inter-modal help

Ralph, you've come to the right place here-- the well car can accomodate a 40, 45 or 48' container on the bottom, and same with the top- they load the heavier container on the bottom regardless of size. However, if carrying 20' containers these always go on the bottom.

 

As for trailers, you can carry a trailer in the well, with the hitch handling the pin.

1) not wrong at all. Real railroads do it all the time.

2) Yup, trailer wheels just sit in the well. Real railroads do it all the time.

3) The larger (longer) container on top is the safest way to load them.

 

Which Gunderson did you get? MTH?

-Using twin 20 footers on the bottom is fine- but not just one.

-watch the make of the car and get the right ones for it....I have 2 MTH huskystacks- 1 railking{yellow box} and one redish purple box, and they don't swap...also have 3 lionel containers and they don't like to play well.

- the real ones get pinned and locked on the road trailer just like the rail car, but on the rail car they can get pinned and locked together too.  I don't know if 2 20 footers can be locked into a 40 or better container in the middle ends...outsides should.

It's a K-Line unit:

 

 

Ah, see the pins in the well, you'd want containers that will sit on and in those pins.{matching hole spacing}...otherwise the containers will rock alittle and not stay flat and secure.

...and I should mention that this isn't my only well car , just the latest one and the 1st one I've gotten that wasn't already loaded.

Be aware that your K-line car is mis-labeled as 48ft. Its actually a 40ft well.

K line 40ft containers will fit best inside. A 40, 45, or 48ft can go on top.

Ralph,

 

Don't know if this will matter to you or not, but the Southern Pacific didn't have single car doublestack carriers like that.  They had 5-car articulated sets, so if you want accuracy then the early style Gundersen sets that Atlas O did would be your best bet as no one to date has done these later-style cars in articulated versions yet.

 

If I recall correctly the K-Line cars aren't actually full scale in length so they won't actually take scale 48' containers in the well.  Might not matter if you just use those originally supplied by K-line or if you just use 20' or 40' containers but if you try to use 48' containers from Atlas O or MTH you might run into a problem.

@flash, @john, yes the well length measures 10" which is 40'.

 

@john - don't care about the articulated issue. I have some other 2-car articulated well cars. I don't intend to end up with a unit trains of stacks - I just want to add a well car or two to the freight train mix here and there.

 

Thanks guys

True, although 3-car sets do exist out in the prototype world.  Never understood why MTH never offered them that way.

Actually there are some two car articulated spine sets in the world. But they are usually used for carrying garbage containers. Some double stacks came in 3 car draw bar sets. The 53ft stacks come in 3 car articulated set and so do the 53ft spines.