I see the TripleCrown trains through Berea, Oh. fairly often. How does this compare with regular TOFC service in terms of overall delivery time, freight damage, and cost? Is it feasible that this type of service will be expanded? Do any other railroads other than NS haul these types of trailers?
Thanks,
Greg - Cleveland
A little more of a premium service than TOFC/COFC and require special handling. Others have tried it and given up on it including UP & CSX. Amtrak is just about the only other one using it. They create some rather interesting trainhandling dynamics problems as compared to using pig flats.
Are you referring to the lack or slack action in the train or the faster acceleration due to less mass?
rrnut:
Add: Wind, poor tracking in curves, problems with bogies frog hopping, switch picking and variable & spring switches, reverse moves (don’t!)[%-)], confined to rear of train, short car/longcar problems in mixed service and a few others… Handle with Kit gloves!
Mudchicken[banghead]
At the N-track group I’m a part of, one fellow ran a 50+ car train of these. It derailed, scattered cars across two main lines, and took eight of the 0-5-0 switchers to get it back on the tracks again.
The first time I went to Dayton’s Bluff in St. Paul, I had a great day, seeing CP, Soo
UP, Twin Cities & Western (with a Red River Valley & Western unit helping out), a
BNSF rail grinder unit and an eastbound Amtrak Superliner passing slowly by with
3 Genesis locomotives. At the end of the Superliner I was surprised to see 2 or 3
(can’t recall exactly) RoadRailer trailers and the one on the very end looked a bit
cockeyed. It didn’t look like a real stable arrangement in general and I was thinking
the same thing: Those RoadRailers can’t be as stable as regular freight cars for
switching and shoves.
I’ve noticed the occasional “****-eyed” trailer (and not always the last one) on Amtrak’s ex-PRR mainline going West out of Philly.
The wheels have always been on the rails, when I’ve watched them go by.
Perhaps there are some dimensional variations between individual trailers – different manufacturers perhaps ?
Although Triple Crown is a competitor of mine, I have to say that they have created a good network (with some great people in the organization.) They have set up a well defined series of lanes, they sell a lot of volume in those lanes, run their dedicated trains on a good schedule. It runs as a system, but road railers have some limitations that might hamper their ability to move to wide-spread use.
They work best in dedicated trains, or have to be at the rear only of another train. They require a special terminal to handle them (yeah, it a pretty basic facility, but not that many ramps are set up like a Triple Crown ramp.)
One knock on the trailers is that they are heavier than a duraplate trailer. That means less cargo weight can be put into the box. Now if you ship big, bulky auto panels that are not that heavy, like many Triple Crown customers, that’s not a problem. If you ship heavier stuff, where weight, not cube space is the issue, not so good then. Also, that tongue on the front of a TCSZ trailer can wreak havok when parked in a drop lot with a row of other trailers. It sticks out and if you back into it, you ma***he back of your cab.
They have a place and I think they are filling that place nicely.
MC
oh yeah, now that you mention wind, I rememer reading about a TC train that had a few trailers blown off a bridge on a windy day. The tracking issue might be why NS cuts out the second unit when it switches at the TC yard. (Somebody forgot this spring and pushed a few off at the wye.)
…Triple Crown runs daily through here south…[on NS], and the unusual thing about that is I’ve never seen it going north…Perhaps it’s at night…?? I do note the last few times I’ve seen it there is a very long string of cars…Perhaps near a hundred, but I’ve not counted them. I’ve seen two engines on the runs meaning they really do have a string of them. They of course are totally dedicated trains…all TC.
There is no special train handling for triple crown other than the basic rule of not going over 400amps dynamic thru turn outs and cross overs ( but that is all trains) no backing of triple crown trains. they are run at 60 mph around here with no problem.
as far as isolating the second unit goes in switching the NS started inforcing the rule of no more than 10 powered axel on line when shoveing on all trains and yard moves. It seems some engineers cant tell what excessive amperage is and really start loading up the power cause the cut wasnt moving they loaded up 1300 amps and things started moving the problem was the cars that was on the ground moved and the ones that was infront of them also hit the ground. you get a letter of reprimand now for to many axels on line.
It has faster turn around times and can take the truck to custmors
Modelcar
NS 251 rolls out of Piqua Yard in the early morning and should hit Muncie long b4 noon. NS264 passes by my house anywhere from 1500 to 0100, so I would think it would still be daylight out (most of the time) when it goes by you. I believe TC trains are restricted to be under some specified length as the longest I’ve seen is 145 trailers. I miss the “good old days” when 263 and 252 also sailed by. (they still operate out of Fort Wayne the other way).
…A little update on Triple Crown…Watched it go south through Muncie today at 12:30 and it was being pulled by [2] Union Pacific 6-axle engines…A very long train and it must have been to have 2 engines of that size. Union Pacific again on NS…sure are seeing a bunch of them heading through here. Business must be pretty decent too to have good long trains as such.