General Discussion

If you ever search "FEMA Trains" on youtube, you will see plenty of videos were people are claiming that some particular train cars, auto racks, (which they call double deckers) are actually people-carrying cars used by FEMA to transport people to prison concentration camps. (If you dont know anything about this just google it and you will find out. They are conspiracy theories.)

Well anyway, I have been commenting on several videos telling people that they are just cars for carrying cars, not people.

The problem is, the only inside of these cars I have seen shows 2 flat floors were the cars sit. But on these videos it shows "benches" and "shackles". Now, mind you, these do NOT look like actual benches or shackels, they just look like wheel ramps and chains for holding the cars in place.

But my question is, are there 2 different autoracks, one with inside ramps and chains, and the other without them? And what is the purpose of the difference?

There are Bi-Level autoracks for SUVs and Pick Up Trucks, and Tri-Level racks for mid sized and smaller cars.

As for the ramps, it depends on who made the car, how old it is, and what plant it services.

Besides, everyone knows the FEMA cars are white boxcars with shackles and no benches...you can get more people in them that way....

dirtyd79 wrote:

No that was some dumbass kids joking around on the internet and seriously risking getting injured in the process. It's because of jackasses like this that your prices go up because the railroad has to pay higher insurance and jury award jackpots when one of Mommy's little angels get a booboo because they were playing around on the choochoos. Then any company that ships by the railroad has the prices passed onto them and then by extension the prices are eventually passed down to us the consumers.

csx engineer 

Speaking of hauling undesirable people in freight cars, here's a good quote from page 266 of Main Lines:  Rebirth of the North American Railroads, 1970-2002, by Richard Saunders, Jr.  Referring to the rising water levels which threatened Southern Pacific's causeway across the Great Salt Lake, the book says:

"...all SP could do was fill old 40-foot boxcars with riffraff and roll them off as a kind of sea wall."     (emphasis added)

Nothing like working hard to write a good book, and then hiring a transcriber who doesn't know that there's a term "riprap" which refers to heavy rock!

garyla wrote:

Speaking of hauling undesirable people in freight cars, here's a good quote from page 266 of Main Lines:  Rebirth of the North American Railroads, 1970-2002, by Richard Saunders, Jr.  Referring to the rising water levels which threatened Southern Pacific's causeway across the Great Salt Lake, the book says: "...all SP could do was fill old 40-foot boxcars with riffraff and roll them off as a kind of sea wall."     (emphasis added) Nothing like working hard to write a good book, and then hiring a transcriber who doesn't know that there's a term "riprap" which refers to heavy rock!

Love it (also your title change)!

garyla wrote:

"...all SP could do was fill old 40-foot boxcars with riffraff and roll them off as a kind of sea wall."     (emphasis added)

Gee - I kinda like the way it was written.  Might be useful in a couple of our other threads....

Well said Carl and Tree.

The riff-raff are here in Denver trying to disrupt a certain outfit's convention.  I was really hoping that they could be loaded onto air-dumps at "Gitmo-on-the-Platte" and disposed of properly. Unfortunately, those cars are more gainfully employed fighting flood damage.

I understand that somebody got a court order against one group of people, preventing them from carrying buckets of human waste to their demonstrations. 

No doubt they believe that they are being denied their First Amendment rights.