Back in 1980 or so Robert Reebie's Bi-Modal Corporation built an actual prototype Roadrailer chassis for carrying a 40 foot container. The vehicle was the version that used a single rail wheelset that was permanent to the end of the Roadrailer vehicle.
Why hasn't such a vehicle been used in freight services using Roadrailer vans? It seems like it was a freight vehicle that had the potential to have grown both van service and container freight service. Perhaps it still has unrealized potential for freight service sales?
This didn't go anywhere in the other thread, but here we go again: There is a current, purpose-built system marketed as RailRunner.
Here is a demonstration of how a train is made up:
watch?v=XUgi4lQKmF8
It was my understanding that, for many years now, RoadRailers were using the 'later' system of bogies ("trucks" not used here to avoid confusion) supporting the van trailers. This still requires more structure in the van chassis than required for support only via the trailer suspension and kingpin (both of which are closer to the quarter points than articulated trucks could be) and of course the trailer has to be capable of bearing the entire draft and buff load of the following train, which is a requirement in any RoadRailer.
These structural requirements are a bit less onerous for a container spine chassis (where a continuous beam 'centersill' is already appropriate, and enough strength needs to be built in to accommodate racked containers). The containers themselves also represent a considerable increase in tare weight for a given cubic capacity. Complicating this, it has to be assumed that empties have enough weight to preclude stringlining...
I suspect a great many of the loads in these containers 'cube out' before they come up to max weight for combinations on the highway system.
^
Video makes the system look rather labor intensive; additionally nothing was shown of whatever unit is coupled to the rail motive power and how braking is applied to all the rail wheel sections.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD ^ Video makes the system look rather labor intensive; additionally nothing was shown of whatever unit is coupled to the rail motive power and how braking is applied to all the rail wheel sections.
That's all covered on the website:
http://www.railrunner.com/technology/index.php
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
carnej1 BaltACD ^ Video makes the system look rather labor intensive; additionally nothing was shown of whatever unit is coupled to the rail motive power and how braking is applied to all the rail wheel sections. That's all covered on the website: http://www.railrunner.com/technology/index.php
Images that were shown on that site make it appear that only the boogies with railroad couplers have hand brakes. It appears that all the intermediate boogies are stencilled 'no safety appliances'. Tough to secure a train of these with only 2 hand brakes (each end with a coupler).
If you look at 1:16 to 1:22 in the video, I think you see the hand brake being applied. (That would also answer a question about how long it takes to apply the hand brake on one of these bogies... about six seconds)
I've signed up for the next demonstration of this system, and will report back on what I find if anyone expresses interest.
Note that if you go to their 'patents' page, they're for some reason coy about providing the actual patent information. But if you take the patent title and put it into Google, you can readily find copies of the patents (and the later ones, in Google Patents, have live links to the earlier ones in the patent references).
Noted in the description section of the 'improved' version of the system (patent 6393996) is this:
While not described above, it should be appreciated that the intermodal vehicle of this invention is provided with both mechanical brakes and air brakes. In addition, an air reservoir is provided in order that service air is available at all times.
The original patent (5601030) references as one of its claims
a brake system having horizontally reciprocable shoes coupled to the frame and movable into and out of locking contact with the axles with a source of pressurized air for providing pressurized air for generating actuating forces and with pneumatic lines positioned on the frame and extending from adjacent the forward end to adjacent the rear end for the passage of said pressurized air from the sources for braking the wheels and with an actuation wheel secured to one side of the frame for the manual providing of actuating forces for braking the wheels
So I think there would be brakes on all the sections, and there is a 'parking brake' on each unit. It will be interesting to see whether there is some automatic 'one-step' device that can apply all the parking brakes from a single location (want to bet that in the aftermath of the Lac Megantic wreck that one will appear?)
If I recall correctly, the original RoadRailer used the inside duals on the trailer as 'air suspension' of most of the imposed load, the little rear wheel arrangement only needing enough weight for tracking and guiding, and in that arrangement the trailer spring brakes would provide some of the parking brake authority. In the RailRunner system the undercarriage is carried well clear of the railhead, so it does not matter whether the underframe road wheels are free or braked.
Overmod, please report! It is an interesting system! Now if only there could be a flatbed RoadRailer for things such as machinery...
NW
All you'd have to do would be to provide decking plates on a RailRunner underframe. In a pinch, those could be modular (with lifting rings, etc. if desired}.
The attached single axle wheelset added about 1000 pounds. The single axle Roadrailer system allowed attachment or detachment in about 90 seconds.
The question is, regardless of Roadrailer system, why haven't Roadrailer container chassis been built and used.
The question was utilization of the Roadrailer system for container movement, not the Railrunner system.
