The buffer/idler car is usually a boxcar, because of an over abundance of them?
Ed, gasoline is a flammable liquid. A combustible liquid is one with a flash point at or greater than 100 degrees Farhenheit. Gasoline’s flash point will vary, but it is around -49 degrees Fahrenheit. The MRL’s trains also carry diesel fuel, which most likely will be combustible.
http://www.ehs.neu.edu/laboratory_safety/general_information/flammable_combustible/
Idler cars are boring to look at and almost always appear out of place but serve an important purpose.
Are the green supports also pivots and if so how do they work? Is a train like this limited to curves with certain arcs?
Chico
The supports are solid…the two trucks on each end share, as Quinten pointed out, a common center frame.
This frame pivots on a kingpin, dead center between the trucks, and each truck can pivot on the frame…these cars can take very tight curves.
Buffer Car Example:
Take a good look at the next loaded rail train that goes by you. At either end of those rail trains you will find either a ratty old boxcar or a ratty old open top coal hopper.
Should any of those 1440 ft strings get loose [ they are only bolted down on one car, the tie down car about a third of the way in from the end - so the rail does not bind], the rail will fly through the ends of the rail train, set off the shifted load strobe lights and crash into the buffer cars. Santa Fe used old reefer cars filled with sawdust. UP uses ballast cars w/ ballast.
The old Santa Fe Reefer cars had the scars to prove their worth.
Thanks Ed. I seached the forum and found the term “Span bolster”
Also search for 6 wheel Buckeye trucks…not quite steerable trucks, but pretty much the standard on flat cars designed for extreme loads.
Example from 2005, shot of the front end of a rail train going through Cedar Rapids:
Old boxcars/hoppers/reefers never die-they just turn into idler cars.[:P]
As several have mentioned,the idler car is to be used as a protective buffer at either end of potentially hazerdous loads.Its construction is of a skeleton type and cannot be used for purposes of carrying freight.For that reason,Idler Cars are taxed at a different rate than other cars. FMI, here is a quick patent review of the car…
Railway car
Document Type and Number:
United States Patent 4800819
Abstract:
A railway idler car used as a spacer car between loaded cars that carry very long objects, such as plates, girders, structural steel, pipe, poles and the like. The car is of a skeleton design and is incapable of carrying freight.
Does this answer the question?
Here is the description from the Railway Industrial Clearance Association (RICA)…
IDLER CAR: Generally a non-load carrying flat car or gondola car that is used in train consist for:
Providing space for load end overhang that extends beyond striker of load car.
Providing connection between two bolster cars carrying an extremely long load.
Providing separation between loaded cars or locomotive when a load is extremely heavy.
Providing additional braking capacity to supplement the braking capacity of a heavily loaded car.
and are condemned to a potentially cruel fate.
For years after UP quit carrying livestock, they kept about a dozen old stock cars in Blackfoot ID to serve as buffer cars between lead shielded cars carrying nuclear components to INEL. The bridge across the Snake River could not handle two adjacent heavy cars so UP would cut in the stock cars as buffers to spread the load. Certainly made an interesting looking train - wish I had taken some pictures then.
dd
dlsoucy : Thanks for the input, and welcome to the forum.[:)]
The blue turbine shipment is really a double car shipment. Both heavy duty flatcars are carrying the load. The green supports are pivoting bolsters which are special shipping fixtures. They allow the load to pivot in relation to the railcar similar to the way the railcar’s trucks pivot in respect to the railcar body. Pivoting bolsters are designed to secure the load and to distribute the weight of the lading on the railcar.
As previously reported idler cars have many applications. Loads which overhang the end or ends of a railcar will have an idler car or cars. There is no general prohibition against loading freight on an idler car provided there is sufficient clearance between the overhanging portion of the load and the additional lading. There are cars restricted to idler car use only and they may not be loaded.
The reason some idler cars appear old and decrepit is they are usually old and have the lowest care hire costs. They serve the purpose for which they are intended!
A few years ago a midwest shortline had some relatively new flatcars which became obsolete when shipper’s required longer and greater capacity cars. They were cast steel cars which means they are almost indestuctible and really too good to scap. The shortline served shippers that had a need for idler cars. So they removed the decks, stenciled the cars for “Idler Service Only” and dedicated them to that use. They were really perfect for that purpose!
On occasion an enterprising shipper would ignore the stenciling and load one of these cars with steel plates. I became involved with an interesting situation involving one of these cars when the weigh-in-motion scale detected an overload. The shipper was chagrined when we requested them to make arrangements to transfer the load. In this situation the car could not partially loaded because it was restri
To regress a few years, how about the following.
A really unusual group of idler cars was in mid 1950 by the DRW&W. They were hauling a lot of pipe and the pipes were longer the the gondola cars, approx 32 ft, that were on the line to haul the loads. So the necessary amount of idler cars were converted from old stock cars. The pipe lengths required an idler between each car loaded with pipe. So 10 loaded cars with pipe required a minimum of 11 idler cars.
The old stock cars were the 5500 series. The idler flat cars were called the 6700 series.
The pipe gondolas were convered from old high sided gons, that had the end boards removed.
This was on part of the old 3"-0" lines of the DRG&W.
Interesting, but maybe a sign of the times – no one has mentioned car ferries. Every dock had 2 or 3 or a half dozen ancient flat cars (or gons – rarely box cars, probably for visibility) stuck on a siding. They were used to keep the loco off the apron when unloading and loading the cars.
I think it was the C&O in Port Huron that had special cars for this duty. Trucks, frame, handrails, and caboose type steps and platform on each end.
Hi guys,
I’m new here to the forum, but I feel I must respond to this question. As I have read replies about idler cars, I must disagree with some of you. NOT all idler cars are empties. As a conductor on the WC (now the CN) I sometimes use idler cars to move heavy transformers. As our clearance papers state “This shipment must be seperated by any other heavy shipment or locomotive(s) by two loaded cars not weighing more than (usually 268,000 pounds) to help distribute weight across bridges. If no bridges are encountered enroute, idler cars are not required.” Other idler cars we use on our system are flats (for extra long sheets of plate steel that hang over the ends of a flat, long telephone poles that hang out over a car, etc.) Usually an empty hopper or a high-side gondola is used for an idler on a welded rail train. Thanks - Bucky Katt
Bucky- If I read this correctly, the 2 idler cars in this case are loaded cars, not weighing more than 268,000 # each? If they are there to distribute the weight on a bridge, how much can the transformer weigh?
If they are the Waukesha Transformer loads, they can be quite heavy. Many are loaded on QTTX 8-axle depressed center flats. (Walthers makes a model of these cars in HO scale.) Most cars loaded are in the 268k range, like paper boxcars and tanks. Many covered hoppers with grain, sand or potash load out to 286k.