O Scale Freight Car Guide: Intermodal Cars

Got some of the Atlas-O 20’ intermodal containers when I stopped by Mr. Muffin’s Trains last weekend. These were supposed to be associated with the tooling Atlas acquired from Weaver. The containers are now part of Atlas-O Trainman line, unlike the earlier 40’ & 45’ containers that were part of the Master Line. There are 2 containers in 1 box, the box being the same size as the boxes for the earlier 40’ & 45’ containers.

I have never owned the old Weaver containers but the doors on these Atlas containers don’t open as hobbyists have preferred on these forums.

The containers have Atlas markings on the underside.

The tops of the containers have oblong slots unlike the holes on prior Atlas containers. They don’t come with the pins that came loose in the box with the Atlas 40’ & 45’ containers.

The underside has 4 pins molded into the plastic, around 2mm diameter like the metal pins on the underside of the containers in Lionel’s ~48’ Husky stack cars. This makes the container stick up when placed on a flat surface & the Atlas-O containers being scale-size, all 4 these pins do not fit well in the slots on the Lionel Husky cars.

Steve (Mr. Muffin) mentioned that these should fit in the Atlas Gunderson cars but all my Gunderson cars are currently in their boxes & I wasn’t too motivated to unpack & assemble them to test these 20’ containers.

 Here are these containers in Lionel ~48’ Husky stack cars along with the earlier 40’ & 45’ containers.

These are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

I just saw this over on Railpictures

53' containers on spline cars

and thought if Atlas has the K-line spline car tooling and with the upcoming 53' containers all they need to add is the wheel frames and Viola!

The reason the Lionel husky stack containers do not work is because they are not scale length (see the top container).  If you add a bit in the middle to bring them to 40' between the pin mounts they work perfectly.

And the elongated holes in the top are to match the pins on the original Weaver containers. 

Such a small difference that I wonder if the Lionel's were a simple mistake? Their containers do match their cars? So with guys bugging them to make a new container crane, it would only work with their containers anyways. I guess we need to make our own!

 The detailing on the Weaver containers look good. Did they upgrade them or were they that way before?

Does anyone make the original paint scheme Sea Land containers.  So you could buy them without the cars.  Lionel cars?  To add to the original posters labor comments, back in the day, mid 70s,  I hired out as an extra for a month or so on the Sacramento Docks. It was hit and miss depending on how may longshoremen showed that day.   I had a two day selection once.  It was a pretty big ship to load, and looking down into the hold from the deck was somewhat breathtaking for a farm kid from Nebraska.   Anyway, I worked two day shifts and even with multiple shifts, it took more than two days to finish loading.  The cranes swung in large pallets of rice bags, about 60 pounds or so each.  One by one the bags were taken off the pallets and re-stacked neatly in the hold. The ship was  bound for India where hand work was again necessary, I assume,  to unload. 

rdunniii posted:

I just saw this over on Railpictures

53' containers on spline cars

and thought if Atlas has the K-line spline car tooling and with the upcoming 53' containers all they need to add is the wheel frames and Viola!

I think there is a chassis trailer like the following model between the CSX container & the spine cars.

http://www.cheetahchassis.com/...k-container-chassis/

Swafford had been requesting these intermodal trailers when Ted started this intermodal freight car guide & I would also be interested in a lot if they aren’t too expensive. It would be neat to stack them vertically on racks as in the following photo I found on Flickr, of an intermodal yard near Chicago.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/...8NU4Zb-8NQZBH-8NQZfc

These are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

naveenrajan posted:

Got some of the Atlas-O 20’ intermodal containers when I stopped by Mr. Muffin’s Trains last weekend. These were supposed to be associated with the tooling Atlas acquired from Weaver. The containers are now part of Atlas-O Trainman line, unlike the earlier 40’ & 45’ containers that were part of the Master Line. There are 2 containers in 1 box, the box being the same size as the boxes for the earlier 40’ & 45’ containers.

I have never owned the old Weaver containers but the doors on these Atlas containers don’t open as hobbyists have preferred on these forums.

The containers have Atlas markings on the underside.

The tops of the containers have oblong slots unlike the holes on prior Atlas containers. They don’t come with the pins that came loose in the box with the Atlas 40’ & 45’ containers.

The underside has 4 pins molded into the plastic, around 2mm diameter like the metal pins on the underside of the containers in Lionel’s ~48’ Husky stack cars. This makes the container stick up when placed on a flat surface & the Atlas-O containers being scale-size, all 4 these pins do not fit well in the slots on the Lionel Husky cars.

