What is the most intresting load you have ever seen on a manifest? Mine would have to be a single car movemont of a NASA space shuttle car on the UP Jeff City sub.
Cant say aload… but a whole train. Back in 96’ or so I wa sliving in Flagstaff. A small city up high on the BNSF trans Con line. I got walk a long a stopped train that wa sloaded up with my guess, part of armored division. Humvees, COM trucks, and such But also had Bradleys and a bunch of M1 main tanks on it. Got to sit there for a long time and get a good luck, it was cool.
Best Regards
John k
I’ve seen a couple “military” trains here in Ontario, over the years-- on the CN mainline. I’m surprised at how little security there was; the one train was stopped, and I walked right up to it for a ‘close-up’ view and never encountered any security personnel at all. I guess that was before 9/11 though. I know not long ago the British Army did training in Western Canada, and shipped their equipment west on CP, from montreal to Alberta.
Has to be the huge GE windmills/generators that you see in their adds…
We took them off the ships and interchanged them with the UP…
the blades on those things required three 89 foot flats per set of three, they were bundled together in racks on the center car, and the blades were so long the two flats on each end were ilder or spacer cars, due to the overhang…
Ed
People on Amtrak?
(I know, a joke stolen from a previous post, but funny enough to pull a Henny Youngman.)
Just today on the UP,A Westbound Manifest with a TTX 89’ Flat car carring a GE CP AC4400CW in the new Paint,Now that’s a first![(-D]. I saw that…And did’nt know what to think! “Can you say,[banghead]”.
It would probably be an U.S. Army switcher on a flatcar.
How about a B-737 main fuselage going thru Pueblo, Co(KN to WA). And nothing else in the consist! Lawrence.
A load of stone on a 20’ low side Rio Grande gondola headed to st louis.
We have been having DDoX trains of empty flatcars headed south I suspect a Corps is being sent overseas.
Not so much the load, but the circumstances -
When I was young and C&O still owned the depot in Milford, MI, GM had a tank to ship somewhere. The GM proving grounds is about 3 miles from Milford and they do test military and heavy vehicles there.
I think C&O may have actually beefed up the freight platform and included a ramp. The tank was driven over town and village roads to the station (which I missed, but I can imagine…) and the tank was loaded from the side of the car via the freight platform/ramp. Quite the operation.
I see military loading and unloading where on a regular basis where I work - it’s all done circus-style here.
Several Brinks armoured cars on a ttx flat.
Money train? Where is Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrison?
I saw a German WWII tank on a flat at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds near Baltimore. It was being moved for restoration.
I also saw pictures of a train on a train. The SF was hauling a wreck on flats and gondolas.
The Three Mile Island reactor core components being moved in special shielded casks on HEAVY duty flats to the Idaho National Engineering Lab for failure analysis. Each flat had a box car front and rear for spacers and the train had a DODX caboose with communication equipment and security personel and a UP caboose as well. Rumor had it that the train took about 45 days to travel from PA to ID due to speed and weight restrictions and routing to avoid major population centers.
dd
A consist of freight cars that were so decrepit they looked like a mobile train wreck - headed up by a diesel that looked like it had been built the day before yesterday. After doing some asking around I was told the train was indeed a scrap yard on wheels and that the entire consist was headed for the men with the cutting torches.
Several carloads of trucks and equipment I believe were an oil drilling outfit.
Hey DD, you wouldn’t have any more info on this would you? Pics even? Any writeups that you know about?
I saw a newsclip of some train haulin azz out of there with a susquehanna loco up front, and i wish i could have been there to see it. Although my buddy at the plant says there hasn’t been a movement in over 15 years.
Adrianspeeder
Well from time to time on the UPRR. Every once in a while one of those funny looking forest logging railcars comes through,fully loaded.
I saw two WWII warplanes in gondolas. The wings were carried alongside the fusalage in the cars.I suppose they were headed to a museum somewhere.
Back in the late 70’s early 80’s, I saw some cone shaped loads on flats that said NASA on them. This was on the EJ&E in Chicago. I think I saw them at least three times or so. Never did find out what they were.
Dave
-DPD Productions - Home of the TrainTenna RR Monitoring Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/
90 flats loaded with British armour and vehicles with 3 cabooses in the middle and 3 at the end with ARMED Brits, who walked the train when it was stopped, this was one of 3 trains going to Alberta for training excercises, this train was stopped for fuel in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, quite a treat.