Hi everyone,
I'm interested in TOFC operation and scratch building. Did the NYC ever have 53 foot TOFC cars? If so, I'd appreciate car number information to assist my scratch building plans. Thanks in advance James
Assume you mean trailers
No. 45' trailers developed in 1980's, 48' and 53' trailers were developed in the 1990's. New York Central and the Pennsylvania merged in 1968 (Penn Central).
ThailerTrain website
http://www.ttx.com/corporate-information/history.aspx
TrailerTrain had 89' flats in 1961 but didn't have 89' TOFC cars until 1966.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
New York Central did have a number of 53' flat cars. As far as I can tell, none were ever used in TOFC service.
Note that NYC was heavily invested in Flexivan service which required specially designed flat cars:
Other railroads have used 53' flats in TOFC service. Coming to mind are the old SP ones for the fifties. The SPH&TS sells models of these and the trailers.
I think Southern and/or NS also made some of these out of former boxcars.
But I'm not finding any evidence that NYC had 53' TOFC flats.
Ed
I agree
New York Central flatcars. Appears to be none in piggyback service.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsList.aspx?id=NYC&cid=3
Google image search has some model NYC TOFC but no prototype.
New York Central had one basic problem that made TOFC an 'iffy' proposition - the low (and uncorrectable) clearances in the Hudson Narrows tunnels. A standard trailer on a standard-height flatcar wouldn't fit.
The same problem scrunched all NYC steam (compare a NYC 6000 to a UP FEF) and kept domes out of Grand Central Station.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Wow thanks for the informative responses. I deeply appreciated them. Cheers James
I'm not a NYC expert, so I have no positive answer either way regarding 53' flat cars in piggyback service. But, I do know this much. NYC was not doing any conventional piggyback in 1954, the hayday of the 53' piggyback flat.
But by the mid 60's the NYC had fixed "most" of their clearance issues and began running "conventional piggybacks" in addition to the flexivan service. They needed to simply from an interchange standpoint.
By the 1960's most piggyback service was 85/89' flat cars carring two 40' vans. But 53' flats carring single 35/40' vans, or carring two 26' vans did persist well into that time period.
Again, I have no direct knowledge of the NYC ever using 53' flats for piggyback, and while many railroads still had large fleets of their own cars by that time, TrailerTrain was is full swing with their car pool system.
Hopefully some NYC expert can tell us for sure.
Sheldon
Hey Guys
As an aside, the TOFC must have fell out of favour about 2007.
I was driving to Durango from the Colorado Springs area in 2007 and noticed a parallel rail road. There were strings of TOFC. Each time we came to a side road there was a break in the string to let road traffic through. After a few miles I checked the odomenter and estimated there were in excess of five miles and possible closer to ten miles of TOFCs stored on this rail line.
I was amazed
For what its worth.
Have a good one.
Lee
yankee flyer Hey Guys As an aside, the TOFC must have fell out of favour about 2007. I was driving to Durango from the Colorado Springs area in 2007 and noticed a parallel rail road. There were strings of TOFC. Each time we came to a side road there was a break in the string to let road traffic through. After a few miles I checked the odomenter and estimated there were in excess of five miles and possible closer to ten miles of TOFCs stored on this rail line. I was amazed For what its worth. Have a good one. Lee
Lee, there is a trend toward containers rather than trailers, so older flat cars that only carry trailers are less in demand. And older cars can not all handle the new 45' trailers. But actually, intermodal (trailers and containers) as a group is way up in ton mile volume.
Much of the newer equipment can handle trailers or containers of any size.
"Piggyback" rules, and would have ruled sooner had the government been smarter.......
As Sheldon mentioned, the 53' flat car outfitted with a 3rd hitch for TOFC service did last into the 1960's, the final era of the NYC, so it's logical you could run some of them with trailers.
Walthers has offered the GSC 53' flat car set up as a TOFC flat car and there are plenty on Ebay. I don't know which copied actual flat cars and which are foobies however.
Of course as others also mentioned there were the spine flat cars which carried two trailers - the Flexivan service. Walthers made those as well and you can still find them on Ebay and train shows.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983