I have been corresponding by e-mail over the last few weeks with Wfttrains about Schnabel car loads - making longer and bigger loads for the MTh Schanbel car and speculating about how far a longer load might stick out beyond the track. He has some wonderful generator loads in addition to a lot of really nice Westinghouse cars and locos.
I needed to know a little more about how long "Schnabel loads" fit on curves, so did some testing this afternoon.
Below is a picture, taken from directly above, that shows how a long load will stick across the inside of a curve. The wooden board shown is the equivalent of a 21" load and the two plastic cages normally on the Schanbel car, all on a 60" radius curve. I say equivalent because I have disassembled this MTH Schnabel car for a project I am building - I have removed the plastic "cages" from each end and am just connecting the two sets metal end pieces with their triple-trucks with a board. The board is the width of the standard Schnabel load (2 3/4). The second picture below shows a plot of stick out (or stick-in if you prefer) versus length of a Schnabel load. Note that a 2/3/4 inch load of NO length would stick in 5/8" (it is 2 3/4 inches wide and riding over a set of rails that are about 1 1/2 inches across the outside of the outer rails). On a 60" radius, the 21" long load that is 2 3/4 inches wide will "stick in" about 3 inches - note in the phot even its outer edge is inside of the inner out rail. The standard Schnabel load (the one that comes with the car) is 6 inches long and sticks in about 1 1/6 inch or so on 60". On 72" stick it is just a bit is less. I did not measure on 48" or righter curves.
These results are only approximate