A couple of days ago I saw three flat cars from the Tulare Valley Railroad. UMLER is showing these as bulkhead flat cars, but there were no bulkheads. One of the cars, TVRR 0076, appeared to have a small control area and what could have been winches. The wire, or cable, on those winches didn’t seem to be thick enough for use in welded-rail laying, though appurtenances to the sides of the deck must have been used for guiding something downward.
It seems that everything lettered TVRR could be used in engineering-type business–gons and flats, as well as some cars that actually show as non-revenue equipment.
So, MC, have you (or anyone else, for that matter) seen similar stuff in your travels, and can you tell me what it could be used for (fiber-optic cable laying, perhaps?)?
Sounds like threader cars to a rail train unloading rig to me. Santa Fe’s were set up just as you described with a pulpit in a cage along with the threader boxes on it and the other two cars are ramp cars to support rails on the way down from the racks. These only unload rail…A power rail threader is much more massive and can load and unload CWR…
You need three car lengths to drop the rail from the racks to the ground
I’ll have to buy that, I guess. The other two flats weren’t very rampy looking; just had top-opening low boxes mounted in (or on) the deck–no supports or rollers at all for the rail.
We sent 'em out west to where there has been a concrete-tie project and CTC conversion, but I see today that they’re coming back our way. Hope to see them when they get classified.
Be sure to take pictures if you can. I live by San Joaquin Valley Railroad and have never seen these.
BNSF lists the following TVRR cars 1-5 (M150), 16-69 (M150), 71 (F102), 72-73 (M150), 74-113 (M150), 114 (M150), 115 (M230), 116-143 (M150), 144-145 (F241), 147-197 (F241), 198-207 (F102), 208-235 (F241), 236-264 (L027), 265-276 (E730). I know E stands for equipped gondola, F for flatcar, L for special type cars, and M for MOW cars. What subclass of cars to the numbers for these correspond to?
E730–GBS, over 61 feet in length
F102–FM, 53-<60 feet long, 77 tons or less capacity.
F241–FB, less than 53 feet inside length,77-92 tons capacity.
L027–LP (pulpwood car), 50-<60 feet inside length.
M150–MofW flat car.
M230–MofW tool car.
Just today (oops, yesterday now) I saw one end of a TVRR welded-rail train made up of cars 147-190 (all of those cars, but not in order). Note that they show as bulkhead flats on Eric’s roster, but the bulkheads aren’t there any more–unless those supports are considered bulkheads, which they shouldn’t be.
So MC is probably correct about the TVRR’s cars being used in rail-train service. Those particular cars weren’t here this time.
Sorry, any shots I take aren’t for publication; I’m a notoriously inept photographer.
This goes back to my whole train of flats with no bulkhead, but they didn’t look like rail haulers. More like lots of heavy equipment that was either craned off or taken off by ramp. Alas - I am like Brother Carl - a horrible photographer, but boy, you should see the pictures in my mind!