How popular are they? Why haven’t we seen more of them?
Very popular, you will see a lot more of them, as FEMA has ordered several 100 of them with optional shackles and extended seating…
Pretty sure you can find some near Beech Grove.
Aren’t there unmarked black helocopters covering them at Beech Grove?
Don’t know, but both are good questions. I did the math once and as I recall, even at max full load the middle truck isn’t even close to being overloaded, so it is a sensible mutation or next generation from the standpoints of engineering, efficiency, and economics. I believe NS has a decent-sized fleet of them, but I would have to rely on a “freight car freak” like CShaveRR or Balt ACD to provide updated specifics. But these may also have the bugaboo of all articulated equipment - lack of flexibility and the lesser availability because if one unit is out of service for any reason, then so is the mated unit, even if it has nothing wrong with it !
- Paul North.
The Thrall-built cars (many of which NS used to have and TTX still does) haven’t been duplicated in years. Thrall has been gone for years, too–but evidently Trinity wasn’t interested in continuing this design. These cars were bilevels, and not very flexible. Many NS cars have gone to shortlines that probably represent leasing companies (there are nearly 300 NS racks left, but many have been relettered NOKL or FEC).
The Gunderson Auto-Max cars have been a bit more popular, but they seem to be pretty much in exclusive service from somewhere in Mexico to somewhere along the East Coast, serving one automaker (Honda?). These were excess-height trilevels (capable of hauling a mixture of cars and vans). This may have changed in the past three or four years, as some have been converted to bilevels (“Bi-Max”), and railroads that didn’t have them before, such as UP, have gotten some. These are the ones with ventilation holes for the shackle-occupants. The conversion to bilevels probably assures that their feet won’t touch the ground for the entire journey.
Thanks for that info, Carl (as expected !). Some other links for Greenbrier’s / Gunderson’s “AutoMax II” cars:
http://www.gbrx.com/AutoMax.php?expandable=0 “Main Page” for this line of cars;
http://www.gbrx.com/files/files/NAR/AutoMax/AutoMax2.pdf (1 page, approx. 700 KB electronic file size in 'PDF" format); and,
http://www.gbrx.com/files/files/NAR/AutoMax/10_1115ForVolkswagenVersatility_RailwayAge.pdf (3 pgs., approx. 1.36 MB electronic file size in ‘PDF’ format)
- Paul North.
Paul, I really appreciated your first response to the question; I could not help but laugh out loud. My daughter, who was visiting me, thought at first I was laughing at the quip at the bottom, but I explained to her the great interest a few years ago in the “FEMA prisoner cars.”
I will say that in my travels in the last few years, I have never noticed any articulated auto racks (not that I did not see any, but I was not looking at the trucks; they are hard to see when you are on the upper level of a Superliner)[:)] I would try to see if the cars were loaded or not…
Whoops! by the time I got to the last post, I had forgotten that it was Ed, not Paul, who posted the first response to the question. Forgive me, Ed, for crediting Paul with your response.[:$]
Perhaps another reason is the downturn in the economy meant the need for more autoracks did not exist. No reason to buy new ones, whether articulated or stand-alone, if the existing North American fleet is more than sufficient to handle the business.
John
It’s all right…we are both very handsome and people get us confused us all the time, at least they confuse me a lot!
We get the Auto-Max articulated cars all the time, and several tracks worth from BSF and KCS, both have them too.
I will see if I can grab a photo today.
Yes, I would like to see a picture of such auto racks. I missed seeing any when we went through Houston two years ago as we were on our way from Los Angeles to New Orleans (for some reason which was never explained to the passengers, it took the Sunset two hours to get away from Houston).
Of course, there were none in the yard today, I will try again saturday…
I;ve seen alot of the articulated auto carriers in North Bergen, NJ. I gather that they’re used by the European auto companies to haul expensive vehicles like Mercedes Benz and BMW. Thse loads would be running west from North Bergen via CSX towards Chicago and points on the West Coast.
Shuuush…I get a bonus for everyone I send there and they catch!
They have a new tagging/tracking program, along with a “catch and release” program.
Are they applying GPS transponders to make the recatch easier?
They have a contract with Garmin, so the spare parts are cheap and available at Radio Shack.
Johnny,
Here ya go, a few of the BNSF Auto-Max and a shot of the center shared truck.
Enjoy…we had 84 for them out of the Volkswagon/Volvo lot today.
And they even have air holes to go along with the shackles.
And neat-o fold down benches!