The word "Schnabel" translates to beak. The load bearing structures are shaped like a birds beak, so they were named "load bearing beak" -> "Tragschnabel" and "Wagen" is literally "car" so its name is basically "load bearing beak shaped heavy lift railcar". Calling them "schnabels" is of course way faster lol.
That reminds me of "gooseneck" trailers for road vehicles, which are flatbed, and hook up to a hitch in the bed of a truck with a hitch that goes up then arches over.
@@Br3ttM yeah, we here in croatia call them labudica, which means the swan, female swan in fact, as the trailer is a feminine noun here, i think we call the railway car the same colloquially, maybe the railroaders call them schnabels, can't say, they are not seen often, but the končar group has them, has one i think, with that cabin and all, and in railfan vids you can see it when a big trafo or generator is transported from zagreb to the port of rijeka, only other modus for transporting them from croatia was the an 225 mriya, she was the only one big enough to lift that trafo in the air and fly it to china or where ever else, now only the train then a ship from rijeka onwards.
Schnabels are often used to deliver large main power transformers, which travel the rails "undressed", that is without their bushings, coolers, etc. This allows them to pass under bridges. The transformers get dressed and filled with oil on site at the substation. Then a lot of testing is done before "bumping" (initial energizing) and commissioning.
cool video. As you no doubt know as you used part of one of my videos, I was able to catch Scnabel WECX 800 four times in Columbia, South Carolina. I also got one of the Emrit schnabels carrying a GE 9HA turbine on a reverse move from France. The WECX 800 was carrying a Nuclear Steam Generator for now never completed VC Summer Nuclear plant in Jenkinsville, SC. I've also got a fair amount of GE Turbine moves and filmed one in the exact location where Amtrak colided with a parked CSX auto rack train.
another railcar type very similar to Schnabels, but far more common, are torpedo wagons used in steel plants. These too consist of two frames suspending an object inbetween (in this case a tank for molten steel) and can reach equally immense sizes as Schnabels, but are usually permanently conjoined
Have seen one of these several times. The taconite plants in northern Mn., occasionally replace very large pieces of equipment , which are brought to Duluth Mn. by ship., then transported by rail to it's destination . ( taconite is condensed iron ore used to make steel) PS Thank you for putting a name to these massive rail cars. Have always seen one like the red one in your video.
I didn't manage to catch a picture of it, but there was a schnabel in town a year or so ago delivering a transformer to one of our local substations. Was quite the affair too. Brought it in on a schnable, transferred it from the schnabel to an SPMT to get it across the road and another siding and then another big crane to set it on its foundation pad. Took 'em a solid 45 minutes to make it across the road, but when you're moving that kind of weight slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
I don't know if it was a Schnabel car or not, but back in the mid 70s I watched a big transformer go by. I was working for CN Telecommunications (part of CN Rail) at the time and in the Geraldton, Ontario office. This is on the track that connects Thunder Bay to the CN main line at Long Lac. As I was sitting in the office, I could feel the ground go up & down, as the axles passed.
I just discovered your channel, and as a european interested by US railroading, you sound exactly how I imagined a railroader would sound. tho that might just be from my point of view.
I have seen one of these! It was tiny, only about 100 ft or so long, but it carried a pretty big power transformer. Had no idea what it was, or how rare it was, but now I know! Wish I got a picture of it.
The forging company i retired from had forging hammer bases shipped on these cars. The plant is right next to a CNRR rail yard. Then a rigger took them off the car and transported them on multi axel heavy haul trailers to the plant. The move was only about a thousand feet. The bases weighed 110 ton each.
Got to see a schnabel years ago. A hospital near me was building a cancer center with a proton generator for proton therapy. Had to be brought in on a schnabel. Was really cool to see
Nice video i was an engineer for csx on the KD and CV sub we had train handling rules and special instructions in out timetables i think most of them were restricted on our subs we had some pretty tight tunnels lets put it this way if we started rocking a little bit our rain bonnets would scrape the tunnels you could see scrape marks so anything taller or wider than our engines wouldn't be able to go we had some steel truss bridges that would be tight too so i never got to see one of those cars
Never heard the word Scnabel until a week ago. I found an early design document for my dam by GE saying the huge size of the transformer we were considering in 1960’s was no problem as they could use their Scnabel rail car to get it to us! Recently all large shipments have been coming by truck not rail…..
I got to see one at GE's transformer plant in Pittsfield years ago. Great video, but it's impossible to show how massive that railcar is compared to standing next to one.
Schnabels have always interested me in a way. Too bad there are so little left… Have you ever heard of Thunderbolt 1000 Siren productions? He makes those train wreck videos. If you know what I’m talking about, I feel like you should consider doing one sometime! You know so much about raildroading and have a great voice. It would be quite enjoyable for people (me included) who are into things like that. Anyways, keep up the good work 😁
Yes, I have. The problem would be finding a wreck he hasn’t already covered, lol. Honestly, I’ve never much though about doing a train wreck video except for my East Palestine video. I’ll consider it though, because there is a lot that can be done with that topic. Thank you, I certainly will!
@@Southern_Plains_Railfan I totally get that thunder has covered a lot, but there are still some out there if you dig deep enough. You could also try redoing some of his older ones if there is a certain that you really like. Thank you for the consideration!
Oh wow, I saw one of these parked in a small storage track by a railroad crossing once, I thought it was machinery for railroad maintenance. The way the 2 ends come together looks like it would spit something out onto the rails, if you didn't know it was solid metal.
