I’ve seen truck trailors piggybacked on trains, ocean going containers on trains, but I had never seen a box car on a truck before.
Yesterday, while traveling down I-5, I saw a train box car on its side on top of the flat bed of an extra-wide trailor being pulled by one of the big semi’s that move doublewides. There was “ATSF” in small white letters written up in a corner. Now this may not be worded correctly, but the trucks were on the car but no wheels. Did anyone else see it? Any ideas on why it was going down the highway instead of a train track?
In the mid 1970’s UP scrapped a lot of boxcars in Pocatello, Idaho. The scrapper that got the contract, trucked the boxcars to the demolition point using a custom made 40+ foot lowboy trailer. The boxcars had the trucks removed and the trailer had pins in the location where the trucks would have been so the box car was just lifted onto the pins and strapped down. They were transported vertically - not on their sides.
Thanks for the reply. That is truly interesting. Would they still be doing this? And this box car was definitely on its side. It looked like a chicken layed on a table.
Are you sure it was a box car, Tina? If it were on its side, the load would be wider than it was tall–and an upright box car would be a “wide load” already. Also, that part about the truck frames attached is interesting, since they’d be so easy to remove (see Mookie’s latest thread).
If the transport needed to go under a low bridge or overpass, wouldn’t it be necessary to place the boxcar on its side? I’ve seen wide loads that took up a full two lanes - on a two lane highway, no less. Highway patrol and sherrif’s deputies had their work cut out for them on that one.
Overwidth is general easier to route than overheight. I have friends in the oversize/overweigth transport business and they will pre-evaluate a route for a specific load. One such route involved a detour through a shopping center parking lot (with permission of course) to avoid an overhead restriction. So if the rigger laid the boxcar on its side - there was a hard overheight limitation.
If you think that one is weird, this summer, I saw 10 covered hoppers headed north on US 191. (The main route to Yellowstone) It is part of the Jonah Oil and Gas field expansion. They took them off the rails and trucked them 80 miles north to a place called Sand Draw. Where they were placed on timbers and filled with Frac Sand.
It makes it much more convienent for them to get to and store their much needed Frac Sand rather than taking it straight off the car on the rails down here in Rock Springs. Next time I can, I will swing up to Sand Draw and see if I can’t get a photo.
Oh, it most definitely was a box car as it didn’t have the those square openings that intermodal containers require. It was definitely on its side. It took up a lane and a half. I could have gotten by it easier if I hadn’t been so curious and try to drive as close to it as possible. I was surprised that bottom parts were attached. It reminded me of when I used to take my brother’s trainset pieces and spin the wheels around while I held it in the air. At least I didn’t try to fly his trains like I did his model airplanes. I learned very quickly they didn’t really fly.
I did read Mookie’s question about setting cars onto their trucks and wheels. So, I am a little baffled. Maybe it was a Big Foot moment. That seems to be a popular thing around here.
I wish I had had my camera. Then I could describe it better and be sure of what I really saw. Even though I worked for a railroad, I never really understood much about the mechanics. I do thank you all for your answers.
Tina, I had no doubt that you’d know the difference between a box car and a container–I just wondered if you had the right freight car type. But a lane and a half wide–sounds like the genuine article!
That Frac Sand transport sounds like a good operation for a new breed of Roadrailers!
Carl, not a problem and to make certain it was a box car and not a container car, would be pertinent info in order to hazard a guess as to why it was on its side. Any chance it had been derailed and picked up on its side?
I just like the sound of “Frac Sand.” One of the articles talks about “Fracing.” I don’t know however if that is pronounced “Fracing” as in “racing,” or “Fracing” as in “Tracking.”
So, if someone chases a frac sand train/trucks, does that make them frackers instead of foamers?
I would guess that a derailed car could be oriented in any way possible. The only reason that it would be transported on its side like that was that it couldn’t, for some reason, be transported in a less-obstructive manner (either height clearance restrictions, or because it could not be stably secured in a less obstructive position).
Out of curiousity, I went off and did a search for height restrictions in WS, and wound up on the WSDOT website. There weren’t any low clearances listed for I-5, but if he was headed for eastern Washington on I-90, he’d have to worry about a bunch of ‘low’ clearances around Spokane- the lowest being 14’-7". How does that compare to the height of a box car, sitting on a flatbed on wheel-less trucks?
That would depend on the box car, Brian. Box cars on the road today (oops–on the rails) usually no longer fit within Plate B, which allows a maximum height above the rail of 15’1". Plate C adds another three inches to that, I believe.
Taking the wheels off but leaving the truck frames on is only going to reduce the height by a matter of inches–no more than a foot. Probably less of a height difference than would compensate for the height above the ground that transporting it on a trailer would take.
That is a really good site explaining frac sand! They did miss the little fact that is does not absorb water either. If you are ever here in Rock Springs, you will see Cement hoppers everywhere, 90% or so are carrying Frac Sand. and Like your second link states, they just pull up, mix the sand in with the drilling fluids and inject it, cracking the rock, making it easier for the gas to be pumped out. And up in the Jonah Field the wells are placed so close together, and the rock structure is the same for all of them, that they even pump it from a centralized location through above ground pipes to the well.
I have to head up there monday, I will post some photos if I get some…
This is just the Jonah, if you scroll north, you will see the Pinedale Anticline.
We can’t dismiss the possiblity that someone bought the car to use as storage, or who knows what else… There are ads all the time in Trains for cabeese, and if you don’t live next to the rails, they are going to end up on a truck. I know of a caboose located on an island. There is a bridge, but I don’t know if they used that or barged it over…
I once saw a small hopper car (without trucks) which had been mounted on large posts to serve as storage for catfish food, near Indianola MS. It had to have been trucked in, since the location was miles from the nearest railroad.