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  • Single intermodal container car

  • General discussion about locomotives, rolling stock, and equipment
General discussion about locomotives, rolling stock, and equipment

Moderator: John_Perkowski

 #1494074  by BobLI
 
Is there a new type of intermodal car that only carries one container? I’ve seen them mixed in with double stack wellcars and just curious if it’s a new development.
 #1496557  by ExCon90
 
There were two-axle flatcars with reporting marks TTOX. I googled TTOX, and ended up on the Trainsmag website, which has the following:
The cars were built beginning in the 1980's to accommodate 48' trailers, which were too long for two of them to be handled on the standard 89' TTX flatcar; they proved unsatisfactory in service because the two-axle design rode very poorly, with a strong tendency to "hunt" above a certain speed. When being moved empty, any bunching of slack could lift them right off the rails. One contributor reported that the Southern Pacific had a policy of accepting them in interchange (which they were required to do) but immediately reloading the trailer on a standard TTX car and returning the TTOX to the carrier which delivered it to them. They were all scrapped by the early 1990's except for one which was rescued and is now at the National Museum of Transport at St. Louis.
 #1501198  by John_Perkowski
 
Pictures help.

FWIW, I remember being told by the Dome lounge Porter aboard the UP City of Los Angeles a ton of old baggage cars were being cut down to their decks to be 20’ container flats. This was back in 1967. This was at the East Los Angeles coach yards and shops.

Containers can travel on anything that has a flat deck, or even a center spine and just a few arms to keep them in balance.
 #1501304  by TrainDetainer
 
Containers can travel on anything that has a flat deck, or even a center spine and just a few arms to keep them in balance.
Not really true - only in a very general sense. A container, like any other 'free' load on a truly flat deck would have to be chained or properly welded down in accordance with AAR loading guidelines. Containers in normal intermodal service are always carried on their corner blocks, restrained either in well cars or locked down on twist locks (http://www.seabox.com/products/list/con ... connectors" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). They do not 'balance' on spine car center sills, but are on corner block twist locks mounted on the 'arms.' The entire weight of the container is carried directly by the corners - rail, ship or highway. In this photo http://dev.model160.com/n-scale-resourc ... prototype/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; you can see the permanent locks above the end of the stub side sill on the (near) B end of the car. The locks at the other end of the car are retracted into the trailer wheel deck (to clear the tires of a 53' trailer or a long-base 45 or 48).

The OP could be read either way regarding car/load type, but yes, there have been single-unit and single-height cars of different types in use for well over thirty years.
 #1506159  by Engineer Spike
 
I remember the four wheel cars that you are talking about. They actually were still in service until the late 1990s, and I remember seeing them while working for BNSF. I’ll have to dig out the old books to see what restrictions they had. I’m pretty sure that the trailing tonnage had to be kept quite low.