Need suggestions for airplane load.

[RailKing50]

Hello All,

I have a pair of B-29 Superfortresses that are left over from my younger days as a young model builder. I would go visit my relatives in the summer, and my Uncle, who was a fantastic model builder, would always take us for a day to the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. (Side note, I HIGHLY recommend taking a trip there, it is a great experience). And after the museum trip, it would always follow up with a couple hobby store visits. Well, my favorite airplane from the museum was the B-29 named "Bockscar". Maybe it had something to do with the name and the nose art on it, but it was always the highlight of the visit. I was thrilled to find the 1:144th scale size of it and bought it. Over the next several summers, I found another B-29, the "Enola Gay".

I have had these models for 15+ years now, and it is finally time to do something with them. I couldn't throw them out, they reminded me of those great memories of summer and of my Uncle who has recently passed. So I thought about making them flat car loads? I know, I know, N scale is 1:160th and these are 1:144, but the size is close enough and to my knowledge, they were never shipped by rail so this will not be a prototypical build. I have the MTL "Bochscar" flat car that they let out, so it would be neat to have that and then 4-5 other flat cars with the planes loaded on them in pieces. Maybe the story is that they are being transported by rail to get restored?

Anyways, I have started the research on airplane flat car loads, but was wondering if you fine folks had any input. Any information of WWII era loads would be greatly appreciated.

Have a good one,

-Bo

[Lake]

Bo, it seems that some where I had read that the B29 had parts, such as wings, landing gear, main body, tail section made at different plants, then shipped to a assembly plant. Then flown out.

[Jugtown Modeler]

Wikipedia: "Aircraft parts were hauled via conventional freight cars beginning in World War II." ie: not flat cars...

Hard to imagine a large part like a wing or fuselage going by boxcar...

As the creator of YOUR world, can't think of a good reason not to tell a story that references your own story of collecting these model kits.
-A wealthy oil tycoon enlists in the air force. After his tour, he convinces the government to let him keep/buy his plane that would have been left in Europe...? Or mothballed in U.S....?

[Jugtown Modeler]

it seems that some where I had read that the B29 had parts, such as wings, landing gear, main body, tail section made at different plants, then shipped to a assembly plant.

I am seeing this reference as well but can't seem to find anything on the transporting of the parts to the assembly plant.

Now have got my curiosity piqued...

[RailKing50]

Yeah, I'll have to keep digging for some more information. Would love to find how they cut up the fuselage and especially the extremely tall tail. It is settled, I'll have to start looking for some flat cars! I could paint up a couple other box cars for some of the smaller parts.

-Bo

[Moose2013]

Based on how they were designed and built, the idea of transporting sections by rail to some location for a possibly flight worthy restoration seems unrealistic ... Maybe as a static display, but it looks like it would have to have exterior welds to piece it together, and they would show given it appears to be that it was a polished aluminum skin...

See this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mcSi5QKDUu8

[ChicagoNW]

I've seen several threads on transporting aircraft on flatcars. Mostly it's been fWWII fighters. They were carried on a couple of flatcars. Wings and props on one car and body on the other. Wooden cribbing and tread/micro-chains used to hold everything down.

A big factor that will affect what happens to the plane are your track clearances. Tunnels, bridges and trackside structures will be very happy to catch on any part of the plane that sticks out too far.

Now a Superfortress is a much larger aircraft. It will definitely need s bunch of cars for transport. In fact you may need both models to make a nice one. You have to do a lot of chopping and need to rebuild some part to make them look right.

The bigger body might be supported on a single car with other idler flats allowing clearance for swinging overhangs. The supporting car would be a heavy duty car like the ones used for hauling tanks or armored personnel carriers. The wings might also nee several cars or be broken up to fit. Most likely the engines would be removed make the wings lighter.

Just some thought on how you might make it happen. They might be more fun it the two plane flew over the layout in a circular pattern.

[Moose2013]

The wings appear to be a single wingtip to wingtip assembly, so not the same as transporting fighter wings which were usually designed as two separate wing assembly attached to the fuselage on either side. The tail, the vertical and horizontal stabilizers, maybe were designed as three separate assemblies, but might have been a single horizontal assembly and a separate vertical assembly. The aft fuselage section was a separate section than the main forward fuselage section. Most of these assemblies, well, tough to imagine they would be small enough for anything but the largest flat cars of today and they certainly didn't transport sections like that during the 1940s ... Side note, four different aircraft manufacturers built the B-29's and four different locations...

[Beertigger]

IIRC, even the major subassemblies of the B-29s were built at the various plants, and put together there — a Google image search seems to bear that out.

http://www.airplanesofthepast.com/b29-superfortress.htm
https://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...kansas.354996/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/477803841697643313/

[Tred]

A very interesting topic. Given the size & weight limits of the (railroad) cars of that era, and the technology of the period, I am not sure they would have been able to transport these across the nation and reassemble them elsewhere. Another thought, is cost. Why go through the headache of transporting, when you can build them all in one piece, and fly them to where they needed to be?

In the end, it's your railroad, do it your way! It'll be interesting to see what you work out.