Steve (Mr. Muffin) mentioned that these should fit in the Atlas Gunderson cars but all my Gunderson cars are currently in their boxes & I wasn’t too motivated to unpack & assemble them to test these 20’ containers.

 Here are these containers in Lionel ~48’ Husky stack cars along with the earlier 40’ & 45’ containers.

These are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

 

The Lionel Husky-Stacks were configured on the inside floor to accommodate their under length 48' containers, they scale out to 46' ,1/2 inch short. This was done to move end bulkheads in 1/4" to allow 3 rail large flange trucks to negotiate their sharp curves 0-36+, if you measure the outside markings for container length on these cars you will see they all come up short 40/20, 45 ,48. just saying!

naveenrajan posted:

rdunniii posted:

I just saw this over on Railpictures

53' containers on spline cars

and thought if Atlas has the K-line spline car tooling and with the upcoming 53' containers all they need to add is the wheel frames and Viola!

I think there is a chassis trailer like the following model between the CSX container & the spine cars.

http://www.cheetahchassis.com/...k-container-chassis/

Swafford had been requesting these intermodal trailers when Ted started this intermodal freight car guide & I would also be interested in a lot if they aren’t too expensive. It would be neat to stack them vertically on racks as in the following photo I found on Flickr, of an intermodal yard near Chicago.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/...8NU4Zb-8NQZBH-8NQZfc

These are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

Yup,  that's the part I called a wheel frame.  Had no clue what they were actually called.  And I also agree those would be nice standalone general modeling stuff.   Most 40' plus model containers already have the section in the floor to accept them.  20' chassis would also be nice to put them on spline or flat cars.  A good candidate for 3D printing but probably expensive going that route.

Thanks again Naveen!

I have put together a tutorial on making O scale cardboard containers. Printing on card stock, reinforcing, adding weight, magnets, metallic trim, door locking rods, and more. I posted it on the Hi Rail, Traditional O gauge forum, should have put it on this forum.  I just added 30 printable files for O scale 20 foot containers. These are great for filling the bottom well in both the Atlas and MTH twin stacks. Much easier to change out and frees up some of your 40 footers for other duty or stacking around the layout.

EASY, How to make your own O Scale RR intermodal/shipping containers (20 to 53 foot)

https://ogrforum.com/t...ainers-20-to-53-foot

My 45, 48, and 53 foot containers on MTH premier and Lionel Husky stack cars

Atlas Twin Stack cars with my containers in various sizes.

This is a great thread.   This ismamkline flat car that accepts stakes and 40' older Kline containers.   They obviously aren't maxi but was wondering how these Kline containers (which open) compare to the atlas and Lionel containers.  Does anyone have photos to share ? I presume they are inter operable but wouod like to see a size comparison if Indecide to rig something.  Thanks!

Tom E posted:

This is a great thread.   This ismamkline flat car that accepts stakes and 40' older Kline containers.   They obviously aren't maxi but was wondering how these Kline containers (which open) compare to the atlas and Lionel containers.  Does anyone have photos to share ? I presume they are inter operable but wouod like to see a size comparison if Indecide to rig something.  Thanks!

Pictures are below. Atlas containers are more finely rendered, but both would be scale sized. The K Line container may be slightly wider. The pins are radically different in size. The K Line pins won't fit the Atlas container. Probably to stack them just use a loop of reversed tape between them.

The K-Line container fits in MTH Premier Husky Stack cars and also the old Right of Way Industries cars (which I think are the cars now offered by Menards). I don't think they fit the Atlas Twin Stack cars at least in the well. The Atlas 40 footer doesn't fit the ROW car well  because of the door hardware. A pair of Atlas (formerly Weaver) 20 footers will fit in the ROW car and an an Atlas 40 or 53 footer fits nicely on top (with the pins). 

MTH car, K Line on the bottom, Atlas on top  

ROW car

K Line on top, Atlas bottom

Atlas left, K Line right

ROW car, Atlas containers

53 and 20 footers on ROW car (very prototypical)   

Hope this helps. 

RM

Just caught this one thru the windshield.

I've got some close-up photos of a Norfolk Southern-painted Chetah chassis and container that I took on my ancient clam shell phone.  The chassis, with it's RR-related detailing, struck me as a nice modeling feature -- albeit a tiny deatil. If I can find them, I'll post them. The photo link that Naveen posted showing stacked groups of them was really amazing.

