1/87scale Pettibone Cary-lift to unload gondolas

[hjlyuen]

My brother-in-law lives where there are a lot of steel mills and over the years he has given me many gondolas. Until recently, I had no idea how these railcars were unloaded. Until I found these videos: Pettibone Cary-Lift Equipment | The Safe Load Mover - YouTube (fast forward to 2:04). and Safer Pipe Handling with Pettibone Cary-Lift: Northern Plains Trucking - YouTube (fast forward to 2:02).

Watching those videos became the inspiration for an HO (1/87) scale Pettibone Cary-lift 204C (1978) or 204D (1981). There are more recent models but I needed to back date the vehicles to match the age of my layout. The biggest visual difference is the 204C and 204D have a round front and flat sided cab whereas the more recent models have a flat sloping front and trapezoid sided cab.

After spending the last 3 months using Inkscape to draw the parts, I am now cutting parts, gluing them together, and discovering that I have had to go back to the drawing board and redesign parts. For example, that cab in the photo below will not fit on the body because it is oversized by the thickness of 2 sheets of paper. The solution was to rearrange the location of the glue tabs.

[MacSongLi]

You're off to a great start. I'm looking forward to another one of your projects.

Gary

[hjlyuen]

The cab glue tabs have been relocated and the cab will now fit onto the body. I think it would be easier to glue on the overhead guard before the lift-arm or boom (I don’t know the correct terminology).

[Vermin_King]

Looks like you are doing well with this. Who needs correct terms... I designed my Bragosso without finding out what the boat was called until two months after it was released

[hjlyuen]

Hi MacSongli and Vermin_King. Thank you for your encouraging words. I am making progress, however slow. The lift arm along with its associated cylinders are finally done. One of the aspects of designing a paper model is learning new things or in some cases not being able to figure out what is going on. The Pettibone Cary-lift isn’t like a forklift where the fork and carriage travel up and down a mast. A similar material handling equipment may be a front end loader with its boom. A better example with a similar style lift arm would be a steer skid loader. And not just any skid steer loader but the one with the vertical lift instead of the radial lift. The difference between the two lift styles is the former lift arm has 2 pivot points and the latter has only one. At this stage in the model, the two piece articulated lift arm in the Pettibone Cary-lift can be seen along with the cylinder in the front that lifts or lowers the arm and a second cylinder in the back that moves the lift arm forwards and back. All this, I learned in the last 4 months. Meanwhile, I think part 12 is a lift arm but I have no idea what part 8 is called. Next is the pipe baler (another new word for me) and finally the wheels and axles.

[Siwi]

It's a very smart design, as it puts the operator's sightline much closer to what they are lifting, and uses the whole front of the loader as a stabilising leg.

[hjlyuen]

After struggling with vehicle dimensions, I ended up building the wheels and axles before the pipe baler. I only have (1) a drawing of the side of the vehicle, (2) photos from the internet and (3) some basic dimensions like 12 ft wheel base and 9 ft 10 inch overall width for the 204D model. I used the wheel base length to resize the drawing to 1/87 scale. I could not find drawings of the top or the rear with overall width. I don’t know if overall width refers to the piper baler or the distance between the outside tire treads or if both are the same width. On the one hand, I could see tires of different tread widths in photos that I found on the internet. On the other hand, the pipe baler appeared to be slightly wider than the track width (plus tread width) in some photos and in others it appears to be about the same. I even used google maps to get aerial photos of Cary-Lifts parked at dealership in an attempt to answer the question. Because of perspective and foreshortening in the photos, I don’t have good answer. In the end, I used (1) photos of the rear of the vehicle which have less amount of foreshortening than photos of the front, (2) tire dimensions from vehicle descriptions found in websites with used Cary-lifts for sale, and (3) the side drawing with the (a) tire diameter and (b) height of engine compartment to arrive at a compromise overall width. It's not perfect but that is how I ended up building the undercarriage before the pipe baler. With that out of the way, the next task is to scale the piper baler to the vehicle "overall width".

[hjlyuen]

Progress is slow as I keep getting side tracked by the many variations of the Cary-lift 402C and 402D. The latest concern is how the cylinder that raises the pipe baler (parts 19. 20, and 21) is attached to the carriage (part 18) and the baler (part 27). There appears to be two different ways as the attached photos show. Then, I discovered variations of part 29. Never mind the air intake filter on top of the engine compartment or the exhaust muffler, etc. I am not complaining as this is the nature of scale modeling, just like sorting of the different “phases” of diesel locomotives. When I work with plastic models to recreate a specific locomotive, I have to take time out to research roof fans, body panels, grilles, etc that change over the production run of that particular make and model in addition to railroad specific add-ons like snow plows, ditch lights, strobe lights, air conditioners, etc.

[hjlyuen]

Back side of pipe baler / carriage.

[OgdenBob]

This is an awesome model, I'm very impressed with your design!


Bob