Rail Loading Tanks, Oct 1979... p 2
As the tanks are loaded, Deutschebahn personnel supervise the positioning of the tanks.  Once positioned, they order the engine shut down, and then the crews chauk and tie down the vehicles.  One trick, which made the DB personnel furious, was to move a tank slightly up the front chauks, and then put the back chauks against the tracks in the back.  In this way a crew did not have to nail the chauks into the wooden platform of the flat car. The DB personnel hated this, because once they told you to shut off the engine, it should STAY shut off!  Did they not tell you!?
Close up of the DB supervisor observing the loading.  In his right hand is a gauge, set for how much track should be allowed to hang over the edge of the flat car.  This seems a pointless excercise, but it must be pointed out that the trains must move through numerous tunnels, and the tanks barely fit through some of them!

To the left of the DB employee is one of our guys guiding the tank on the car.  If you look carefully over his left arm you can see the tank's track hanging off the back of the car and the rear road wheel still on the previous car.
Close up of the track overhang on the flat car.  Notice the chunking in some of the track pads as well.  One needs to understand that this is 56 tons of military hardware resting on a railroad flat car!
Lighter tracked vehicles are not as difficult to load, and two of these, such as the M-113 personnel carrier on the left, could fit on one flat car.  Note the fold-down sides on the left flat car, and the chauk blocks on the top deck of the 113.
Moving out.  Once loaded up, the crews and other personnel load up in regular passenger cars and take the ride to the next destination, such as Hohenfels, Grafenwohr, or Wildflecken.