It occurred to me that removing most of the deck of a flat car would leave the two beams and a hole. [There may be more beams, depending on who made the flat, but they can be removed.]
The sub will sit in the hole between the beams and will be a little lower. Might be less effort than making a complete depressed center car!
Agreeing with the others. In a simplistic or “diagrammatic” description, you could screw a block of wood on top of both trucks, and drill a horizontal hole in both (and at the center of the tank at both ends). Then poke a rod through the blocks and also through the tank.
Just allow the blocks to pivot atop the trucks.
Not sure if it’ll work, but that’s what came to my skullular mush, FWIW.
Update:
Yesterday, it was about SCUBA and the beach. Today, it was about the Triple O. Kid-zilla and I were on the lanai from breakfast thru dinner. Even O.S. joined us to do battle with his paper-on-frame rubber powered plane. The girls are withe “Oma” and “Opa,” so they were not expected to make an appearance.
Were it not 2200 local time, I’d give a fuller update. Suffice to say, KISS is in play, and we are sticking to tried-and-true tools, techniques, and procedures, combining ideas from our cane cars and his crane car to get something that will work.
Eric
OK, it got a bit too late to provide a full update, but I thought I’d mention that the kid knows me a bit too well. I found this circling the Triple O on Fathers Day:
That behind us, on Monday, we set to. First order of business was to mount shaft alley. I used a spare bell guard to see if those dry wall screws would fit where the blade’s tang would pass throug:
So far, so good. I convinced Kid-zilla this was a better bet than trying to tap a new hole in the actual center, and he agreed.
He photographed yours truly tapping holes to mount shaft alley to the pressure hull and to mount the prop to shaft alley and cutting off the head of the screw that would serve as the mount:
Next, I let him fit the headless screw into shaft alley and shaft alley to the pressure hull.
This was a bit loose, so we hit it with two part epoxy I bought to fix the PLAYMOBIL and stowed it in our impromptu graving dock:
I messed up the epoxy. It is still tacky today. It was one of those where you push one plunger for both parts. I should have applied this to a bit of scrap, mixed it there, and then tried to reinforce the mount. Live and learn. When it does dry, we will repaint the hull, mask it, and give the top third a coat of dark blue.
It was around this time he saw me get the ruler, the scratch pad, and the saw, and returned to his play and projects along the mainline (referenced here Rehabilitating a HardieBacker Home).
More on that and the results of the Wood Strip Massacre tomorrow!
Eric
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Was there a can in the car?
Cliff,
Read the signage on the car “King of All Bottled Beers” ! Not cans 
OK, I DID see that Joe! But I didn’t want to assume too much for the kids… Like needing to modify the car for a removable roof to get the bottle out, etc.
Well, a can might not make the turn out of the doors either…
Nah…we cut a foam insert for a gondola to carry the real stuff! When we host, we have a house rule that the first can / bottle comes by rail. After that, folks get to go to the cooler themselves.
At any rate, while I prepared to do battle with Chopper Saw to produce straight cuts, Kid-zilla and a member of Haluku’ilio’s finest did a MOW inspection. This brought trains to a halt as the 1:24 officer poled himself around the Triple O. Kid-zilla and his 1:24 pal identified multiple issues. They ordered up a work train with a crew and TiteBond III and began repairing the footpaths along our trestle.
Not content, they crafted and placed a warning sign.
The 1:24 guys celebrated later with their newly refurbished hibachi (seen here before painting).
Back on the lanai, yours truly decided the trucks would sit on frames 4" wide by 5" long with a 3" wide centerpiece affixed to the trucks themselves. After measuring, remeasuring, and measuring again, it was time to join battle, and LO!
A first for me! Uniform lengths of timber on the first cut!
I partook in a victory beverage and proceeded to assemble the frames. Between Titebond III, patience, and clamps, both frames are formed.
They will get some brad nail reinforcements, a light sanding, and some sealer before getting a coat of “Navy Grey.” We can do that in parallel with the cradle, which, Kid-zilla excitedly noticed, will be LOOOOOONG.
The cradle will also be 4" wide to conform to other things that work. We can bevel it a bit to get to the sub to sit lower, if required. There will be a short deck fore and aft with an additional beam attached to the endbeams. A tongue of some sort will extend from each of these extra endbeams over the trucks, where a pin will drop down to affix the cradle to each truck and serve as the fore and aft pivot points. We can then use washers to raise the cradle off the tracks if it sits too low.
Busy week ahead, but we’ll see what we can get done. The epoxy is still tacky, but shaft alley is holding. I’ll take that as a partial victory!
Eric
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A masterful bit of work and seems you have done this a couple times in a row 
Eric;
I have a similar car, but it does not transport submarines. It transports young dragons for Gondor’s new “Air Force.”
Best, David Meashey
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Dave M.,
This is pretty close to where we are headed. The difference will be that the cradle will be suspended on a beam at either end to allow the trucks greater swing.
Thanks for this as a visual reference!
Eric
The boy needs a diesel to pull that heavy sub around. Them little dinky steam engines ain’t gonna cut it.
He’s got Diesel Dan
So does anyone know if the boys/Eric’s RR has a minimum radii of 2.5’ meaning a 5’ diameter curve? Simple question with a simple answer… not I’m using LGB R4 etc…cause I don’t care and have no time for code.
Boy needs a diesel !
Here is a genuine D-cell locomotive I built some years ago. It ran on six D-cell batteries. Unfortunately, it was held together by hot glue and fell apart on a warm day. I hope to put it back together some day. Perhaps the gorilla will provide the glue this time.
Yours, David Meashey
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Rooster, we have 2’ radius curves almost throughout. That limits him to switchers. As @David_Marconi_FOGCH said, though, he has Diesel Dan, not to mention Mack and Mike Banana Peal! The latter are HLW Macks. They run in opposite directions, so we’d have to crack one open and reverse some wiring, but they would look cool on either end of this monster!
Eric
Update:
The epoxy is still tacky. Is there a way to get this to finally cure? Or do I have to scrape off what I can and try again? What has cured is holding shaft alley fast to the pressure hull.
Thanks for the help!
Eric
The idea of the twin tube is to get equal amounts of the two parts. Yes, mix well on a pallet then apply the epoxy.
I should have stated whatever you use as a pallet becomes a piece of trash. A piece of cardboard works well.
Thanks, Wayne! Another lesson learned the hard way…To correct my error, I sanded off all the tacky stuff, properly mixed a new small batch, applied it where there was only goo before, and tried again. I remembered Youngest Daughter had UV ligth, and I used it to harden up what I could not scrape or scrub away:
We are OK. Kid-zila figured I screwed it up, so he let me fix all this…
I also got out Chopper Saw to wrangle more wood into train car parts.
More dumb luck (or evidence of emerging skill), as the parts were uniform enough to proceed, as the 1:24 gang shows below:
The 1:24 gang and I also placed the sub in the cradle before beginning to glue things in place just to make sure this would work.
We’re good! The slow process of gluing and clamping is now underway.
Tools and wood never being my best friends, Pin Nailer decided to remind me who was truly boss. First, I couldn’t figure out why nothing was coming out. After plugging the thing in, it still wouldn’t work. That’s when I decided that, in addition to power, this thing needed brads, which I proceeded to load incorrectly. At last, I drove in two brads, missing a cross brace completely only to see that the brads are, in fact, barely longer than the wood is wide. I put Pin Nailer away, filed off the exposed part of the brads, and decided to let TiteBond III do its thing.
Busy couple of days, but we are on track to have the cradle done by the end of the week.
Aloha,
Eric
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