Thak-you
BaltACD carnej1 BaltACD ^ Video makes the system look rather labor intensive; additionally nothing was shown of whatever unit is coupled to the rail motive power and how braking is applied to all the rail wheel sections. That's all covered on the website: http://www.railrunner.com/technology/index.php Images that were shown on that site make it appear that only the boogies with railroad couplers have hand brakes. It appears that all the intermediate boogies are stencilled 'no safety appliances'. Tough to secure a train of these with only 2 hand brakes (each end with a coupler).
Then there is this technology 'Rail Deck"f or using a flat bed on an intermodal platform ( or stack car )..
See the attached video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra5SsmbmyLM
This system is called "Rail Deck" and Boyd Bros (Trucking Co) has teamed up to use these. I have only observed less than a half dozen out here on the BNSF in Central Kansas ( on Transcon). I am sure that our Poster "Ulrich"can add some thoughts and ideas on these as well.
The major complaint in the trucking community with the Triple Crown Trailers ( original with rail wheel sets) and somewhat with the follow-on equipment, has be pretty much related to trailer weights (Tare wts.) When the rail wheel set was eliminated on the trailer, and left at the rail yard, that problem was largely resolved..
OTR shippers want light tares,so they have more options to load heavy. This may very well be something that HAS to change as the US DOT alters driver hours of service and more and more drivers resist the longer hauls in favor of short hauls and home time. These are elements that will boost rail intermodal use.
That and as the railroads figure out how to carve the country into regions and can put shorter haul trains out to service those regional markets, very quickly. ( ie: a New York./New Jersey/ East to Chicago/Upper Midwest market.) Or West Coast Produce to the Eastern Markets (Columbus /Pittsburg). Even a Chicago/Upper Midwest to Southeastern Region Atlanta/ North Fla) .
A key to this is understanding how the natural flow of freight seems to move in this Country. And there are currents that flow in patterns ( and at different time of the week/Month/Seasons).
Road Railer Equipment is adaptable to a number of different configurations of Cargo Handling bodies. The major problem is in what markets is the equipment positioned, and how fast can shifts be made. The Triple Crown System is a great one for Dry, or palletized/ Boxed Units, or on returnable racks. (ie: Autoparts).
Each system has its own infrastructure needs to be economical. Puting that together with potentIal customers is a key issue. The Railroads are proving every day they can deliver high levels of custom service to a premium set of customers,(as with UPS and FedEx and Produce Marketers who require temperature controled loads). I watch these kinds of traffic pass through this area every day on any number of expecited services on BNSF's Southern T-con.
WilliamKieselThe question is, regardless of Roadrailer system, why haven't Roadrailer container chassis been built and used.
The principal reason I remember was that when using marine containers (which have a heavy tare weight for their size) on top of the extra weight of the rail-axle system, and the need to put extra mass into the underframe to prevent stringlining of consists, there was little advantage for the OTR parts of the run vs.conventional or spine TOFC. (And of course TOFC could happily run in the middle of normal freight consists, and can be yarded, which can't really be said about RoadRailers)
The advent of the stack train, and the yard equipment that was required to make that trick work, was really the kiss of death for any ISO-container RoadRailer. Now a RoadRailer container 'solution' involved too much money, too much weight, half the capacity in long-haul port-to-intermodal-facility moves, and then a proprietary chassis requiring special knowledge to deploy, in a world of light skeleton container chassis (often provided, owned in large numbers, and maintained/licensed by the container shipping companies). Icing on the cake was the empty-container glut in many regions (where there is little effective container-scale loadings that are also 'containerizable' goods available for backhaul, vs. large amounts of inbound, inexpensively-built foreign boxes coming in from Asia...
Why would you want to bother with RoadRailers dependent upon containers, in the numbers and on the scale that would be required for meaningful market penetration, and then finding or developing suitable lanes for them to run in?
Many of these arguments apply to RailRunner trailers (or the modern system of RoadRailers), but you will note how little actual structure needs to be added to the trailer design for compatibility with the rail system, compared to the older C&O-originated system. The principal remaining difficulty is that you still have to run in special and generally length-limited trains, and have lanes that balance the bogie movements (or that produce enough profits, or have enough advantages, that you can arrange to move the bogies 'deadhead' when there is an imbalance)
The RailRunner people themselves acknowledged this as early as 2007, when they indicated their system was targeted to establishing short-haul networks (150 to 800 miles), with closed-loop operation, specializing in agriculture, municipal waste, and service to inland ports. (Everywhere else in the world it's a "highly efficient light rail 21st Century core technology"!)
