With TOFC and COFC why do we need Boxcars again?

[Anonymous]

Can Sombody explain to me why is it that with Containers that we still need boxcars. Up here in New York I can find very few Inustrail sidings that have Boxcars on them. Matter of fact there are very few Lineside industriys left....Can
COFC do all the work like they do in europe?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainfinder22

Can Sombody explain to me why is it that with Containers that we still need boxcars. Up here in New York I can find very few Inustrail sidings that have Boxcars on them. Matter of fact there are very few Lineside industriys left....Can
COFC do all the work like they do in europe?

The lack of industry in New York has nothing to do with the rest of the world. New York has simply run most of its industry off with sky high taxes and fees on everything and business has largely gone elsewhere or is leaving soon.

LC

[Anonymous]

Still lots of industries with rail access where materials or products can be shipped point to point via rail. Pointless to use containers when the origin & destination of the load have servicable sidings.

Besides, they're a whole lot more comfortable for hobo travel.

Wayne

[JoeKoh]

Mark
saw some newer high cube boxcars in our warehouse.got to unload a couple once too.
stay safe
Joe

[UPTRAIN]

Mark, Golden West Service/VCY has a few I think 40 or 50 foot high cubes, almost as tall as they are long, they look oddlt square. Not every little town and industry has the team track or equipment to remove containers from husky stacks and flat and spine cars. Boxcars however just need to be spotted at a place where the dock of a warehouse is even with the door of a boxcar.

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by UPTRAIN

Mark, Golden West Service/VCY has a few I think 40 or 50 foot high cubes, almost as tall as they are long, they look oddlt square. Not every little town and industry has the team track or equipment to remove containers from husky stacks and flat and spine cars. Boxcars however just need to be spotted at a place where the dock of a warehouse is even with the door of a boxcar.

Are they by any chance in the VCY 125000 series?

[kenneo]

40 foot hi-cubes are a real rare biry now. They were built espicially for household appliance distribution and also were used for food service loads. Not too many were ever made and none after the first bunch -- about the early 1980's

[MP57313]

In So Cal I see boxcars (new ones) at locations such as the Staples distribution center in the Inland Empire, somewhere along the former Santa Fe near Fontana. Their distribution center was not set up for COFC from what I could tell, but there were a lot of semi-trailers for local distribution

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kenneo

40 foot hi-cubes are a real rare biry now. They were built espicially for household appliance distribution and also were used for food service loads. Not too many were ever made and none after the first bunch -- about the early 1980's

I have never seen one of these. Are there pictures anywhere?

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kenneo

40 foot hi-cubes are a real rare biry now. They were built espicially for household appliance distribution and also were used for food service loads. Not too many were ever made and none after the first bunch -- about the early 1980's

Actualy 40' hi-cubes were built as early as the late 1960's

This site as a picture of a CB&Q 40' hi-cube taken in 1968 The "NEW" date on the car appears to be ?-67

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/rolling3.html

The link below is to Northern Pacific car diagrams. It has a 40' hi-cube built by Pullman Standard in '67

http://research.nprha.org/NP%20Box%20Cars/Forms/AllItems.aspx

[arbfbe]

There is a significant difference in the weeghts these "boxes" can haul. The containers have to meet Highway load limits which I think are about 40 tons for the load the container and the frame that is hauling it. Railroads now have a 286,000 lb limit which is slated to rise to 305,000 lbs. That is 143 and 152.5 tons respectively. The empty car is about 30 tons so that allows over 110 tons of product in each load. It would take three containers or more to match what one boxcar will haul.

Lots of bricks go in tall 60' boxcars. They don't load very tall but they sure are heavy.

[Anonymous]

The troble with boxcars is that they are a slow way to move freight. It can take 15 days for a boxcar to be moved from one end of the the country to another as opposed to 5-6 days for Intermodal. It did not always used to be this way as the ERIE and the WESTERN MARYLAND had fast freight boxcar trains. They Operated there own Less then truckload terminals(LTL) were boxs of High value Mechadise were transloaded onto trucks for Bloomingdales and the May Co. In Akron Oh Oneils Dep. Store got a switch direct from the ERIE. For perishables there were major produce terminals in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Though both termimals get railroad cars ....they get only a handfull a week as opposed to the 100 car trains in the heyday. Highvalue mechdise has gone to trucks and TOFC and boxcars are left with the dreges.

[Anonymous]

Some very intersesting information

[DSchmitt]

Southern Pacific tried to compete with trucks with overnight between Los Angeles and San Francisco. But the cargo still had to go by truck for pickup/delivery in most cases. Trucks could go door to door.

[JoeUmp]

GE still uses the fifty and eighty six foot Hi-Cubes to move refigerators and other appliances between it's plants and warehouse facilities. They're easier to load than containers and carry more product at a lower overall cost.

Joe

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JoeUmp

GE still uses the fifty and eighty six foot Hi-Cubes to move refigerators and other appliances between it's plants and warehouse facilities. They're easier to load than containers and carry more product at a lower overall cost.

Joe

Elk Corp. has had 86 foot boxcars at its composite roof shingle plant in Shafter, CA. (railroad name is Lerdo) the last few times I have been by there. I toured the plant a few years and learned about the process. The only thing I can figure they are doing there is delivering fiberglass mat.

[Anonymous]

Well think about , as said above by Zach, not every little lineside company has the giant crane needed to load the containers onto the waiting flatcars.

[Overmod]

Giant crane? We doan need no steenkin' giant crane...

Mi-Jacks are useful in container terminals, but scarcely needed for small facilities. Letroporters are one rather convenient answer -- think of them as a front-end loader refitted with container top lifting frame and corner clamps. If that's too expensive, use a heavy-duty forklift, with the forks going into the sockets along the sides of the container underframe. Anyone here remember the Steadman side-loader?

There are also low-cost methods of accomplishing container transfer to and from rail underframes, some of which I developed extensively in the 1970s. While these were intended for rail/truck interchange with intermediate holding/storage, they could be adapted quite easily to loading docks, sidings, etc. They don't require extensive power if fast cycle time is not a high priority.

Oh, and when was the last time you saw a small business that had its own TOFC unloading ramp... ;-}


More on topic: Boxcars are primarily intended for carload traffic, to locations where they can be rapidly loaded and unloaded through their doors. They aren't as good for LCL and express service (as Amtrak, in part, seems to have decided with their MHCs). Note that routing LCL in boxcars requires three transfer moves (truck to boxcar, boxcar over the road, boxcar to truck) in addition to original loading and unloading time, and the time spent switching the boxcar into a train after loading, transporting it (no matter how fast on the main line) and then switching it to a destination after train arrival is almost certainly longer than an equivalent 'pure' truck run with double driver team. Container moves don't disturb the lading or dunnage; 'break-bulk' operations with containers can be a bit less convenient than with boxcars (due to the lower overhead clearance and no side doors) but there's less volume in each one to start with.

[robscaboose]

The Effingham RR in Effingham Illinois gets regular (daily) shipments of paper & compressed wood products in boxcars. We usally get a fast (one day) turn around in the warehouse & send the car back to class I that delivered it.

[Anonymous]

What has become of the former Amtrak express/reefer/merchandise boxes?