Transportation of equipment

Transportation of live steam equipment is very important. Most people will not always be able to keep their equipment at the club or track. Or you will want to take your equipment to another track. The most important thing is to make sure that the equipment is securely attached to what ever you are transporting in. Depending on the size and number you might be able to transport in a small car or if you have a large collection a custom trailer. I prefer using a enclosed trailer, this way you keep prying eyes off of your live steam equipment. I had bought a 5 x 8 foot utility trailer to handle a small locomotive and 2 cars. I expanded it to include a second rack above the first. The problem with having an open trailer is that driving down the road people would pull up in the blind spot to look at the trains. With a simple little change every thing was changed to a 6 x 12 foot enclosed trailer. On thing about putting the trains in the back of a car / truck or on a trailer is to make sure that every thing is held down very tight. I have tried to just use ratchet straps but as the weight of the equipment gets heavier the straps will not hold for very long. If the equipment is not held down and starts moving around it can cause big problems. I use a combination of straps and clamps. I set the trailer up to hold the trains about 6 inches from the floor, this way I can install clamps that hold the axles of the cars to the track. I use between 2 to 4 clamps depending on the weight of the live steam equipment. This holds the majority of the weight to the tracks securely. To supplement this and hold the equipment from rocking I then use ratchet straps to keep the cars from moving. Spacing should be such that each car has room to rock back and forth with out touching, usually about 6 inches but will depend on the width of the trailer used. The clamps I make from 1 inch square tube with a hold drilled in the center for a clothes line hook. The clothes line hook is the largest one that is available from home depot. to install you hook the hook over the axle and then tighten down on the nut. make sure that you are using a double nut to ensure that it doesn't come off down the road.