Sam1, CN has some that are similar: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=437128&nseq=5&favsearch=1
Another thing that Overmod didn't mention is that it takes about the same amount of time to load a container in a well car that has twice the capacity.
Overmod-How would you deadhead bogies? A steel bar in between? But how would you haul the bars around? They would be extra weight.
I looked at several ways of doing this, some of which rely on the "16,000 lb forklift" sort of device that the RailRunner Terminal Anywhere uses to move the bogies around.
These presume you are not shipping the bogies on a railcar of some kind, but need them to move on their own wheels. A simple approach is to put them in racks on a more-or-less standard long flat (they can be designed to fit transversely if necessary) with the simplest arrangement being to fork them on and off. I think this is the approach the RailRunner people are using with their "adjustable flat racks".
As you note, they can be connected with drawbars, and these don't have to be particularly heavy as they are only expected to tow 'their own weight' and run behind the last car of a consist (which can be assumed to be a conventional RailRunner or a forward transition bogie). Simple to make an extension of the 'fifth wheel' lift on each side that can be folded out to make a double drawbar connection, then use a safety chain or similar connection. Should be simple to arrange the air connections. You would want some sort of proportioning valve so the braking effort is correct for the light load.
An alternative is to 'piggyback' them, in the way you sometimes see truck tractors delivered, with the front wheel of the trailing bogie hoisted up on the rear frame of the preceding one. This would involve some form of integrated support, and some arrangement on the fork that allowed lifting the end while moving the bogie along the track. You might be able to facilitate 'self-lifting' with a variant of the aligning ramp that puts the trailer underframe in position relative to the bogie during loading. This puts only one wheel of each truck 'on the ground' (to decrease wear) and no modification of the brake gear should be necessary. On the other hand, you'll need some kind of keeper to retain the bearings in the sideframes when the forward axle is lifted clear, and when brake pressure is applied to the raised wheel. (I think this is a better and safer approach than having to gag the brake beam or shoes of the elevated wheels)
narig01As for stacking for a deadhead move. You will need a crane or heavy forklift to stack and unstack.
Interestingly enough, unless I am badly mistaken, only nominal increase in capacity for the fork they propose using for the bogie management would enable lifting and positioning of containers for stacking. I suspect that if twistlocks for corner anchoring were used (as is appropriate for road chassis) they could easily be installed at the bottom corners of the empty 'upper' box when it is first lifted, slightly, and full engagement made after the container has been positioned, thereby eliminating the need to lift the twistlocks to the top of the standing container as a separate (and perhaps hazardous) step. (The twistlocks, or at least castings keeping the containers fully aligned laterally, would be desirable in cases where 'deadheaded' stacks must be unloaded from an arrival track without destacking, even though they will not be driven far, or in cases where the fork at the arrival location is 'down' or inaccessible for any reason at the time destacking would be performed.) Whether the trailer's road wheels would support the overload of the deadheaded container's tare weight for the short time such a move would involve, without tire damage, is another matter.
Hi Overmod,
I see above that you planned to observe a demonstration of the RailRunner, and perhaps report back if there was interest. One person asked for that, but there is no further mention of the demonstration in this thread. I'm just wondering if you may have reported on it in another thread, and if so if you have a URL for it.
I did not, and it's probably likely that we won't be in a 'state' soon where a 'live' test and critiquing Q&A will be possible. It is difficult to figure a 'sweet spot' for this kind of equipment combined with 'specialized' access equipment in typical North American railroading, and many of the advantages even for niche or 'boutique' traffic are now minimized by PSR things and by the traffic downturns in the COVID-19 crisis and its presumptive aftermath. See the recent thread on sideloading technologies (which for little more specialized-equipment and training investment give equal or better flexibility with spine/well cars and fairly 'dumb' chassis.)
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MOD-Man I think you are on to something! With the advent of 'P.S.R railroading'; such a niche item, or a ' boutique' service will be a pretty hard 'sell' in the current scheme of things. IMHO.
Before the NSR 'killed the service through this area (Ft.Waybe, In to Alliance,Tx.) they ran about a train a week. I'd counted as many as 100 'cars', and generally two engines. For some reason, on several occasions, BNSF power, ran second -out, and NS power on the point.
I guess NS sold all those trailers and hardware, it sure disappeard, pretty fast. Remember, that when it first started; NS Bought NAVL ( North American Van Lines) Their HQ. was Ft.Wayne). I was told the main freight was auto parts down, and M/T racks went back.(?)
Not sure if Boyd Bros. Trucking, is still doing their 'collapsible pallet system. It has been quite a while since I've seen any on the BNSF stackers thru here. AS to getting the container chassis' back and forth, I see UPS seems to send back quite a few cans on chassis, in the TOFC moving thru this area.
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