Yesterday I saw two shiney new Railgons, without trucks, loaded onto TTX TOFC flats. The black Railgons, without grafitti, really contrasted with the dirty yellow TTX flats. Why are the Railgons transported this way?
dd
not too sure on that. unless they were damaged enroute from the builders shops to the TTX offices/shops. railgon and rail box are a part of the TTX coporation.
tom
That is the strange thing - I would not be surprised to see wrecked cars on TTX flats but I could see no damage on these - they looked pristine - and that is unusual for a gon.
dd
Keep in mind that at most you saw half of the cars–wreck damage may not have been evident from your standpoint. The only reason a freight car would not be transported on its own wheels is that it was incapable of being carried that way, either due to wreck damage or other restrictions (I could see an old car with friction-bearing trucks being carried that way because the railroad has outlawed everything except roller bearings, for example).
Were the cars being transported upright? The trucks could have been inside them. Or, there’s probably enough room at an end of an 89-foot flat car to carry the trucks off a 66-foot GNTX gon (even more if it was a 52-foot GONX car, but those don’t look that new any more!).
I’m surprised that a truckless gon wasn’t loaded upside down, to provide more stability.
I could see both sides with no appearent damage. They were 66 ft and were transported upright. As soon as I figure out how to post photos I will post one.
dd
Perhaps the shells were being moved to another plant for final assembly. With the railcar component shortage, it may be easier to do it that way.
After all, aren’t some autos assembled that way?
You have to post them on another website and link to it. Use {img}photograph’s web address{/img} but replace the { with [ and } with ] in order to put the photographs in your post.
I spoke to someone in the leadership at TTX about 10 months ago. One of the substantial concerns that they had at that time was the availability of truck sideframe castings. The US casting industry has closed out so much capacity that the rail car builders have to import truck castings from China. TTX wasn’t sure that they could get enough of these to meet their demand. Perhaps the cars you saw were truckless because of this sort of shortage.
It scares me a quite a bit to know how much of our heavy industry is being closed down and being shipped over to China and points elsewhere in the far east. Seems like we’re creating a substantial national security risk when we have to rely on foreign countries for things that could be vital in a time of war.
I think dblstack and futuremodel are right on with this one. Thanks ericsp for the posting information.
dd
DD- I actually saw the same sort of thing friday, They were brand new TTX well cars on flat cars, headed west.
TTX is out sourcing the component ???
All TTX built cars are assembled at Mira Loma - N Augusta or Jacksonville.
They are having a lot of cars built by NSC and GBX.
Side Frames and Bolsters are all foreign except ASF , Columbus Casting & Alliance Casting which is a joint GBX and ASF.
Off shore is China, India and Czech Republic…
Do you know if they were of Gunderson design or Trinity, et al? Greenbrier has plants on the East Coast and PNW, maybe they are specifying certain work for each plant.
Environmental rules/Clean air have forced many foundry operations to shut down in the US and the casting business is done overseas, and the finished goods shipped back. This is a major issue for the auto industry, master cylinders and wheel brake cylinders in a lot of cases are foreign, where castings are still used. Makes you wonder if steam engines could be built here under the current regulatory environment…
Think of how many castings are used by the railroads, they will be made somewhere.
They just looked like normal well cars.
Did they have ribs on the side or were the sides smooth? Where the bottom of the car goes up to clear the trucks, was it angular or curved? What were their road numbers?
Smooth
Angular
No Clue
[:P]
Gunderson is at Portland , Trenton Nova Scotia and Gunderson/Mexico. I don’t know if TRN is doing any TTX now or not.
It sounds like they are Gunderson cars.