

KRL 3600 Formerly WECX 800 Formerly CEBX 800

Description: This thirty six axle schnabel car is owned by Westinghouse, and is still in service. This is the largest schnabel car, and the largest freight car ever built. It was originally built for Combustion Engineering by Krupp Industries of West Germany, in 1982. Specification:

Capacity 1,779,260 lbs. Light Weight 740,890 lbs. Load Limit 1,779,260 lbs. Number of axles (33" wheels) 36 Empty Car Length 231' 8" Maximum Loaded Length 345' 0" Maximum Vertical Load Shifting ability 44" Maximum Horizontal Load Shifting ability (either side of car center line) 40"





Photos:

The car with its new reporting marks is in Southern California to pick up a load, December 2019. The following photos were sent by William.

South Carolina Electric and Gas is building two additions at the Summer plant. Bill Blevins shot this photo at the Port of Charleston, with a steam generator load.

Georgia Power is building two additional reactors at the Vogtle plant. The large crane makes the worlds largest freight car look small.

The above April 2013 photos are from the Southern Company website.

I received these photos from an unnamed source. This happened on December 15, 2012. The failure was on the skid used to attach the vessel to the Schnabel car, which caused the load to shift. There were no injuries and the load was not damaged. The location was not given, but believe that this is somewhere between Savannah and plant Vogtle. This is one of the two reactors for the two additional units of plant Vogtle. The reactor weighs 336 metric tons.

A little more information in a story at the Augusta Chronicle.

The following photo was taken by Kenneth Lehman on August 24, 2012 at Shepherdstown, West Virginia, USA, and is used with his permission.

The following photos were taken by Vince Skibo on August 16, 2012, and are used with his permission. The cars were parked on the Kasgro yard lead.

The following photos were taken by Vince Skibo, and are used with his permission. The car has new reporting marks, WECX, and the Westinghouse logo. They were taken outside of Kasgro on August 14, 2012.

The following photos were found on Walter Pfefferle website, and they are used here with his permission.

Max Medlin took this following photo at Rice Point Yard, in Duluth on May 7, 2010. The photo is used here with Max's permission.

The consist for this move to Toronto was:

ALT 4005 tool car CEBX 800 PHNX 102 caboose

Dan Mackey, of Superior, WI, sent me these shots, taken on December 2, 2005.

The following eight sets of photos are of a 570 metric ton refinery reactor movement from Houston to Commerce City, Colorado (near Denver).



The consist for this move was:

KRL 89121 tool car KRL 70897 idler KRL 076 caboose CEBX 800 with load KRL 70951 idler KRL 074 caboose



The following photos were taken by Brian Leibovitz on April 20, 2005 in Commerce City, Colorado. These photos show the car reattacehd after the load has been removed. The photos are used with Brian's permission.





The following photos were taken by Kevin Morris on April 15, 2005 in Larkspur, CO. They are used with Kevin's permission.





Relf Price caught the train on April 11, while driving between La Junta and Trinidad in a blizzard.





The following photos were taken by Nathan Holmes in Trinidad, CO on April 9, 2005. The photos are used wiht his permission.

The following three photos were taken by Ken and orignally posted on TrainOrders.com. They are used with Ken's permission. The photos were taken in Sweetwater and Santa Anna, TX.



Ken also notes that there is a complete R.J. Corman derailment crew consisting of about a dozen 18-wheelers carrying the usual side-boom bulldozers and other equipment that is staying within an hour of the train all the way to Denver.





The following photos were taken by Charles Biel, and are used with his permission. The photos were taken in Cameron, Hoyte and Milano Texas on March 30, 2005.



The following photos were taken by Tom Scotty in the Houston area. They were posted to A.B.P.R. and are used with Tom's permission.

The following photos were taken by Mike Harris on March 28, 2005. They are used with Mike's permission.

Richard Boyce took the following photos at Homestead Overpass Houston, Tx on March 28, 2005. The photos is used with Richard's permission. Richard sent me over 120 images and I picked the following to show here.

Dan Mackey, of Superior, WI, sent me these shots, they were taken in September 2002. This these shots are of the car after the load was delivered. Notice how the two halfs couple together when there is no load.

Dan Mackey, of Superior, WI, sent me these shots, they were taken on September 14, 2002. This car is out from its hibernation at Port Terminal Drive in Duluth, MN.

The CEBX 800 was being stored off of Port Terminal Drive in Duluth, MN. It is about 30 feet from Lake Superior. David Zuhn sent this information to me. The two halves of the car are on parallel sidings. The following pictures were taken on 5/5/00 and 5/6/00 by me. The lighting is not perfect on these photos. Some were taken in the late afternoon, and the rest were taken in the early morning.

Shane sent the following photos, with some great detail shots.

The following photos were found on Dan Loran web site. They are used here with Dan's permission. The photos were taken as the train passed through through Indian Head, Saskatchewan Canada.

More photos from Dan Loran. They are used here with Dan's permission. The photos were taken as the train passed through through Indian Head, Saskatchewan Canada.

The following photos were mailed to me by Jim Banner. He took these photos on January 5, 1991 in Saskatoon, Canada. The first photo is a multi-exposure panorama shot. It was made while the train was moving, but the pieces still seem to join quite well. This picture is a good shot of one the ends. Yes, there are 9 two wheel trucks under each end. This picture is a close up shot of the car markings. The capacity is 1,779,260 pounds or almost 900 tons. The car weights 740,890 pounds empty or 360 tons hile taking photo, which shows the tight clearance between the load and a truss bridge it passed through, I was leaning against the moving car to steady my camera. Speed was about 1/10 mph, controlled by a special electronic speed controller fitted to the engine used. This picture show the size of the load, at 34 meters long, 4.9 meters wide, and 5.2 tall.

