This afternoon I saw a Northbound NS train at Monticello IL, the first 5 or 6 cars were loaded with steel I beams, I think the flat cars were 90 footers and the beams were around 89 feet, in between the loads were shorter empty flat cars. The lading on the 90’s was well between the couplers, these cars all were TTTX. What would be the reason for the empty cars?
Spacers incase the lading was to shift beyond the length of the car. I’ve seen it happen before. Especially when somebody is not paying attention and the hump a load like that and they couple up hard. Saw some I Beans go through the end of a boxcar it coupled to. And they were way shorter than the car they were on.
Idler cars is a term for the empty cars. And very well explained! We use them a lot on airplane wings from Alcoa.ut the wings hang over a good 8 feet onto the idlers lol