Schnabel Car

[ElginLoco]

That color shot is a CGI rendering, but it is rendered off the SolidWorks models that I used for rapid prototyping the masters. What you see in the rendering is what you get in the resin. In the photo of the resin model, it is hard to see all the subtle detail because it is all white.
And yes I finally have decals in hand so cars have been shipping.

[Robbman]

Proper trucks are 70 Ton ASF with 33" wheels, currently available from BLMA (catalog # 9025 I believe).

Is that a typo? 

[bigford]

what about the wheels or the stencel about no humping

[TrinityJayOne]

Robbman, please forgive my ignorance but where is the error? Those trucks look the same as the ones in the pictures.

Mark, any updates on the Paypal account?

[Robbman]

Mark said the proper trucks are 70T ASFs with 33" wheels, BLMA PN 9025.  Pretty sure he meant 100T w/ 36" wheels... PN 9005.  Given the number of trucks under this bad boy, just wanted to clarify

[ElginLoco]

All of my research has said 33" wheels, I was surprised too. But max load is 900 tons, divided by 18 trucks is 50 tons per truck plus their share of the 'dry' weight of the car which 740,890 lbs or 370 tons makes an extra 20 tons per truck right at the limit. Can't state the sources, they were online. For the longest time I thought Barber S-2 trucks but if you look at the photos, they are clearly ASF roller bearing 70 tonners.
Another way to verify it is the 72 inch axle spacing on the truck proportioned to the wheel diameter of 33".
Alas no paypal yet, trust me I want it done but busy everywhere I turn. Feels like I'm using a clock for a fan. I want to get that done this weekend but have tons to do as well. sigh.

[aikorob]

Mark,
your website is not very clear about ordering-----sent you email.

[jnevis]

That kit looks great. Alas I'll probably not get one just yet

As an aside Kato has a Schnabel car available in Japan.  I looked at it a couple weeks ago in a shop in Ebina. Didn't have the ¥1500 ($200-ish) and liked this one better.

[Robbman]

On the basis of a picture being worth a thousand words...

This is an ASF 70T Ride Control:


This is an ASF 100T Ride Control:



CEBX 800




Not to be a drudge... but I just don't want somebody buying 18 sets of trucks and having to return them...

A 70T nominal truck has an axle spacing of 68"
A 100T nominal truck has an axle spacing of 70"
A 125T nominal truck has an axle spacing of 72"


While normally you can just add up light weight and load limit and figure out truck capacity from there, this car (and others) is a special case.   It has a star beside the load limit and capacity, which signifies that the structure of the car can only carry that weight (you see this on some flatcars too)... in other words, the car itself cannot carry what the trucks are rated at.  This star is also why the car has never been reweighed (or had capacity markings removed), even after the 1994 raising of axle limits on all bearing classes by the AAR... there's no need to, as the trucks being able to carry more has no bearing (hey... a pun!) on the cars load limit.

[ElginLoco]

Well I can admit I'm wrong. And from your shots, yup I am. I did do some little bit of searching on the subject after all this flaired up. And now, nowhere can I find anyone saying anything more than how many trucks or how many wheels. Duh, who cares, we can all see and count.  Give us some specifics. The best way to really get info is do all the work and wait for the rivet counters to show you your errors. It is annoying to have changed the masters for BLMA specific 70 ton trucks so that the anti rocker bumps work and the pin mount is lower to contact the lower bolster height. BLMA is about 0.018" lower than the MTs I stuck under it as a test. But the good news is that the 100 ton BLMA truck with 36" wheels has the same bolster height as the 70 ton with 33" wheels. So the body mount coupler remains at the same correct height off the railhead.
So Rob, two thank yous for this clarification, one is sarcastic for ruining my day, the other is very sincere for helping me make a better model.
I still want to see the specs somewhere in official print, just not on some website claiming it as facts when I'm out searching for any kind of info to help draw the plans in the first place.
Now I should update the website notes and the instruction sheet too. I swear I tried to get all that proportioned off the photos available at the time. Now we have more and clearer ones at that. I shall repeat my efforts at measuring to remove my nagging doubts. You're sure of something long enough, it's hard to shake. Then I'll want some steak sauce for eating  crow.

[ElginLoco]

Here's another fine monkey wrench tossed into the works. I emailed with Tom Daspit who has lots of online shots of his own and he sent the following:
'The 1979 elevation view, Krupp drawing 2-23-00.71.60-012 (back when the cabs were still stubby), very definitely shows "965.2mm/(38")" wheels.'

So now we as modelers, and I as a model maker, have to look for a good 125 ton truck with 38" wheels. Anybody have experience with that? I will begin searching pix and manufacturers for said items.
He also sent a pic of an entirely new main arm that is being built for a twin to CEBX 800, painted blue no less, don't know roadname or number or true paintscheme yet. But it looks like more decals will be in the offing someday.

[TrinityJayOne]

Oh dear! I hope that doesn't mean the mountings are all off for you and require changes. I'll be happy regardless though, because as I understand it Athearn's Challenger has the wrong diameter drivers and I can't tell any difference.

[GaryHinshaw]

I thought those looked like 38" wheels... The only N scale 125T truck/38" wheel I know of is Kato's, which is part of their double-stack set.  It was available as a separate part for a while, but it has been sold out for months.  Here's a photo:



The wheels are a bit thick in the tread, but not too bad.  Another issue is that it has a non-standard bolster, so it doesn't accept a standard kingpin.  The styrene in my pic is an adapter I had to make for a particular application, but you'd need to do something else for the Schnabel.

Now would be a good time to lobby BLMA to make one.

-Gary

P.S. Wonderful kit, BTW!

[ElginLoco]

If I recall rightly, the Kato truck is for the Maxi-IV double stack articulated ends and when I measured them while developing the Maxi-IV for Deluxe Innovations, the Kato wheels are too small to be actual 38". But I need to remeasure my Kato set to state that outright. I recall though, making sure to design a proper 38" wheel for the DI model. I think the BLMA 100 truck with the 36" wheels will be a fine standin for me. And if I swap the wheels out for Fox Valley Models 38" wheels, I can take 0.006" off the bolster interface bumps on the bottoms of the spanbolsters, that would maintain the coupler height on the porches. Tedious but doable. I could make a seperate set of bolsters available for that purpose if there was enough interest I suppose.

[Robbman]

The good news is that if BLMA ever does a 125T truck, the bolster height will be the same off the rail as the 70T and 100T... so no modifications will be needed.