While commuting, I keep my eyes open for NFS and CSX painted chassises; JB Hunt seems to own a lot of them as well.  

Tomlinson Run Railroad

I'm glad Lionel is making a husky stack with EOT device. The msrp also increased from about $79 to $129 for a regular non eot husky stack. 

A forgotten 1980's interim  intermodal car, the NTTX Spine car single level 20 , 40', & 48' containers. Two 20' containers or a 40' or a 48' on the "A", "B" and "D" units. 40' & 48' containers only on the "C" &" E" units. I have not seen these cars since the "turn of the Century" Mabe they were converted to TTAX sets?

Thanks for reactivating this topic. While we are pleased that Atlas-O’s introduced models of modern intermodal equipment, with their 53’ containers, Canadian Tire, a Canada-only, store-chain, has started testing 60’ long intermodal containers, earlier this year.

CP Press Release

I can’t verify it but online articles claim that in 1994, Canadian Tire pioneered the introduction, testing & proved the viability of the 53’ intermodal containers and now many railroads & shipping companies in North America, use these 53’ containers. If Canadian Tire is successful with their tests with these 60’ containers, we might see more of them on trains in the future.

Before someone on this forum objects the legality of transporting these containers on trucks, here in the US, based on some local, state or federal law, I want to reiterate that Canadian Tire appears to only have stores in Canada, none in the US & we might not be seeing these containers on trains or on trucks, here in the US. The articles from the time of the press-release in May 2017, stated that these 60’ containers were only approved for road transport in the Canadian provinces of Alberta & Ontario, & only with trucks that had a day-cab, which leads me to wonder if Canadian Pacific might have had some influence in not getting the trucks with these 60’ containers to be allowed in the 2 provinces between them, Saskatchewan & Manitoba, requiring these containers to be transported by rail.

In the following photo, look how long the 60’ container looks, with the regular 53’ container in the lower position on the well car.

The custom 60’ containers were fabricated at a Mississippi company, American Intermodal Container Manufacturing Company (AICM).

The custom trailers that would be compatible with the current 53’ containers & these experimental 60’ containers were made by a Quebec company, Max-Atlas.

These are just my opinion,

Naveen

60' ! ??? I'd hate to be an inter-city delivery driver trying to get thing around town!

I believe the plant I was at had to get permits to allow the 53' trailers down the nearby streets?

Atlas-O 53’ containers are available in more than 6 road numbers

Just found out that even though Atlas-O’s website for the 53’ intermodal containers mentions “Six road numbers are available per road name.”, there are 8 road numbers to choose from. Last month, when I visited Mr. Muffin’s Trains to purchase the white CSX containers from an earlier run, I noticed that in addition to the 3006301-1,-2,-3,-4,-5 & -6 Item #s, there was a -7, which I was not expecting. The salesperson looked up the Atlas-O website & assumed that it might have been a printing mistake.

But last week I saw -7 & -8, again, this time, at Des Plaines Hobbies.

This week, while on the phone with Atlas-O to get an updated delivery date on the Maxi-IV well cars & the 53’ containers from the most recent announcement, I learnt that while the 6-pack packs of these 53’ containers only contain 6 unique road numbers, the container assortment packs contain 2 more road numbers for each road name.

Thanks,

Naveen

Thanks Naveen... i guess i have to get to Stockyard Express.

Clem  

clem k posted:

Thanks Naveen... i guess i have to get to Stockyard Express.

Clem  

Clem,

I don’t know which road names you are looking for but Empire Hobbies in Troy, MI (formerly known as Merri-Seven, in Livonia) had some of these 53’ Atlas-O containers when I visited them, 2 months ago.

These are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen

I want to thank the posters for reminding me who made my thrall cars. I keep forgetting. I was asked again today on Utube and came back to this post.

I wanted to add a pic of some of the custom Maxi-III's I created using the MTH Premier husky stacks. These required cutting the ends, adding details, etc. but all in all, a cool car to add to my intermodal fleet for containers. This also made the cars ride extremely low, with a very prototypical ride height. 

Here's a great thread to bump up out of the dust bin.  What's new to add since July 2018?

Excellent thread and very interesting.  I hope some experts update this with any newer cars over the last few years.

I got the Atlas 3 car 53' set from Norm's some time back. I didn't have the money to get the containers for them so I ran them empty. I was very lucky recently to get a deal on 4 of the new Atlas 53' containers. Another fantastic release in O scale for us.

