I decided to challenge myself by seeing if I could build an enormous freight car to carry a special container load that I designed a while ago. As always, the design started with a detailed 3D model in Fusion 360.
To add strength and weight, I designed the car around a section of metal strapping. I bought one large piece of perforated stock at my local hardware store, cut it down with a Dremel tool and screwed the car body around it.
Here's what the deck of the completed 89ft car looks like. I suppose I could have added a wooden deck or other details, but since I planned to put a large container load on top, it didn't seem necessary. For strength and simplicity (since a long thin resin part would be impractical), the entire carbody is printed in three large sections of ABS filament.
Here's the container load I devised: four 20ft "Stac Pac" auto transportation containers. GM used these to transport big Buicks and Cadillacs, 3 at a time, back in the 1980s. You can see that the car incorporates clips that grab on to the Stac Pacs on the bottom, similar to what the actual cars used.
I designed in some resin details on to the ends of the car, reusing some of the models and hole sizes that I developed for my 53ft Thrall Coilshield cars (which I did a writeup on a few weeks ago). I also reused the 3D printed roller bearing trucks from that same project, albeit with a longer coupler shank to accommodate the car's colossal length (a full 22" from coupler face to face!).
After gluing and screwing the entire car together, it was time to decide on a livery. I had some CSX decals and dark red paint left over from the Coilshield project so I decided to use that.
Applying decals was relatively easy despite having to work upside down.
Here's the finished car on the layout! The decals don't photograph well but are visible when you look at the car from a low angle.
Here's the 89ft flatcar with all the Stac-Pacs onboard. The long couplers and inset trucks allow the flatcar to track well on O72 curves, although it swings inward like a large passenger car would and is extremely tall. If you've ever seen a real auto carrier car up close, they are HUGE!
As my friend Kris asked me when he saw it, "does it fit on your layout?" It's a tight squeeze in places, but the super long flatcar DOES fit. It even makes the height clearance on this MTH bridge. Unfortunately, the overpasses on the outer loop are about 1/4" too short to allow passage, so this car is restricted to just the one loop.
I still have to paint and decal all of the Stac Pac containers, but in the meantime I am running the prototype as is. I have an improved "Mark 2" flatcar under development which fits together a little nicer. You can see the car running on the inner loop, behind the Rock Island AB6 diesel, in this video which I recently featured in "Front End Friday". Hope you enjoyed reading along and stay tuned for an update some time in the future!
I'm so glad you included this picture. Having never seen a StacPac I was guessing 3 cars. I wonder what advantage GM saw in the Stac Pac vs regular screened auto carriers?
