Submarines Transported on Train Cars

Kool stuff!

Choo Choo Charlie posted:

I have two cars transporting submarines.

Both use smallish toy submarines. 

My next project is to build an Reynolds Aluminaut experimental deep diving sub used to recover items from the sea floor.  The real sub is 51ft long and about 8 feet in diameter, not an unreasonable size to be carried by rail.

The Reynolds Aluminaut is made mostly from aluminum and I retired from ALCOA which bought Reynolds Metals several years ago.  A similar sub was used to recover a lost H bomb in the cold war.

Charlie

 

Real Aluminaut sub now in Museum

 

Model of Aluminaut sub  ( not my yet not built model ! )

Thanks for the post!

I was wondering if someone had found a photo of a real submarine on a real train. No ... so I went looking for one myself ...

http://www.examiner.co.uk/life...s-submarines-6477821

The midget submarine built at Thomas Broadbent and Sons Ltd which played a crucial role in the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France is loaded onto a train at Huddersfield Railway Station.

The midget subs were created in secret and took part in several daring raids. Some of the mini submarines were used to attack the German battleship Tirpitz in Norway on September 22, 1943.

They sailed up Altenfjord and planted mines and explosives along the mighty ship’s hull.

After this attack, Broadbent’s firm started work on the X-20, which was a closely guarded secret.

I recall seeing an English movie "Submarine X-1" about a secret WW2 mission using midget subs to attack a huge German battleship in a Norwegian fjord.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_X-1

A prototype for everything.

The story of the brave men in those midget subs who made it to the Fiord and took the Tirpitz out of the World War II is one heck of a read. Some were captured after planting explosives on the hull and were on board when the explosions went off underwater opening the hull of the Tirpitz.

Paul

The Lionel submarine car was introduced at at time in the 1960's when Lionel was trying to attract a new audience that was being pulled away from the train hobby by new motorized toys such as slot cars, model boats, the transistor radio and the fascination with the space age. This brought in a whole different line of "space age" products  that were based on whimsy.  They were not commercially successful but as the products were not made in large quantities, it led to a later collector market . Today many of these products are hard to find and command high prices.

Ace posted:

I was wondering if someone had found a photo of a real submarine on a real train. No ... so I went looking for one myself ...

http://www.examiner.co.uk/life...s-submarines-6477821

 

That's an interesting photo, as the Liliput HO model looks similar (complete with a few torpedoes), but is a model of the German 'Seehund'

http://www.loutan.net/olivier/...hc-allemagne-27p.jpg

Firewood posted:

Ace posted:

I was wondering if someone had found a photo of a real submarine on a real train. No ... so I went looking for one myself ...

http://www.examiner.co.uk/life...s-submarines-6477821

 

That's an interesting photo, as the Liliput HO model looks similar (complete with a few torpedoes), but is a model of the German 'Seehund'

http://www.loutan.net/olivier/...hc-allemagne-27p.jpg

 

Wonder what it would have looked like with a Seadevil submarine then? (German sub, English name)

The CSS H.L. Hunley was transported by rail from Mobile, AL to Charleston SC in 1863

Here is a Simon Lake U.S. Naval submarine shipping out for the U.S. Navy just after WW1. 33 of these subs were made.

There are no photos, but the first submarine transported by rail - and the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel - was the CSS Hunley, built in Mobile and transported by rail to Charleston, where it sank the USS Housatonic.

Lyons Machine Works in Mobile, which built the Hunley in 1863, was unfortunately torn down many, many years ago.

From Wikipedia:

"...Hunley, nearly 40 feet (12 m) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama and launched in July 1863. She was then shipped by rail on August 12, 1863, to Charleston, South Carolina."

U-boats? Meh. Late-comers.

Also, think how absolutely modern building a sub and transporting it by rail (reportedly spanning 2 flatcars) was in 1863. That is "bleeding-edge" technology.

Very interesting topic and some wonderful information!  Yet another idea for that military consist.

Thanks for sharing!

-Greg

Building on the previous posts mentioning the CSS Hunley, here's a possible setup, but with a barrelled mortar on board. 

There are 1/35 and 1/72 kits of the Hunley out there, plus a 1:32 kit which has a waterline version in addition to a full hull.

The 1:35 model, which is approx 13" long. http://www.britmodeller.com/fo...unley-in-box-review/

Review of the 1:32 model: http://tinyurl.com/js6msvn