Thanks for uploading this. I played it on Saturday night with some friends and we took a shot every time we heard the word “Schnabel”. None of us made it to the end!
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I've seen a very heavy duty railcar similar to the one at :50 transport a very large piece of equipment on the pier at Port of Albany, NY. They load very heavy machinery there. I didn't realize it was so unusual. In fact a large ship (Stellamare, loading a 340 ton piece) flipped over at that pier loading a few years ago. Crazazee!
@@mytrueself1598 Doing unit conversions is annoying. Even more annoying are people who claim conversions are easy for smart people but would lose their minds if they had to do the conversions themselves. Irrational and hypocritical. However, the real tragedy is that *imperial is inefficient* and contributes to American jobs being exported to foreign countries. True Americans support metrication and bringing good industrial jobs back home.
I've seen these a couple of times, most recently when they were decommissioning the Yankee Rowe Nuclear plant in New England and they were taking parts out (presumably the turbine) for disposal off-site. And heck when I say "Most recently that was still back in the late 90s I think. Before that in the 70s GE would move large Transformers from my area by rail with them
I personally witnessed CEBX 800 with a 1200 ton fraction tower moving at a snails pace just east of Edmonton on it's final leg up to Redwater in 1998. I have seen a pair of Schnabel cars carrying 400 ton transformers since that 1998 encounter with CEBX 800
I used to work as a Carmen in the Galesburg,IL BNSF yard and I bad ordered one of these one night and I thought the foreman was going to have a stroke 😂
I don't think I have ever seen one. But then, over here, most lines have overhead wires, which makes it impossible to transport huge loads. Not to mention that most lines during day time have at least four passenger trains per direction (and many have more, up to 12 trains / hour / direction); it'll be impossible to fit a slow moving train without severely disrupting passenger service. You'd only be able to do it during 4-5 hours each night when there is no passenger service (and you still have the overhead wires to deal with).
I just got done watching your videos, I'm building an n scale coffee table. Thanks for all your help! I don't think I'd be able to fit one of these giants in it 😂
@Southern_Plains_Railfan Your accent is *chef's kiss* magnifique! We have to treasure and conserve accents like this, as they tend to get watered down over time with exposure to the [Not South] - the big train car thing was cool too.
I grew up in Pittsfield Mass where GE built Power transformers. GEX40010 with 20 axles was a common sight outside the plant. The building was large enough to bring the Schnabel car inside for loading using two gantry cranes for the lift.
My Grandfather and stepfather spent years building electric power plants. So as a kid they’d have me come by their job sites as the huge turbines and transformer were delivered. So I saw many of these cars, large and small. I used to have a bunch of picture that my Grandfather took as they moved a huge turbine from its rail car to its final setting point. he was the Ironworker superintendent for the project so he was “documenting” the work. In reality, it was his last big project so he wanted some pictures of the work. My stepfather was one of the rigging foremen so he was prominent in the pictures. Sadly, I lost the pictures in a house fire but I can still see them in my mind’s eye. It was amazing work.
I am currently on duty at a Charlotte Fire Station. We are across the street from Siemens Energy and there are several heavy haul cars there, including a Schnabel I believe. I'll try to get a picture tomorrow. Westinghouse Blvd & Shopton Rd West.
This things are derived from railguns (big guns on rails, not electromagnetic artillery guns that bears the same name). Thus their German name, because germans were big fans of big rail guns since WWI, even making a pair of the biggest of them all for WWII, (Dora and Gustav), wich were basically an enormous naval gun sitting on *two* railcars of this kind, on a twin parallel track... In France we used to have these things running for electrical/nuclear equipment, I remember when I was a kid seeing a transformer on rails with this, but sadly these times are over and oversized loads goes on roads despite many powerplants and transformer yards having (disused) railroad sidings. Nice to see this tech still being used elsewhere.
I remember seeing one in Eastern Oregon a few months ago off of I-84, sadly I wasn't able to get a picture as I was driving and it was right after a corner so I didn't have time to grab my phone. Man was it cool to see though
Do they have multiple crews traveling with or along the route so that they can pretty much keep it continuously moving along their planned SLOW route across the country or are they pulled into sidings and the crew rest to get back to travel time again? My guess is multiple crews but that’s only my guess. Anyone know the answer to this as I heard nothing about this in this very informative video. I did learn a lot more than I ever knew before about them. And I have seen one one time but it must have been traveling to pick up its load but was still the largest rail car or cars ( as at the time I wasn’t really sure what it was ) that I had seen so I looked up about them, but still didn’t learn everything that I did from this very well done video. My rail hats off to the makers of this video. 🐢 2023
The Soviet Union planned to build nuclear reactor segments which could be factory-made, and shipped by Schnabel to site and assembled. It was based off the RBMK design. Which became unpopular midway through 1986.
Is there a web site or something that a person can look up so they can see one in action? Your video was excellent! It's like looking at big boy and then getting to see big boy!
Thank you! SouthernRailfan.net I think it is has lots of really good pictures of Schnables, and if you look up Schnabel car on RU-vid there’s plenty of videos featuring them.
I'm only 10 seconds in and oh my god that accent is legendary. Sounds like the voice of American country. 🤣 Edit: Okay, between the accent and the cool train cars, I'm in. I've never hit subscribe so fast 😂
All the trucks can pivot just like a normal freight car, and the frames they attach to are articulated. The two lifting arms can also pivot, so there’s a lot of opportunity for movement.