[Jugtown Modeler]

A very interesting topic. Given the size & weight limits of the (railroad) cars of that era, and the technology of the period, I am not sure they would have been able to transport these across the nation and reassemble them elsewhere.

From several sources it is mentioned that parts and sub-assemblies were built in multiple locations across the country and sent to Renton, WA for assembly. We (I) am assuming that some of those parts would have been large enough that they would not have fit in a boxcar, as was the practice in that era. Perhaps I am reading into this too much and these parts were more like raw materials and components that would fit on a pallet or in a crate and then loaded into a boxcar. As opposed to today when fully finished assembled fuselages are transported by train...

"Manufacturing the B-29 was a complex task. It involved four main-assembly factories: a pair of Boeing operated plants at Renton, Washington (Boeing Renton), and Wichita, Kansas (now Spirit AeroSystems), a Bell plant at Marietta, Georgia ("Bell-Atlanta"), and a Martin plant at Omaha, Nebraska ("Martin-Omaha" - Offutt Field).[7][13] Thousands of subcontractors were involved in the project."

On more reading... I see that the articles do not explicitly say they were sent to Renton. This quoted from Boeing page says each location was an assembly location: "Boeing built a total of 2,766 B-29s at plants in Wichita, Kan., (previously the Stearman Aircraft Co., merged with Boeing in 1934) and in Renton, Wash. The Bell Aircraft Co. built 668 of the giant bombers in Georgia, and the Glenn L. Martin Co. built 536 in Nebraska. Production ended in 1946."

So it seems more likely that large sub-assemblies were not transported across the country. Since there are so many photographic references of the documentation of the B-29 assembly, you would "assume" a photo would exist of large parts loaded on a flatcar.

* Still think your best opportunity to create a story here would be a post war scenario. One particular plane of the 2766 built that someone felt compelled to restore. A wealthy businessman, museum, etc. Then you need to find a plausible way to break it down to fit, as several mentioned above, into your railroad infrastructure. Sounds like fun!!

- The way my mind works: dimensions: http://www.39th.org/39th/images/cutaway/cutaway6.gif (BIG plane!)
- info: http://www.39th.org/39th/misc/b-29_cutaway.html
- blueprints: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1944-MARTIN-...-/250761097697
- some great youtube videos that show assembly lines and sub-sections being assembled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z6YNgJ6RNE

Good luck.

[grrf]

Could do something like this








http://theoldmotor.com/?p=154214

[emaleyiii]

I would look at pictures of the assembly process and cut the model down similar to the large subassemblies you see. Crib up the parts on the flats and have fun with it. I have been involved with heavy aircraft overhaul and you would be shocked at how far they can disassemble and aircraft and then put humpty dumpty back together again. I saw it first hand and am still amazed. It sounds like a cool project.

Trey

[Moose2013]

@Jugtown Modeler The four different manufacturing plants that you mentioned were, during WWII, four distinct different aircraft manufacturers. The production rate requirements for the B-29 were so high that the government required that other aircraft manufacturers help produce them. This was not uncommon during the war, and was practiced for other military aircraft, vehicles, etc.

[kalbert]

That is correct @Moose2013. My grandmother worked in a Lockheed plant and built parts for B-17s and assembled P-38s, and then later B-29 parts. The engineering firm is credited with the design, but the manufacturing was contracted out to any facility with available line time.

[RailKing50]

Thank you everyone for your replies! (Really shows how great this cite is)

See this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mcSi5QKDUu8

The parts being unloaded from 9:56 - 10:05, are they coming out of a box car?

In fact you may need both models to make a nice one. You have to do a lot of chopping and need to rebuild some part to make them look right.

Agreed. The "Enola Gay" model never had its decals placed, so it will be the donor. I also had the landing gear down on this model where the other one had its retracted, so I will rob the landing gear and various other parts off of it. Like I said, Bockscar is my favorite, so it is the one that I want to model on the flat cars.

blueprints: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1944-MARTIN-...-/250761097697

The description of this manual has some great pictures of the plane broken down. It will be a big help, thanks!

-Bo

[RailKing50]

A big "Thank you" to everyone who has given me their input!

So far, I am liking these two. I am thinking a combination of the them?

B-29proda.jpgAssembly view.jpg

Have a look at this! I remembered reading an article of a team restoring "Doc". I checked up on that page and found pictures of how they transported it by truck.

http://b-29.org/b-29-doc/restore-doc2.html


Now to take a look at the flat car situation...

-Bo

[NtheBasement]

I think you will find that the wings and fuselage were all fabricated at the final assembly plant, but that doesn't mean you can't imagine a story that would require one-offs to be transported by rail. One such story could be shipment of a plane salvaged from the bottom of Lake Mead and shipped to the Yankee Air Museum. for restoration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_L...ing_B-29_crash

[emaleyiii]

I had an afterthought about your airplane load. You could take the major assemblies and tarp the ends to solve the need to detail the exposed ends. Most of them would have been tarped partially or completely for transport anyway. I have used painted tissues for tarps and such on my models for years.

Trey

[Flyingvan911]

Ditto on the Air Force Museum in Dayton. Plan to spend most of the day there. It is huge.