I know the difference between the two, however my question to you is are/were stacks/double stacks and piggybacks or trailers sometime run on the one train eg: 25 Husky stacks or whatever and say 20 piggybacks/trailers on the one train? has anyone seen this? i’m a HO modeller and would like to know whether it happens and if so if it’s frequent.
Thanks.
YESS!!! I have seen it on CSX innermoble trains with half stack and the other half piggyback. You might through in auto rack to that also seen with stack/piggyback/auto rack on the same train. If this helps.
Yes, thanks very much!
Regular occurence on the BNSF.
Even better!, I model BNSF! living in Aus its hard to get photos of day to day railroad happenings.
Thanks again!
It’s done all the time, at least at the yard where I work. In fact, none of the trains that we plan at our yard are devoted entirely to one or the other. They all have some trailers, some containers (quite frequently even on the same car); some of them are double stack trains and others we do not double stack.
I work around the BNSF transcon, generally the trains I see run this way, Z trains run with stack cars than piggybacks, hot hot Z- trains have mostly pigybacks, Q train is mostly stack with some piggyback on the rear and generally 8-15 autoracks, Q trains tend to get upwards of 7000 feet in length, Q is also on the symbol for the NS roadrailer, and lastly S trains are entirely made up of doublestack cars and are generally very heavy, 120+ tons per operative break. I have seen in Denver M DENLAU (manifest denver to laurel montana, and return M LAUDEN) have double stack cars on the head end headed to laurel and double stack cars on the rear headed back to denver. Rest of the DENLAU being regular manifest cars, boxes, tanks, flats, etc.
Just my two cents
youngengineer:
you are a wealth of information! thankyou muchly.
and thanks again to all the repliers.
Yes. You see them mixed everyday on ther NS main across Pennsylvania.
CP Rail mixes double stacks with regular freight cars alot. CP does not mix piggy backs any more but they did 3 years ago, you could see it all mixed into one freight. Usualy but not always in blocks, like a bunch of containers then a bunch of piggy backs, then more containers. CP mixes alot of single level container cars with double stacks randomly. CP will also trail some stacks behind a unit train of potash or grain.
CSX mixes double stacks with piggy backs every day.
It’s normal to see mixed piggyback and double stack equipment on UP through Eugene OR. Usually more trailers than containers.
On BNSF thats how you tell a Z train. Stacks in the lead and trailers behind. Once you arrive at WSP you drop the trailers and become just another short stacker trying to get into Corwith. Not easy at all. Have made it to Chicago in 3 hours and went dead at Nerska.
Q’s like stated have auto racks in the middle we call them Quagmire trains, underpowered over tonnage.Same as stacks.But still a good train to catch because no real work for the crew, its a good train to come home on cause you can go top speed.
Your M trains pulling stacks is usually just late cars or ones that came off the RIP track. But who knows every division out here on the BNSF does it different.
Here is a good Z train set up, place an SD-9 in the lead followed by gp 38’s,29’s or other junk.
that hasn’t actually happened has it?
I work with this all the time. In particular, there are these two stops an intermodal train can make - one terminal receives only containers, and the other one receives only trailers. I think that’s a contractual thing. So we will have single and double stack well cars for several cars, and then some spine cars and flat carswith trailers on. At the last terminal (Beacon Park in Boston), they can only have single stack well cars due to clearance requirements, but they handle both containers and trailers. Sometimes, I see trailers being transported that are really containers with a trailer chassis under them! no idea…
And some bucket (well) cars have hitches for trailers, and most flat cars/spine cars will handle at least certain sizes of containers. I know Elizabeth Marine terminal in NJ will only take containers and only in bucket cars. Where I work, we handle a little bit of everything.
As for the containers on chassis…sometimes they’re billed to be sent that way (TOFC as opposed to COFC) and the customer pays more for the chassis to go with the container. Other reasons for that might be that there is an overabundance of that company’s chassis in the yard they originate from; there’s a shortage of those chassis at the destination yard; or the unit needs to go on a car with hitches and therefore needs a chassis.
Wow tons of responses Thanks again! like I said It’s hard to see what happens day to day living 15,000km away [:p][:)]
don’t spose you guys have pics or know where i can get any?
thanks
Sure all the time & they also run them with rackers so you can model those as well.