How plausible would it be for a modern shortline to deal with delivering and picking up autoracks? I'm talking about on a small scale, like less than 10 racks at a time.
I know they're typically a big, solid train leaving manufacturing plants destined for huge transloading facilities, but lets say there was a thriving company that sold HD pickups with some sort of specialized service beds for a particular industry.
Would such a company take occasional shipments of 2 or 3 autoracks loaded with GM, Ford, or Dodge cab and chassis pickups to fit their service beds on? Perhaps they were part of a larger train from a Class 1 connection and were dropped of at the interchange for the shortline to deliver to its customer?
This is just an example question, but if anyone knows of any other operations where smaller shortlines/regionals deliver smaller cuts of autorack, please chime in.
Dakota
I would imagine that it would not be cost effective to build out a rail yard and an auto rack ramp vs just having the vehicles shipped by car hauler from the nearest auto loading facility.
This is more of the reality. A company like Reading Trucks, which makes the vast majority of the toolbox utility bodies for C&C vehicles, makes their box in a factory and then ships the boxes to local dealers where they would do the install in a simple auto shop. It cuts down on transporting the finished vehicle because it's simply easier to move the box and then get a chassis somewhere else locally.
DDavidsonFarmsI'm talking about on a small scale, like less than 10 racks at a time.
If you want a plausible scenario I might suggest that your short line could be sort of a "bridge route" between two larger class ones. Sometimes a few cars out of one of the dedicated commodity trains will get left behind either by being bad ordered or perhaps don't get loaded in time to make the departure of the main line "hotshot".
I saw this with some Conrail operations where there would be a train operated and only a single car, sometimes as many as a dozen, and that would be the whole train. Very expensive but the railroad was under a strict contract to "deliver the goods" at a prescribed time and a hefty penalty had to be paid.
It might be possible that one of these make-up trains could be routed over your shortline to either avoid a traffic bottleneck, speed up the promised delivery or shorten the routing of the needed cars.
flyboy14295A company like Reading Trucks, which makes the vast majority of the toolbox utility bodies for C&C vehicles, makes their box in a factory and then ships the boxes to local dealers where they would do the install in a simple auto shop.
Here's a flat car loaded with a trailer loaded with Reading utility boxes moving on the N-S:
Bridge_crop by Edmund, on Flickr
File under interesting load category.
Regards, Ed
The CN recently built a "smaller" size container facility in New Richmond, WI., which also handles auot racks. This allows them to capture Twin Cities markets.
Do a search for it, you'll find pictures. I don't think Google satelite has it yet. It opened in March of 2021.
Mike.
My You Tube
In Council Bluffs IA, next to the UP yard, is a small unloading facility. It receives small amounts of autoracks each day. It is nothing more than a big parking lot with a small office and two or three mobile unloading ramps. It is an exclusive Fiat-Chrysler family lot. They unload the autoracks and then reload the vehicles on trucks for delivery to dealers.
A facility like that could just as easily be on a connecting short line in a metro setting. It probably wouldn't be too far away from the class one connection, probably on the outskirts of the metro area where land might be cheaper. It most likely wouldn't be 20 or 30 miles away.
Although not automobiles, the UP's intermodal ramp for Council Bluffs/Omaha is on the Iowa Interstate in Council Bluffs. The IAIS comes over from their yard to the UP a few times as needed. I've been on trains where the IAIS came over to pick up the stack cars we were setting out. We pulled into the tracks normally used for interchanging the stacks, cut away and they were ready to pull the cars.
There's no reason something like that couldn't happen with autoracks. The class one sets the loaded autoracks onto the interchange track, calls the short line and they come over and pick up the cars.
Jeff
DDavidsonFarmsHow plausible would it be for a modern shortline to deal with delivering and picking up autoracks? I'm talking about on a small scale, like less than 10 racks at a time.
Well, even if it's not plausible, I say do it anyway. :) Trucks with utility beds going to an upfitter sounds plausible to me. Or perhaps there is a car plant on your layout, maybe a plant that makes a limited-run sports car (Corvette, Viper) and does too much volume to ship by truck. OR - perhaps cars have to come in by autorack because there are no nearby highways and town ordinances prevent large trucks from driving on city streets.
