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On the UP (old C&NW) line over the Kate Shelley Bridge near Ames Iowa, they've had equipment blown off of the bridge by wind. See pic of the bridge from the link below. I got to visit the UP Dispatch center a few years ago (The Harriman Center) in Omaha and stood behind the dispatcher for this district for a while. On his computer screen, where the bridge would be on the map, there is a wind-speed readout. I don't recall what the max allowable is, but I've seen photos of trailers and containers laying in the valley below the bridge. http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/photos/spectrai/95-20.shtml The BNSF has the same problem on some of their bridges in the Montana Rockies where the bridge spans a valley and the wind funnels into the valley. See pic att. http://www.drydentidbits.com/montana/marias2000/bnsf_twomedicine.jpg ************************ In regard to your question about mixing loads and empty containers/ trailers on a given train, the answer is yes the RR's do mix them, but there are tendencies. In general, if a 40'-45' steamship box is heading toward water (ie. going to Ports of LA, Seattle, Oakland, NJ), there is a greater probability that its an empty repositioning move. Some do get loaded by companies like ESI (Express Systems Intermodal) but many, many move empty. If you can load them for the steamship line, you get a deep discount. [2c] For domestic equipment, since the East is a bigger consumer market than a production market, there is a natural imbalance. For instance, many more loads go into Metro NY / NJ than come out of that market. So you'd tend to see more empty repo moves going back to Chicago. Some get loaded out of that market, many don't. Exact same applies to Florida. Loads in, empties out. Also, because of imports, LA tends to be much heavier outbound than inbound. So you'll see empties going into LA, but you will never see an empty rail out. When the RR's load trains, there are several key things that they do. 1st, loads get priority for space on the train vs. empties 2nd, on stack cars, loads go on the bottom, empties on top (keep the center of gravity down.) 3rds, loads go on the front of the train, empties more toward the back. If you're too light on the front and heavy on the back, you can 'stringline' the cars on the front. What happens is that as you go around a curve, the force of the engines on the front and the weight of the heavy cars on the back would cause the light-weight empties at the front of the train to pull off of the track toward the inside of the curve. If you're a modeler, you've probably had that happen. You end up with everything tipped on its side on the inside of the curve. 4th, If its a mixed TOFC / COFC train, containers toward the front, trailers toward the back. Same reason as #3. Hope that helps. Stack
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