Saw this in Cajon the other day, I have never seen anything like this before
Nice find, Chad.
It’s owned by McDonnel Douglas Corp, perhaps for Aircraft parts ?
Interesting, I never would have guessed that. Thanks Dale.
Chad, can you zoom in on the white arrow on your original and see what it reads? I can’t quite make it out.
I think it says “this end of railcar in”
[%-)]
In what?
I have no idea. We’ll have to wait for one of our resident freight car gurus to weigh in on this one.
Into the assembly building at the Boeing plant. These used to be owned by McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing.
There are several specialty cars for the DCCX reporting mark for Boeing.
http://RailcarPhotos.com/Search.php?SearchReportingMark=DCCX&Search=Search
I think Dewey probably has it right. I really can’t weigh in on this car, because the big aircraft cars almost never come this way. I will say that it looks like a well car, intended to transport something extremely tall at a height lower than an ordinary flat car, or even a depressed-center car, could do it.
More speculation–is that thing the actual load, or just a support or mounting fixture of sorts?
I’m having difficulty making out the number of the car. It would appear that this car isn’t carrying the reporting mark or number that it was built (or last painted) with. That is what will be of the most interest to me when Eric weighs in. I think that he, with his western location, will have some good information on this car.
(Thanks, SJ!)
Do you have a listing for DCCX 20001, 20002, 20003 and 30001 ?
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/srchThumbs.aspx?srch=dccx&search=Search
This car looks like the same one that is in Chad’s picture. The picture at the link was taken on April 16 this year.
Chuck, I went back and looked and indeed it is the same car.
Carl, Till now I didn’t think we had any specialty cars for aviation around here either, guess I was wrong. This is the first time I have seen this kind of car but I did see the ones between Seattle and Oklahoma (?) when I lived up in Washington.
Thanks Dewey.
Its definetly a well car, the load looks like part of an aircraft body framing (new 787 ?), maybe where the wing root meets the body, its also likely installed upside-down, with the platform inside is there to keep the structure stiff and true during shipping. Thats my best guess.
All-righty! The only cars exactly like this are DCCX 30001 and 30002, which are considered to be well gondolas (AAR Mechanical Designation GWSR). The “R” in the designation suggests that the car has a cover, but that isn’t seen on any of the photographs. That, in turn, suggests that this superstructure is a support or jig for transporting the actual load, whatever it is, and is part of the car.
It looks like DCCX 30002 was somebody else’s 20002. I can’t make out the prior reporting mark, except that it ends in “X”.
I just looked at the site Dewey referenced again. It appears that 30002 might be loaded in that picture (with some sort of cross-sectional structural members), and that the 30001 might be empty.
These are by no means heavy-duty cars–their gross rail load (110 tons) is the same as a nominal “70-ton” car. However, they weigh about 72 tons empty, and can therefore handle only 38 tons of payload.
I may be able to dig out information on their prior identies by next week.
Yea Carl, I came to that conclusion too (that it’s loaded). Thanks for the info. I guess it really was a good catch.
Now does anyone know where it would be going? One pic I saw was taken in Carson so mabee the port?
West Colton seems to be the interchange point for these cars (as loads) between UP and BNSF. Don’t know where BNSF would take the loads.
I hope someone does, It’s got me curious now.[8D]
Any thoughs on why the well is not centered on the car? It looks like there would still be pleanty of room for the brake gear.
It’s for hauling that orange and blue thing.