MOC: PRR FW1 Queen Mary Flatcar

[dr_spock]

Built in 1952 by Pennsylvania Railroad, the "Queen Mary" was the world's largest freight car at the time. It was 121 feet long, weighed 250 tons and could carry 250 tons. Originally it was built as a depressed flatcar, class FD2. Later on in 1960 a "well" body was built for it to carry items which are narrow and tall like flywheel and rolling mill housings. The two bodies can be used interchangably on the same trucks depending which kind of load it is to carry. The Queen Mary was eventually retired in the 1990s during the Conrail era. The unit can be found today at the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum with the FD2 body. No one knows what became of the FW1 body.

My MOC is the FW1 version of the Queen Mary flatcar. It follows LEGO 6 wide train style. It has 16 axles of standard LEGO bogies in groups of 4. It is 84 studs long. It can negiotiate LEGO R40 curves and switches.

PRR FW1 Queen Mary Flatcar by dr_spock_888, on Flickr

LEGO Power Miners giant wheel load:

Serious overhang:

Thanks for watching:

[SavaTheAggie]

Very cool, well done. I've never seen a car with that sort of cutout, but it certainly makes sense for those kids of loads. The only car I've seen that I can compare it to would be a Schnabel car, but this one is quite a bit less garish.

--Tony

[pirzyk]

Wow, looks very impressive!

So the 4 axles on each bogie don't bind (too much) when going around the curves, or did you use some sort of sliding mechanism that I can't see?

[dr_spock]

Over the weekend I had an opportunity to run it publicly. It was fun knocking over trees and minifigures with the huge overhangs on the locomotive and flatcar. Unfortunately, I didn't film it as I was busy moving them to make room. The train was knocked over a couple of times by kids and one adult setting a bad example for his son. But the train held together. I am going to rebuild the locomotive so that it overhangs inside the curve to match the flatcar.

Very cool, well done. I've never seen a car with that sort of cutout, but it certainly makes sense for those kids of loads. The only car I've seen that I can compare it to would be a Schnabel car, but this one is quite a bit less garish.

--Tony

Thank you very much.

Wow, looks very impressive!

So the 4 axles on each bogie don't bind (too much) when going around the curves, or did you use some sort of sliding mechanism that I can't see?

Thank you very much. The 4th axle is connected to 3rd axle with a Technic half thick liftarm beam in a swing arm fashion.