? Modern practices & rolling stock for shipping 40/45 foot utility poles by rail in North America?

[chutton01]

Thanks for the responses - so far, bulkheads with side stakes welded on seem to be the favorite, with gondolas second.  I model the mid-Atlantic region of the US, so poles shipped from Canada would not seem outragous.
Once I knew what to focus the search on, I found a decent amount of images of CN/CP bulkhead flats with side stakes, interestingly in the images I saw the straight-backed bulkheads (example) seemed way more common than the sloped-back bulkheads (example), although this may well be a factor of the age of the images or if the more railfan friendly locations get the older stock.

[DavidH66]

chutton01

OK, the images seem pretty much all over the place (within the domain of bulkhead flat, regular flat of various lenghts, and gondolas) and I could not get a feel of what is the most common freight car type used for transporting poles by rail nowadays. Yeah, yeah, it's my layout, but still it'd be nice to know that, say, 68ft bulkheads are the most common, with regular 60ft flats a distant second and 89ft a third etc. (please don't take those observations as gospel, I don't really know what the real world numbers are).

 

Took this one about 3 years ago, it's a SOU Bulkhead flat (What area of the country do you model BTW?)

 

[BRAKIE]

mbinsewi

The most common method I've seen in northern WI is the current favorite for hauling pulp logs, the 62' bulkhead flat with the tall modified "H" shaped side racks.  Next would be gondolas, with pulp log sized "uprights" for side stakes.

Mike.

 

Ditto here in Ohio..The last few loads of poles was in the same type of car.

I have seen poles in 52' and 65' mill gons.

[mbinsewi]

The most common method I've seen in northern WI is the current favorite for hauling pulp logs, the 62' bulkhead flat with the tall modified "H" shaped side racks.  Next would be gondolas, with pulp log sized "uprights" for side stakes.

Mike.

[mlehman]

I think you have the common ones covered, although I'm sure someone will point out the exceptions to that assessment

The key here is the fact that pole cars are rarely built new. They generally are quick (and sometimes dirty) modification of used cars with some remaining service life. That's why the mix is as diverse as you described.

Another factor is that the cars most likely to be recycled are all tending to get longer, just as many other forms of loading stock are bumping at the limits of capacity in many ways. Thing is, poles stay pretty much the same length (yeah, used to be shorter, but what we have now has been more constant over the last 50 years or so than not). So I'd expect more cars that are generally longer than the loads they'll likely carry if you're modeling modern, which becomes another factor in designing a credible modified pole car.

[chutton01]

I fear this may be a "how long is a piece of string" type question, but...

I finally stumbled across cheap JUMBO (key word) bamboo skewers which can be used to create quanitities of reasonably sized HO scale utility poles (regular skewers are too thin I found).  I will eventually have 200 or so 45 ft poles that will become car-loads.  They will need freight cars to move them, and as you know any decent excuse to purchase freight car models is to be exploited as soon as possible.

The obvious first step was to search images of pole carrying flat cars using various permutations of such term while attempting to exclude models - I wanted modern prototype image only. Only problem is when you exclude models, well image results get a bit thinner, but still there are many images about, and what I found was...rather contradictory.
68ft Bulkhead flats seemed common, some with or without finger stakes welded to the sides (I couldn't discern a pattern)
89ft repurposed TOFC flats were common, but usually had what seemed like longer posts (like 70ft or more).
Regular flat cars seemed sort of common, some with stakes in the side pockets, some without.
Gondolas seemed common, both 53ft and 65ft. Maybe some interior wood struts, maybe not.
(Common means there were 6 or more unique images of said rolling stock type).

OK, the images seem pretty much all over the place (within the domain of bulkhead flat, regular flat of various lenghts, and gondolas) and I could not get a feel of what is the most common freight car type used for transporting poles by rail nowadays. Yeah, yeah, it's my layout, but still it'd be nice to know that, say, 68ft bulkheads are the most common, with regular 60ft flats a distant second and 89ft a third etc. (please don't take those observations as gospel, I don't really know what the real world numbers are).

BTW, I would not be surprised to find that I overlooked other types of common pole-hauling rolling stock.

Thanks