I saw a container train go through Syracuse yesterday with flat cars sharing trucks. Right under the couplers is a single truck where you’d normally see 2 trucks. The coupler area looked more like a big pivot point. What are these and how do they work (if you uncouple them)? Are there models of these?
Yes, there are models in HO scale of 5-car container well car sets. Athearn, Walthers, and InterMountain have made those sets in several road names.
Trucks are the heaviest part of a rail car, so by making articulated cars like those container well cars the railroads can pull more cars per train. If you could see one of these cars from the top that was not carrying a container, you’d also see that they are basically hollow to save weight. Instead of a solid floor, they just have a series of cross bracing in an X pattern.
If this is the first time you have ever noticed this type of car, you must live a long way from a railroad because those are about all I see out here on the Union Pacific trains.
Normally they are in blocks (3 or 5 I think are the most common). I see them frequently here in Northern Virginia.
Enjoy
Paul
These would be articulated cars…
full conventional truck at the outside ends of an artic set shared trucks in between.
Autoracks, Intermodal Flatcars (TOFC / COFC and all purpose) and Intermodal Well cars come in artic form.
Those I know of are
Athern Autoracks (2 cars)
Walthers IM flats (2 cars)
Athern / Walthers / A Line Wells 2s??? 5s (The A line were the early pattern… reputedly swines to put together… someone’s now doing then as RTR I think… very expensive)
I think that someone also does/did artic spine cars… Athern??? 5 cars?
The truck is only the heaviest part of a car by volume/density… and 89’ body is going to add up to more than the truck… savings are made on maintenance… less wheels … less brake parts / springs etc… BUT the whole string goes out of service for any maintenance.,
The other side of artics is that, if the load is never going to add up to the capacity of two trucks you may as well only fit two half trucks or (at the ends) one and a half. This is why they get used on things like autoracks and NOT on tank cars/two bay covered hoppers… BUT Walthers do permanently coupled 40’ Airslides… with 4 trucks not three under them… this was a temporary way round the 40’ car in interchange service ban… given one number the two/one car(s) becam an 80’+ car… Don’t know how long they lasted.
A pic from above will show you how the artic cars are joined mid unit far better than I can ever describe. the ends are standard buckeye setups.
Artics are almost alwasy used in unit trains / dedicated service.
Some passenger units have been (are?) artics… Acela??? The Talgos were I think. With modern technology they can be set up to give a far better ride… The Channel tunnel units have suspension elements either side of the car connections apparently almost up to the roof… encased. I’ve ridden the East Coast units from York to London… they’re
One big advantage of the artic in passenger service is that in the event of a derailment the train will tend to stay in line and upright rather than falling over or jack-knifing. The French TGV has an exemplary safety record (in terms of fewest injuries) despite at least one high-speed derailment.
In HO freight artics, you have rather limited choices right now. Athearn have offered their 5-unit Maxi III double stack car as a kit and RTR, I bagged one of the last of the kits and managed to pick up another on ebay unbuilt. The newer RTR version is twice the price… They’ve also offered Impack articulated spine cars for trailers - there’s two packs, one of two end cars and one of three intermediates, you need one of each. With these it’s a case of scanning ebay and train shows in search of them, as they’ve been out of production for a while. Adding metal wheels is a definite must-do on these cars as they tend to exhibit terrible wobbles with the stock wheelsets.
Walthers have offered a more modern set of artic spine cars - theirs can handle either 48’ containers or trailers depending on how they’re set up, the kit allows you to build them so you can swap between the two modes. Be careful assembling the trailer hitches as if you don’t modify them slightly (I filed them down a little) your trailers will be very nose-up and look daft. They may also have offered double stack cars though I’m not sure - I do know they make/made some N scale articulated 5-unit doublestacks which were pretty good models. Hope this is of use!
I own two of these in N scale made by DeLuxe innovations.They are Gunderson Twinstack cars (NYSW 620280 and 620283) which can handle ten containers (5X40’ or 10X20’ in the lower wells and 5X48’ in the upper ones).They are very well built and certainly look great on a layout.
They aren’t cheap though,considering they come empty.And properly weighed containers (lower well only) are a must to keep them on track as they are incredibly light.And they fill small intermodal yards pretty fast too.