Aircraft on Trains


Saturn5tony

Saturn5tony

Member
Hi all!
Im looking at putting a US Navy F6F-3 Grumman Hellcat onto a flatcar. (maybe more than 1) Has anyone done this and for realism as well using any kind of small prop or jet like airplanes that would fit. It seems that our trains (and some cars) have 1/87th scale so the closest I can find is 1/72nd scale for this plane and most of them are by revell, and other model companies that do these things we grew up with.

I will remove or bend the wings (navy hellcats had bendable wings for aircraft carriers) and make a separate car for just the wings if I go that route. Here is a sample picture of a small hellcat (below). In real life it is about 34 feet long so a common flatcar should be fine. (1/72) may be a bit longer. I have about 5 and a half inches with the prop so it should fit fine.

I have the model, have not built it yet or even choose a flat car so anyone with experience building aircraft onto HO scale cars would be appreciated if you could chime in. The detail is really nice in that it shows where the lines are to cut the wings for removal or bending as on a carrier. Im thinking of mocking up some plastic edges to look like the wing was removed and put on another car.


Hellcat 17 eduard.jpg
 
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Normally, the planes were flown from the manufacturer to the front. There were quite a few women who were doing this flying. Saw an interesting story on this a number of years back on the TV show Wings. I have also seen modelers transporting this same plane on flat cars. The fuselage would be on one flat car and the wings on a second flatcar, braced up on edge.
 
Fuselages, Engines, and Wings were crated as well for transportation via ships, so they most like;y would have been shipped via rail to the port.
 
I have several 1:144 disassembled planes on my N flat cars; a guy on ebay sells them. I also saw a disassembled German bomber on two flat cars in HO by someone in Europe.

This signature is intended to irritate people.
 
Hi Chet, Sherrel and Beady!
Oh you guys are so right. Chet - makes sense. most of the planes probably did fly to where-ever they were headed. lol, planes do that. I guess being that I love flight and trains I want to mix them somehow. Sherrel has a great point, making them aircraft parts on many cars is a great Idea and one I have seen in a few shows now that I think about it.

Still though I wonder if planes may have traveled the rails for some reason. In there sections as parts to go to some place. Maybe an aircraft assembly house?

Look at the scan I did of my Hellcats wing next to the cockpit:
wing3.JPG Perfect line to use a small blade to open it for wing removal. Justcut some small .005 evergreen in the opening with a few holes as some pictures show.
Hellcat 17 edge.jpg

But you guys got me thinking. Is there cool 1/72 parts like engines, seats, details for railcar travel and a need for it.
Hmm so do they make 144th scale planes? Have to check that Beady. What kind of flatcar would they use? Not being a good train guy, I dont know what would be realistic. So much cool info and its fun. Thx guys!

Interesting with my model the width of the plane (with the wings removed at that point) comes out to be 2-1/4 inches which is 16.3 feet in real width! Hmm it seems that would fit in a real flatcar, but need to be titled? I think.
 
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The Hellcat was manufactured on the west coast and were ferried to Hawaii and then either loaded onto aircraft carriers or flown to bases in the Pacific. There were other aircraft taken to ports and shipped to Europe like Sherrel mentioned. You could probably easily show this as you are modeling the eastern states close to the ports shipping to Europe. I a a bit of a WWII buff and have seen photos of aircraft loaded onto Liberty Ships headed to Europe.
 
montanan said:
The Hellcat was manufactured on the west coast and were ferried to Hawaii and then either loaded onto aircraft carriers or flown to bases in the Pacific. There were other aircraft taken to ports and shipped to Europe like Sherrel mentioned. You could probably easily show this as you are modeling the eastern states close to the ports shipping to Europe. I a a bit of a WWII buff and have seen photos of aircraft loaded onto Liberty Ships headed to Europe.
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I love history as well Chet, I really enjoyed the background of how the V1 and V2 were made, its transfer over to here, when the war ended and how Von Braun used that technology and got us to the moon. So cool how that evil did us all so much good. I will look into that and see if I can find pics of them moving aircraft to Europe!

(WE ALL NEED TO REMEMBER HISTORY, BY THAT WE WILL NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES)
 
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Wow spent a few hours yesterday and found these:

Planes on trains9.jpg
Planes on trains.jpg
Planes on trains4.jpg
Planes on trains6.jpg

Just like you guys said, quite a few planes with parts and stuff on flatbeds.
 
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I see the Boeing 737's all of the time heading west on Montana Rail Link and BNSF

article-2572445-1C00E45500000578-295_964x637.jpg

But sometimes all doesn't go well. These were dumped into the Clark Fork River near Alberton, MT due to a derailment a few years ago..

article-2682473-1F6E06D000000578-842_634x423.jpg
 
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I did happen to see this derailment aftermath. Right along side Interstate-90 across the river. Didn't stop to take photos because I ws headed in the wrong direction.
 
As soon as I saw this thread I figured this accident would show up.

That had to be ungodly expensive as I imagine those fuselages were all totalled. Aircraft standards are significantly higher than in your normal construction. I often wish I still sold aircraft parts and had access to aircraft-grade hardware when I peruse the screw isle Lowes.... The quality isn't there.
 
Railrunner130 said:
I often wish I still sold aircraft parts and had access to aircraft-grade hardware when I peruse the screw isle Lowes....
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Please forgive me for a bit of thread drift, but Railrunner just hit on a pet peeve. Not only are the screws mostly junk, if you bother to read the label, it states "Made in the USA, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, or China". Fat lot of good that does!
 
Cool topic, I did another search of aircraft and trains and got this LOL!!! What the!

I wonder if taking turns works here!!

aircraftrain.jpg
 
Hellcats were built in Bethpage NY and were flown to the west coast for final deployment in the Pacific. For this they either landed on their "home" carriers, or were ferried to the front using escort carriers. Non navy aircraft like Thunderbolts also used carriers for ferry purposes to the Pacific (and Europe). P-47s in particular did launch from a carrier to conduct close air support and then land on the nearby island. I cannot see a case for a flyable plane to be ferried via rail (WW2 era). Plane parts or non-flyable airplanes, i imagine did use rail transportation. Other long-range aircraft did go directly to the front on their own (B-17, B-24, B-29, ...).

I think (and hope) that UH-1 and AH-1 choppers though could be moved via rail to the west coast for loading onto transport ships and carriers in the Vietnam era (which is the era for my layout).
 
I met a WWII vet that was based in England who was a flight test engineer. I assume that aircraft that returned to their home airfields with significant damage were transported to a central overhaul facility for repair. If this was the case, they had to either be trucked or sent via rail.
 
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