Emil Szekrenyes sent these photos, he caught the car on two different moves near Lloydminster Alberta.

The following photo is from my collection, it was taken on December 12, 1986. It is from my collection.

The following photos were taken by Jack Peterson, and were found on his web page. They are used here with Jack's permission. Jack was the engineer on that trip.

This was the first cylinder to be moved. We were the first crew to handle one. The 773-ton cylinders were unloaded from the ship onto the dock. The first was loaded directly onto the Schnabel Car. The second was set on the dock. When the Schnabel car returned from delivering the first cylinder the second cylinder was jacked up and wood blocking was added until the cylinder was high enough that it could be slid onto the Schnabel Car. The Schnabel Car light weight was about 370 tons, loaded with the cylinder gross weight would have been 1,143 tons!

When the Schnabel Car was ready to move off the dock any switch stands that were in jeopardy of being hit were removed and the switch point spiked. They required that two locomotives would be used to move the loaded Schnabel car. They were worried that if an engine quit running and the Schnabel Car was in a stressed location that the car could be damaged before another engine was obtained. They asked that I go as slow as possible. It took well over an hour to move it one car length. Once it was out of the Port Trackage we were then able to increase the speed that we had been going. We put the Schnabel car on an unused lead until it was brought to the BN interchange in Duluth.

The following photos were taken by Bob Finan in November 1983, they are used here with Bob's permission. Bob originally posted these photos on TrainOrders.com.



"In November, 1983, the Santa Fe was contracted to move several LARGE pressure vessels, to the (then under construction) Coal Gassification Power Plant project at Daggett. I was somehow fortunate enough to be able to put things in perspective (pun intended), at least from a "Schnabel Size" comparison.



The following is a sequence of photos as one of these moves scaled the "ramp" and through truss bridge, at Rosecrans and Aviation, in El Segundo. Today, the MTA's Green Line would preclude a repeat of this effort, let alone the Alameda Corridor.



For those intimate with the Harbor Sub (figuratively speaking, of course), it would come as no surprise to know that the B&B and track gangs, as well as Signal Maintainers were HEAVILY involved in these moves, removing fouling high switch stands (and spiking the related switches), not to mention a fair number of crossing signals as well."

The following was provided by Joe Blackwell, he was the engineer on the previous trip with this car.



"I was called for this special move [on my day off, thus, the refusal] I caught the first train the previous weekend and it was so boring and slow [as the hogger anyway!] I couldn't stand the thought of another one! It took over 10 hours to cover the 35 or so miles from SP's Long Beach yard [where the train was built and ready to go], to the Santa Fe Autoveyer [where it was parked for the next days crew, as this train was a daylight only move] on Eastern Ave in Commerce."



"As Bob mentioned, crossing and block signals were moved for this high value, high wide load. At Redondo Junction, the old east leg of the wye [connection from San Bernardino Sub to Harbor Sub] was too sharp and close clearence fence, the train had to go straight toward Mission Tower, run around the train and then head east on the San Bernardino Sub to get to the Autoveyer. It also had to use the South track around the Redondo Junction curve as the load hung across and fouled the north track with BOTH rails of the south track exposed under the load, it was BIG!"



"One other note that I thought was rather interesting at the time, engineering had gone over the entire route with a "fine tooth comb" and they had a book [it reminded me of a AAA "triptik"] that had EVERY clearance. As Bob noted, there was a signal gang and a track gang following the move. They lifted wires, cut pole support cables, moved block signals and crossing signals."



The following photo is from my collection, it was taken at the Port of Long Beach, in November of 1983.



The following three pictures were sent to me by Joe Seidl. He took them while railfanning in the Cajon Pass area in 1983. They are used with his permission.

The following picture was taken from the July/August 1982 issue of Norfolk Southern World Magazine. The complete article can be found linked below.

Videos of the car in action:

Photos and articles in print:

Publication Date Page Comments Trains June 1981 16 One photo taken at Krupp in Germany Norfolk Southern World Magazine July/August 1982 16 Color picture in black paint O Gauge Railroading July/August 1982 56 "Seen Along The Rails Supertrain" Trains March 1987 Three photos Railroad Model Craftsman June 1988 48 & 49 Two photos Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia 1987 167 - 269 One photo Rails Through the Orange Groves Vol. 2 by Stephen E. Donaldson with William A. Myers 1990 218 One photo Sam Berliner's Schnabel Railroad Car Page Multiple color photos Equipment Diagrams: None Found



Related Patents:

patents are a good place to find diagrams.

Patent Number Date Title Diagrams 4,041,879 12/1/75 Schnabel Car 3 4,080,905 12/22/75 Schnabel Railway Car skid Shipping Assembly 4 4,083,311 9/27/76 Articulated Schnabel Car 4 4,150,628 11/29/76 Transversely Shiftable Pivotally Mounted Schnabel Car 9

Commercial Models:

An HO scale unpainted resin mode was available Concept Models. It is no longer available.

Custom Made Models:

Brian Franklin of Cape Town, South Africa built this HO scale model. It was shown to the public for the 1st time at an exhibition as part of our National Railroad Convention held here in Cape Town in early April 2004. Paint scheme is "Photographic Gray" as at the builder's works.

The following photos were sent to me by William Tokaruk, MMR. "I recently completed my scratchbuilt model of CEBX 800 "schnabel" car in HO scale. I'm attaching some reasonably good photos of the model."