Great writeup!

Just got some Atlas 45' containers to stack on my 40' K-line cars with 40' K-line containers in the wells. I can confirm the Atlas pins do line up with the holes on the top of the K-line containers. The Atlas containers are very secure and they look amazing.

@prrhorseshoecurve posted:

WBB. They just released the K-line version of a front runner.

 

Speaking to Jack Lynch, the 5 car sets would be too expensive to produce for todays marketplace. Afterall, the "front Runners" are about $80.00 ea!

Weren't front runners single axle trucks?

@rplst8 posted:

Weren't front runners single axle trucks?

Yes they were.

Donald

Front runners were both. (my photo):

@SPSF posted:

Front runners were both. (my photo):

How does that differ from a spine car?

Spine cars were articulated 3 or 5 packs. This is stand alone.

I recently started an intermodal project that has really added some cool cars to my intermodal fleet. I obtained several K-Line 40’ Thrall and Gunderson cars for this project. Here are a couple pics. The BNSF set was made using the Gunderson cars. I had a machine shop cut the ends off the articulated cars and added some Evergreen plastic to build the ends and undercarriage. Also note the brake system with brass tubing.

the Thrall set was made by removing the ends altogether on all the cars and building correct size platforms for eacH end of car. Altogether I have 3  40’ well Thrall 5-car sets and 3 Gunderson sets using the 40’ wells. I had custom decals made for TTX in their new logo design for some of these sets. More pics to follow. 

I also have several stand alone 40’ well cars in both Thrall and Gunderson. 

I recently got a set of K-Line 3 car TTAX Spline set without containers.  So my question is what containers will work on it?  My Lionel and MTH containers will not fit, they have posts on the containers, while the K-Line cars have posts on the car.  I haven't had any luck looking for containers on the auction site.  What should I be looking for?

@Jeff78rr posted:

I recently started an intermodal project that has really added some cool cars to my intermodal fleet. I obtained several K-Line 40’ Thrall and Gunderson cars for this project. Here are a couple pics. The BNSF set was made using the Gunderson cars. I had a machine shop cut the ends off the articulated cars and added some Evergreen plastic to build the ends and undercarriage. Also note the brake system with brass tubing.

the Thrall set was made by removing the ends altogether on all the cars and building correct size platforms for eacH end of car. Altogether I have 3  40’ well Thrall 5-car sets and 3 Gunderson sets using the 40’ wells. I had custom decals made for TTX in their new logo design for some of these sets. More pics to follow. 

I also have several stand alone 40’ well cars in both Thrall and Gunderson. 

But your cars look great. Do you run DPUs and do the two-rail wheelsets handle that OK?

RM

Hi Rich, and thank you for the comments! I do run DPUs on this train, and the 2R trucks work perfectly. I like the 2R trucks as they allow the car to sit lower, as I can mount the truck closer to the bottom of the cars. My entire intermodal fleet is 2R truck-equipped as it looks so cool like this. I would definitely recommend getting some K-Line cars to articulate. However, in my opinion, the parts supplied from K-Line to do this make the cars so far apart it looks very unrealistic. Plus the car sit so high using their parts. I've got these cars sitting as low as the Atlas O Gunderson cars.

@sinclair posted:

I recently got a set of K-Line 3 car TTAX Spline set without containers.  So my question is what containers will work on it?  My Lionel and MTH containers will not fit, they have posts on the containers, while the K-Line cars have posts on the car.  I haven't had any luck looking for containers on the auction site.  What should I be looking for?

I think you're pretty much limited to K Line containers unless you're willing to improvise. No other brand I know of is going to fit. (See for example my post above comparing Atlas and K Line mounting holes). If you're willing to cut the tabs off the bottom of the MTH containers, you might be able to drill mounting holes large enough for them to mount on the K Line cars. I'd make a cardboard template and use a pin vise. Going the other way, I suppose you could trim the K Line tabs off the cars flush with the mounting surface, drill holes and glue Atlas mounting pins to the K Line car. Again I'd make a template if I was doing this. 

RM

@sinclair posted:

I recently got a set of K-Line 3 car TTAX Spline set without containers.  So my question is what containers will work on it?  My Lionel and MTH containers will not fit, they have posts on the containers, while the K-Line cars have posts on the car.  I haven't had any luck looking for containers on the auction site.  What should I be looking for?

Try searching for "MDK containers" on the auction site. There are a few available right now.

Happy Hunting