearly shows, TransAlta's CAPX 1001 is an 18-axle drop-center flat car, whereas CEBX 800 is definitely a 36-axle (72-wheel) car!  My apologies to anyone I have may have confused in my own confusion.   (05 Jan 06)

(Cropped from photo by Steve Blake on Railpictures.net - all rights reserved;
shot on the NS at Danville, Kentucky, in Oct 2003)

@ - there is more on CEBX 800 on both Continuation Page 0 and Continuation Page 2 and on the dedicated CEBX 800 page.

# - ABB advised on 29 Jul 2005 that ABB Combustion Engineering Nuclear Systems had been sold on 5-2-2000 to NewsEdge Corporation/ British Nuclear Fuels PLC; that is the Mar 2003 rebuild, yet she remains decorated for ABB.  I have made (in)(en)enquires.

Part of the confusion on the 880-ton car was because I had it mislabelled as a 36-wheel car instead of a 36-axle car, with 72 wheels (as noted* above)!  There is only one such car in the world; Krupp/Combustion Engineering/ABB CEBX 800.   (05 Jan 06)

ABB USA/ C-E's Transportation/Delivery Page shows the 1,000,000# 20-axle car and states:

   "For delivery of large equipment, ABB owns a 20 axle, expandable width, Schnabel rail car
    with a 500 ton load capacity.  ABB also owns a 40 ft. long, 400 ton capacity platform that
    can be used with the Schnabel car, and a 370 ton capacity, 12 axle flat car."

See Tom Daspit's RR site, especially his revamped and expanded " Schnabel Cars" and " Large Flat Cars" pages for hundreds of photos, directories, lists, and more info. on schnabel and heavy-duty cars and loads.  Be sure to follow all his internal links to get the full impact of his arduous labors on our behalf; many thanks, Tom!

Tom reports (22 Sep 98) that the "CEBX 800 car is now owned by ABB.  It has 36 axles, not 36 wheels (18 axles) as the TransAlta car has.  I have some pictures of it with ABB ownership, but is still carries the reporting marks CEBX.  ABB purchased Combustion Engineering about 7 or 8 years ago, and then they purchased the Westinghouse transformer division that was based in Muncie, Indiana.  Westinghouse had several schnable cars that were originally lettered WECX, and now are lettered PTDX.  Westinghouse still has a couple of schnabel cars used by the nuclear division."

Tom recommends "Classic Freight Cars - The Series", Vol. 6" (see below) and says it has pictures of GEX 40010, WECX 200, and WECX 301.  "This is a great book; it shows the Queen Mary in both PRR and PC paint, the large GE flat, and GE and Westinghouse schnable cars.  Both of these GE cars are about 30 feet longer the PRR Queen Mary flat car.  Both of these cars have the horizontal load shifting, but not vertical shifting, capability of the schnable cars."

Tom had previously greatly increased his coverage (as of 18 Nov 98), with new pictures, when he reported that the former 200-series Westinghouse cars "are now owned by ABB (ASEA-Brown Boveri), and lettered with the reporting marks PTDX.  The future of these cars is undetermined, because ABB announced the closing of the Muncie Plant in December 1997.  These cars will probably be sold to a leasing company".

RMC has a well-illustrated article on the TTX heavy-duty 12-axle Class DSH-45 QTTX flat cars in the March 1999 issue, pages 86-90, with photos, drawings, and roster, and a scratchbuilding article with more photos on pages 91-95.

Now, here's a monster car that's a semantic puzzle.  Technically, GEX 80003 is a drop-center flat car, but the bed is so thick and high off the rails and the goosenecks so high over the span bolsters that it might better be called a raised-ends flat:

Image from George Elwood's fabulous Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
George describes it as "@ Bridge One, Cleveland OH")
1,000,000 lbs Capacity, 40" wheels, 154' 6" long.

This car is more fully described on page 54 of Classic Freight Cars - Vol. 6; it is GEX 80003, is 30' longer (!) than the Pennsy's Queen Mary #470245, and has a 40' long loading platform.

George also listed "flat4000", which didn't ring a bell; I was all excited to discover a new giant car when THIS is what appeared (GECX4000):

Cropped from image from George Elwood's fabulous Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
Oh, well; you can't win them all (not that super-power is so terrible)!

Model Schnabel and other Giant Cars moved to Continuation Page 2, 04 Dec 99).

Berliners Bessere Biffie Bauerei is a noted manufacturer of biffies (outhouses) made of depleted uranium so they can't be tipped over while in use.  They require unique(!) heavy-duty railcars for transport (in both HO and Z scales), the Biffisch (Biffi Schnabel), a special car made to carry these products.

Kibri HO heavy highway haulers are pictured on the Road Loads page, et seq.; have a look.

Look also at the Schnabel Continuation Page 2, et seq.

THUMBS UP!

THUMBS UP!  -  Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!

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S. Berliner, III

To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.

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of this series of Schnabel Railroad Car pages.

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