Model Railroading > Double-Stack Clearance Train Quiz!

I'm "new" to double-stack trains. Since my cut-off date on my Rio Grande is the mid-1980s when Double-Stacks were coming on-line and the DRGW and cabooses were in their last years, the attached article about a DRGW Double-Stack Clearance Train from a 1987 NMRA Bulletin caught my fancy. I don't know my containers from my FREDS. Anyone care to guess what shipping line the top, brown-painted containers come from? Are they "High Cube" or of "Standard" height? How about the lower containers, are they all from Evergreen and are they "High Cube" or "Standard". How about the Double-Stack cars themselves, what might there reporting marks be? Does anyone have more photos of this train they care to share? I want to thank the Los Angeles Chapter of the NMRA, which gave away free copies of old Bulletins at the Simi Valley train meet, for connecting me with this great story and modeling idea! Thanks to all!

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The containers are international standard, 8x8x20 and 8x8x40.

That means these are the lowest and narrowest double stack you can load.

Yesterday we discovered a new way to foul the double stack clearance envelope during the Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club open house (Portland, OR).
Suddenly the train was stringlined around a return loop under a cityscape.  It was a long train with a DPU and we first thought of slack action.
Come to find out some wires had come loose and snagged the top containers.
So your clearance has to be for the framing and any wires, and if anyone works on the wires they have to be re-checked.
By the way that 4x2x0 power set on 55 wells really worked and looked great, the wires would have caught any double stack.

The cars are "Twin Stack" Maxi-IV Well Cars I think 95% sure at least.

A-Line makes these in HO Scale. The link is for kits they seem to have in stock, but IIRC they did offer them in R-T-R as well.

https://ppw-aline.com/collections/a-line-gunderson-twin-stack-well-cars/products/27103-kit-c-complete-five-unit-car

Kris 

dcmkris Wrote:
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> The cars are "Twin Stack" Maxi-IV Well Cars I
> think 95% sure at least.
>
> A-Line makes these in HO Scale. The link is for
> kits they seem to have in stock, but IIRC they did
> offer them in R-T-R as well.
>
> https://ppw-aline.com/collections/a-line-gunderson
> -twin-stack-well-cars/products/27103-kit-c-complet
> e-five-unit-car
>
> Kris

Intermountain has been running the RTR versions of the Twin Tacks for many years now. Scroll to the bottom in the link.

https://www.intermountain-railway.com/ho/hocontainer.htm

IMRC re-runs the Twin Stack cars periodically; check Ebay or train shows for past runs.  Not sure when they will ship another run.  Hard too tell with Intermountain.

I picked up a couple of the NYSW Sealand red Twin Stacks around 11 years ago, and also and SP yetllow TT set or Twin Stacks.  At one time I was planning to model the late 1980's and up to the early 1990's, but have back dated.  I still have the RTR Twin Stack sets for runnong a late 1980's train.  From D&RGW photo's, the red Sealand were common sites among other intermodel cars.

Cheers. Jim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/19 15:58 by SPDRGWfan.

They should be standard cubes at that time. High cubes would have either a note denoting that it was a high cube container or black & yellow chevron stripes up near the corners denoting the high cube issue.

Russ

I made an error with what I used for vertical clearance and stacked a standard container on high cube one; and also
autorack; for some tight hidden trackage clearances I built long ago. That has cost me in that I cannot run  a well car with high
cube stacked on high cube, as they won't quite clear. Luckily the trains don't stop suddenly but rather wedge in place.
lol. It's really not fixable so have to be sure at least one container is standard height. when I run stack cars in trains.

I know Doug Brown and Jerry Brown. They are both still active modellers. I am sure that they will be glad to know that you found their article still useful. 

Bob Perkins
 

never saw any doublestacks on the moffat that i can recall,

notice he is checking that sharp curve west of hot sulpher