1989 Nolan TT 100-8 Track Trailer

The unpromising image at the top of the page is the Nolan as advertised on the NARCOA site by Hugh Cain near Norfolk, Virginia, USA in 2004. It was made in 1989, but seems to have had the hardest life of any of my toys at the hands of its original owners - the Norfolk and Portsmouth Belt Line Railroad. The basic function of this machine is to carry rail supplies such as sleepers from the depot direct to the point of work. It has clamps at the front and back of the bed which allow it to haul two 39-foot lengths of rail - of course when you are doing that you have to use a special towbar bolted to the front of the rail, but a little arithmetic tells me there is 19.5 feet of rail sticking out behind the axle line - that would be about 15 feet protruding from the back of the bed.

I originally thought it was a lot older, but by the time I had it checked out and a few photos I realised it was just the thing to tow behind my road /rail Dodge conversion. After all - I've never seen another convertible road / rail trailer - they just don't seem to exist, and Nolan don't seem to have made very many of this model. An appeal on the '39-'47 Dodge group on Yahoo found that John ("Airflow") Heimerl lived just down the road, so after a certain amount of negotiating and back and forth chat - mostly about the shipping - a deal was struck.

John spent an inordinate amount of time assessing the thing, receiving spare parts from the Nolan Company, and buying things like new rims and tyres on my behalf. The second photo shows the Nolan ready to haul to the container and probably doesn't reflect just how much time John had to spend even getting it into this shape - thanks again John. After a VERY protracted shipping process it arrived at my local container depot in April 2005.

On arrival it got a thorough going-over which revealed just how hard a life it'd had. The front rail axle had a 4" bend, both front rail wheels were bent and wobbling on their stub axles, with sheared mounting bolts, the battery box for the on-board 12 volt battery had been rusted through, presumably from spilt battery acid, and all the sheetmetal bodywork on the top had been severely bent on more than one occasion. If that wasn't bad enough someone had taken a gas torch to one of the drop arms and had cut halfway through the body.......

The wheels were straightened by hammering them back into line, crude but effective, and both of them also had to have numerous dings welded up and ground back into profile. The end result should be quite satisfactory but if it isn't I have two new rail wheels in stock ready to replace them.

I have now removed all the electrics and the hydraulics, and carved-off the upper bodywork to replace it with new sheetmetal as shown above. (The hinged bar you can see in the tow frame recess is the front clamp for clamping rail sections to the bed) I've found replacement roll pins for the front drop arms and had two new fenders made, and had it blasted, primed, and painted.

I now have to replace the original hydraulics and fit an upgraded military lighting systems and I'm about done.

Copyright. Gordon W.I. McMillan, 2005.