This will be elementary to most of you, but what were the long (80 ft?) double door box cars used for? There are two dozen or so stored in Gadsden, AL, Conrail ney NYC #237766 was one that I could read. Some are in the ATR yard (short line formerly CSXT Birmingham to Guntersville); that usually means they eventually will make their way to Albertville, AL to be scrapped by Progress Rail.
Northtowne
Autoparts, typically body parts which go on racks (doors, hoods, fenders, etc.) On the racks they are very low density, so big, high cube box cars are the rule.
Some of these cars were over 93’ long over the pulling face of their couplers. They were used to handle light desity commodities such as auto parts that would fill up the cubic capacity of a standard boxcar well before its weight carrying capacity was reached.
Like the 89’ TOFC flatcar, they were a creature of economic regulation. The regulations provided enforcement of minimum rate levels based on a pathetic formula, unrelated to reality, that was never envisioned for such use by its creator, for developing the cost of moving a carload by rail. If the railroads got more “stuff” in a car, they could justify charging less per unit shipped and become truck competitive. So they built bigger cars like this not for true economic, viable reasons, but to comply with stuipid government regulations.
GE uses them to ship appliances. I’ve also seen them hauling bales of peat moss.
Nick
What in the world are bales of peat moss used for?
To fill up the big boxcars.
Have any new 86’ boxcars been built since the 1970s. Most 86’ boxcars are over 30-40 years old. Some of the earliest were built around 1964 and had high ladders and roof walks until the AAR banned them.
Wabash 86’ autoparts boxcar in 1964. Notice the high ladder, high brake wheel and roof walk, something unusual for a car this size. Source: rr-fallenflags.org. No wonder why the AAR abolished roof walks on boxcars a couple years later:) Walking on top of a car this size must have been downright scary, IMO.
Potlatch owns some 86’ boxcars. I have heard they haul tissue. Also, for a while a composite roof shingle plant in the area had 86’ boxcars going to it. From the information I heard when I toured the plant, I figure they must have been bring in glass mat.
It looks to me that the new autoparts boxcars are 53’ Pacer Stacktrain containers.
Is it me, or is this one of those reoccurring topics?
http://www.peatmoss.com/pm-broch.php
Maybe this will help. Theay are not a bale like hay or straw but plastic bags about the same size with compacted peat inside. http://www.avpeat.com/forklift.jpg
After the 86 foot boxcars began to be removed from auto parts service a couple of the other commodities they were reassigned (at least on the Union Pacific) to haul were bagged dog food and bagged salt- the salt cars are easy to spot on the UP since they are tagged with a black and white SALT decal on the side.
Did any of them get painted white? [}:)]
There were some white hi-cube cars, but not UP’s, as far as I know.
The Chicago & North Western was among the first railroads to convert auto-parts hi-cube box cars to other services, when it upgraded a few to AAR Mechanical Designation XF in the late 1970s, and put them in cereal service.
Not many of these hi-cubes have been built since the late 1970s. They’re real dinosaurs, about to become extinct (and since they’re one of the most derailment-prone types of car in our yard, thanks to their long drawbars, I’m not going to mourn 'em!). A series of ribbed-side hi-cubes was built in about 2001, I think (NKCR 860001-860065). Then there was the one experimental car built even more recently for the Norfolk Southern (just as long, but taller and skinnier), of which not too much has been heard.
Along with cereal and peat moss, commodities seen have been insulation and hay. And lots are still used for auto parts, in pools for all of the American manufacturers (as far as I know). They’re still considered to be valuable, as some have gotten exemptions to serve beyond their 40-year life expectation. But, possibly due to changing fortunes in the auto industry and changes to whom they grant their business, size of individual railroads’ fleets are changing. Santa Fe used to have hundreds of these cars by itself; I’m not sure whether BNSF has any left (including ex-CB&Q, BN, SLSF, or ATSF). Railroads that enlarged their fleets substantially included CR (before the split) and NS.
But their days are numbered. Replacements may be the 53-foot intermodal container, or similarly-sized Roadrailers. The most popular new box car in auto-parts business, though, is the 60-foot, double-plug-door high-roof box car. UP’s gotten a few, and NS a few more. Haven’t seen any new cars in auto parts service for CSX, BNSF, or the Canadian
I see them at the Potlach Warehouse in Elwood , IL . Most are Potlach owned but there are some CSX ,and BNSF cars as well .
