Can someone ID this car?

[ErnieM]

I had the good fortune to visit Ohio this weekend. There was a CSX line near our stay and I got to watch a few trains roll by. Many had the car pictured below. Would someone tell me what these are as we don't see these on Long Island NY.

[NaugyRR]

Those are autoracks, they're enclosed car and truck carriers. They can carry cars on two or three levels depending on their height, and larger trucks can use up an entire rack.

The ends of the cars have large doors that swing open to load. A ramp is placed at the end of the train for the vehicles to drive up on, and the cars/trucks/etc. will drive the length of the train to load.

Amtrak's AutoTrain uses autoracks to transport passengers' cars behind the train. Here's a YouTube video showing how they're loaded...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni7mCAMfSQ4

I see them fairly often on the River Line between Selkirk and New Jersey, if you ever wanted to see them somewhat locally.

[Ken V]

Never have I seen a greater reply to such a simple question!

[ErnieM]

Thank you Naugy. I was due south of Detroit, I guess they are still building cars there. One train I spotted had two power units pulling some 80+ autoracks.

Since this was farm country we were guessing some sort of cattle car. Thanks for setting us straight.

[mmi16]

Thank you Naugy. I was due south of Detroit, I guess they are still building cars there. One train I spotted had two power units pulling some 80+ autoracks.

Since this was farm country we were guessing some sort of cattle car. Thanks for setting us straight.

Never realized Long Island was such a sheltered location for the reality of 21st Century railroading. Autoracks and hauling the contents thereof are one of the prime revenue sources for all today's Class 1 carriers. Trains of up to 120 railcars are operated into Distribution Centers where the railcars are unloaded and the vehicles transloaded to vehicle carrying trucks for delivery to the dealers.

[Marty Feldner]

Before vandalism took over the country and they had to be fully enclosed, this is what the autorack cars looked like (this is from an earlier thread in another forum here)-

autorack.jpg (515.12 KiB) Viewed 3091 times

[MACTRAXX]

EM: Being from Long Island myself Auto Racks as used today are too tall and too wide for bridge and tunnel clearances
to run to and from the LIRR. Another car type that is not permitted on the LIRR is "well" cars for single or double stack
containers - in this case it is that these well cars do not clear the LIRR third rail.
Auto racks may have the same problem...MACTRAXX

[Sir Ray]

Before vandalism took over the country and they had to be fully enclosed

Well, it was a rather short period of 'wide-open' auto-racks in North America of the type that started appearing in 1960.
Side panels (in some cases metal mesh) were added in the later 1960s to deter rock & brick throwers from damaging the vehicles in the racks; next fully enclosed autoracks came by the mid-1970s to prevent theft of expensive vehicle parts like tires, batteries, radios and so on. A lot of the fleet was enclosed by 1980, so what, that's 20 years of open racks vs near 40 years of enclosed racks.


I think we are still limited to Plate F clearences on Long Island except for portions in Bay Ridge accessible to the float yard, which can handle Plate J (19'0" clearance).