does anyone have any info about Norfolk Southerns Coaltainer trains from the 90's?
I cant find anything about them, save a few pictures on Google. From what I can see it is has containers for coal, like a coal intermodel train. Am I correct?
You're not by any chance talking about the ''high top'' hoppers are You?
https://akronrrclub.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/tpa01.jpg
Take Care!
Frank
There were/are coaltainers. The company website still show them. Supposedly they keep down the dust, eliminating water systems to hose down the dust.
Here is a period pic
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I think he means the COLTainer (get it? baby thoroughbred?) truck swap-body service: think four roll-on roll-off truck bodies like big trash Dumpsters on two-part articulated flatcars. Here is a picture of one [edit: I see that while I was typing this Henry posted one that's almost the same if not identical]:
And here is the rather unusual story about what this service was developed to do.
Note the implicit idea that the bodies would be used for other commodities -- I have seen reports that they were used for sludge from treatment plants, and this would certainly minimize the handling of that odoriferous substance on the way to a probably truck-borne final resting place...
NS thought enough of this to trademark the name, but didn't renew it after 2002. So I suspect that once the special service to the Gorgas plant was no longer justified, there were insufficient 'alternative uses' for the technology to keep it running. Apparently no few of these bodies were sold or leased to other companies, but I suspect they didn't hold up over time as 'containers' (note in the picture above that one out of the four has its tailgate chained shut because key parts of the latch are missing) so probably reverted to being swap-bodies or, more likely, ground storage.
RME,
That's what stumped Me....coaltainer.
Another N&W, NS, innovation bites the dust....LOL.
Thanks for the info.
ok thanks guys
sorry i said COALTAINER!
Maine_Central_guysorry i said COALTAINER!
Don't be. How would you ever find out if you didn't ask? There was a guy over in the Trains forum who thought it was 'coaltaner' (he knew it was spelled weirdly but didn't know exactly how...)
The only odd thing is why Google didn't find references for you even with the "misspelling". If you put 'coaltainer' in, the third reference down ('pictures') has the shot of the cars that we used, and it's easy to see looking at that picture once you open it to a reasonable size how NS spelled it.
Interestingly enough, an Australian company trademarked 'coaltainer' in 2013 -- be interesting to see what they plan to do with it.
Before there was a World Wide Web, Trains Magazine screwed me up for literally over a decade when it published one of Kneiling's columns that referred to a "Letraporter" Now, Kalmbach wouldn't print something that wasn't true, would they, so I went around blithely describing the things by that name and probably leaving no few folks shaking their heads. Come to find the things were made by LeTourneau (if you want to see interesting machinery, look up what they built!) and the correct spelling is LeTro-Porter; easy to find now, not at all easy then.