I bought 2 M1A1/A2 Abrams tanks from Dragon Models today for$4 each. They are nicely detailed although 1/144. I put them on an MT flat and they looked good to me. Anyone else tried this? Also any photos of proto or model military loads would be appreciated. Jeff
Jeff: First, I hate to say it but the M-1 series tanks are too heavy for anything right now but the DODX heavy duty flatcars. But you're in luck, Alan makes a model of these: http://www.alancurtismodels.com/dodx.html As for pictures, here's reality: And here's N scale: Granted, most of the tanks there are GHQ, and therefore expensive. However, Lineside Models ( http://www.hometown.aol.com/LinesideModels/lsmcatalog.html ) also now makes them. I've also looked at the CanDo tanks, however I feel they are a little too large, noticable to me. They are, however, very well made models and a very good value. Hope to see some of your work!
Hi Jeff: Here is a picture of my loaded AC DODX flats. They are loaded with Roco N scale M113 APC's and M109A1 howitzers.
Here's some flatbed trailers moving along, on intermodal wellcars: Some armor on flatcars: Stryker vehicles: Heavy duty trucks: Lighter vehicles:
Thanks for all the help guys. I will have to look into the AC cars. Eagle, I'm gonna have to get a digital camera so I can share my layout with yall. There are so many nice layouts here and I am always happy to see others work. Bill, Hemi, Eagle nice shots and thanks again. Jeff
Thanks for the kind comments. One was a solid Stryker Combat Brigade move of vehicles going back to the pacific NW, with KCS power on BNSF rail north of here, and the other was some misc. stuff on a WB Uncle Pete freight last month.
Absolutely! And, we STRONGLY encouraged them to release the loads as separate items as well as schedule a re-release of the flats in the desert sand paint they have also been seen in.
This all military train was mostly on TTX. There were about a dozen standard mixed regular autoracks at the end, loaded. Wonder what was in there? So you can run your autoracks on military trains.
Sure, why not? A bilevel would hold more vehicles, which prolly doesn't approach the car's weight capacity...
Great thread! I can't wait for the DI cars to get here. I may also get a few of Alan's to supplement as well. I have a couple of questions... 1. What is the appropriate color for these DODX green cars. Most of the photos I've seen are Olive Drab but it seems the DI cars and some other models I've seen are more like BN Green. (i.e. not even close) I assume there are a wide variety of prototype colors on these cars? 2. There was some discussion about what were appropriate loads for the DODX cars, and also that some of the advertised loads for the DI cars were era-specific. For this reason, I reserved two of the SET 1s but I wanted to see if that was wise for a mid-late 90's layout or if I'm still way off. Here's DI's page with their equipment... Deluxe Innovation's "New Tooling" Page I caught a Military train in Decatur, TX about two years ago but somehow I lost the photos somewhere along the line. That was the train I wanted to model or something very similar but my layout is set in '98 so I'm sure things changed slightly even since then. That train had a mixture of DODX cars as well as TTX cars and I think I do seem to recall various greens in the mix. I thought it was an interesting train for a couple of reasons. First, there were actually soldiers (MP's?) riding on some of the cars on security duty I presume. And second, the interesting "artwork" on some of the machines...phrases about what the "enemy" could do with certain things and body parts. (without getting into trouble here!) And I don't know if it was standard practice or if I attracted some attention but there were several local law enforcement vehicles buzzing around the area as I was leaving. Since I'm not a military modeler or even remotely knowledgable about such I'm not gonna beat myself up if I'm a little bit unprototypical, but I guess I would like to learn as much about it as possible so any resources you guys know about would be appreciated. It would be nice to have photos of a train in my general era and in the general locale. [ March 25, 2005, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: Doug A. ]
The heavy duty DODX flats were designed to carry only two types of vehicles, the M1 series Main Battle Tank and the corresponding Tank Recovery Vehicle. I am not sure of its nomenclature. The DI loads are, therefore, inappropriate. Hauling a vehicle based upon the M113 APC chassis on one of these HD flats is overkill of the nth degree.
By the way I doubt very much if the loading pictured in DI's set #2 would ever be loaded let alone moved. That M1 AI weighs approx 70 tons while the M113 weighs at best about 12 tons. As pictured the load is not centered on the car with the majority of the weight on one end. Most probably the car would have just the M1 A1 centered on the center vertical stripe and the M113 carried on another car such as a regular TTX flat.
My mistake, I have two of the Set 1's on reserve, not the Set 2's....and I think that's because of the reasons you listed.
When did the Delux protoype 150 ton DDOX flats hit the rails? The M1 has been around for some time now.
Some good pictures of DODX cars HERE (this site includes some first class close ups) and HERE click the military rail link. Also excellent close up lettering photographs by Mark Verdi on my website HERE
Tony, I railloaded M1's on them in 1985 from Hood to NTC. They've been around at least that long. They weren't brand new then. Back then we had to have 24 chains per vehicle. They've since reduced that requirement to 12 chains per vehicle. I've loaded on them several times. M1's, M1A1's, and M1A2's to and from both Hood and Knox. It is a royal pain to railload in the US. Railload ops in Germany were much easier. Inkaneer is correct. The Deluxe loads would be loaded on TTX flats. As big as they are, howitzers are very light compared to tanks because they are only lightly armored. 113's are actually side loaded onto TTX flats. That is they are driven on from a dock alongside and neutral steered or pivoted into alignment. I know that there used to only be 100 of the heavy DODX flats and they were kept busy with just tanks and M88's, that is the recovery vehicle. Everything else went on lighter cars. We also loaded HumVee's onto autoracks when doing large deployments.
Okay, I'm coming into this thread a little late, but here are a couple more photo links: Military train on an NTrak layout Covered military load in 1943 For more photos from the 1940s, follow the "Photographs from the FSA-OWI" link on the second page. There are quite a few very good color shots of the CNW in this era.