It's your railroad, ship what you want! :)
Aaron
The Shamokin Valley RR located on the ex PRR/RDG lines from Sunbury Pa to a connection with the R&N at Mt Carmel jct had a customer a number of years back that built large RV's. They got the completed drivable frames on bi levels to their plant in Paxinos Pa. So loaded bi levels in and empty bi levels out . It can be done.
Two possibilities:
Seaview Transportation serves the Port of Davisville, RI. A small shortline once handling 400 cars a year, they hit the autorack primetime when the Port became one of the Top 10 auto import facilities in the US.
Option 2: Norfolk Southern's paper subsidiary shortline Chesapeake Western had a customer outside of Harrisonbirg, VA that was an auto auction. They would receive a few autoracks of cars.
The Norfolk Southern just opened a small auto rack faculty near Corning New York to haul used cars for an auto auction, they handle small amount of racks per day, I also remember an RV factory in Ocala , Florida that would get 2 or 3 auto racks of basic trucks that the RV's were built on. This was on the SCL now CSX.
James Sanchez
Check the Ontario Southland Railway, up here in Canada on the north side of Lake Erie.
Railpictures.ca - Jason Noe Photo: Ontario Southland Railway GP9u 1594 and FP9u 6508 have just departed Woodstock with cars lifted from Canadian Pacific and are passing a Reduce Speed sign as they head towards Beachville on the former CP St. Thomas Subdivision. | Railpictures.ca – Canadian Railway Photography – photographie ferroviaire Canadienne.
It's your railroad
Operate it however you wish
I can add to the Seaview transportation story .The Providence and Worcester now a Gennesee and Wyoming subsidiarypicks up and delivers the autoracks at Gardner Mass on PanAm Southern. They seem to run Sunday thru Thursday.I have seen as few as 4 or 5 racks often 10 to 15 racks sometimes 40 to 50 racks.There is a train symboled WOGR /GRWO that runs about midday from Worcester Mass to Gardner and returns late afternoon to Worcester .It will also often have 15 to 30 cars of mixed freight. At Worcester the train is switched and leaves for Providence and Rhode Island points as well as the Davisville facility where the cars are delivered and received with Seaview Transportation.
This line to Gardner from Worcester was a Boston and Maine branch that until PC days had a symbol freight that ran between Worcester and Mechanicville NY . This train often had a few piggyback cars loaded in Worcester . It also handled mixed freight to and from Worcester.
Ron High
Another very realistic possibility could be a class 1 run-through, where something (anything really, from a derailment, washout, snowstorm, Sasquatch sighting, etc...) casued a detour train, with autoracks, to take the shortlines trackage.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
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2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
What era? My layout is late Transition Era, and I have a single autorack I actually got back then. I would imagine that a stub-end siding with a loading ramp at the end would suffice for a short string of cars.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
More on New England autorack traffic. Starting about the time of arrival of multilevel auto rack cars ,the New Haven handled auto racks through Maybrook NY to Waterbury, Hartford, Plainfield, Putnam CT. Then to Blackstone on to Readville Mass. These were mostly seconday routes that had the clearances for the cars. I have seen photos of this train with as few as 4 or 5 rack cars. It became known ,at least by fans as the Ford Train due to the fact it handled Ford cars to New England. I have also heard that it may have handled Rambler cars but I am not sure about that This train ran through the 1960s ,until PC took over the NH in 1969.
I have been told that it mosly operated once a week but again I am not sure about that.
Fans that did see or photograph the train often said it would have a single road switcher unit. Evidently sometimes it would also get a few reefer cars of meat bound for meat distibutors in Ct.
Here is the Silver Bow, MT vehicle terminal. It is on UP but it could be a shortline.
Grumman Olsen, later Morgan Truck Body, used to have a plant in Tulare, CA. San Joaquin Valley Railroad would receive one or two autocarriers at a time and take them to Exeter, CA where they were unloaded and the cab/chassis would be driven to the plant.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
The Ann Arbor railroad serves the Jeep plant in Toledo. Plenty of autoracks there.
Lake State Railway took over the CSX line in the town my dad lives in, the get a lot of autorack traffic - not sure whether its transfer or what.