Newly built Greenbrier Multi-Max auto racks with flat cars. Changed from CTTX to TTGX immediately.

[Andrew Falconer]

Earlier in 2014 there were a large number of new Multi-Max auto racks on TTX flat cars built by Greenbrier. They had the CTTX reporting marks. I took many photographs of them.

 

Recently all those new auto racks on flat have had the reporting marks changed from CTTX to TTGX. The CTTX reporting marks were immediately removed in the past month or two.

Why did they use the CTTX reporting marks, then change them months later?

Did all of the auto carriers get routed back to the headquaters in Chicago to quickly change the reporting marks to TTGX, or do they make the reporting marks changes at other locations?

 

[BaltACD]

Trailer Train numbers cars as they see fit in the furtherance of their business aims and change them as they see necessary.

[Overmod]

BaltACD

Trailer Train numbers cars as they see fit in the furtherance of their business aims and change them as they see necessary.

A very tentative reason for this change might be that the internal business unit at Trailer Train which uses CTTX marks historically used tri-level racks,  and TTGX was applied to bi-levels.  If the convertible racks were ordered and built with the assumption they would 'usually' be used as triples, and it's turned out they're usually being used as doubles, it might make sense to have them assigned to an operating mark that corresponds with 'usual' (or perhaps present regular) configuration.

Deduction only; I have no proof.  But it might give someone with more industry knowledge a directed clue.

[chutton01]

Actually, I have a slightly different question - Greenbrier touts the adjustablity of the Multi-Max (and the earlier Auto-Max) to be configured either as bi-level (2 decks) or tri-level (3 decks). Was there a technical reason why auto-racks from the beginning, or at least since the 1970s, didn't have this feature? Heck, even the Evans loaders from the 1940s/1950s would raise and lower (and lock-in), so why couldn't adjustable decks have been derived from that (or similar such technology) from the start?

[tree68]

chutton01

Actually, I have a slightly different question - Greenbrier touts the adjustablity of the Multi-Max (and the earlier Auto-Max) to be configured either as bi-level (2 decks) or tri-level (3 decks).

I would opine it was because the "form factor" of automobiles "in the beginning" was fairly consistent - there was no real need for variable shipping options.  Nowadays, you've got everything from sub-compacts to large SUV's being shipped.

The height of rail cars has grown as well, which is why we continue to see projects to raise tunnel roofs, etc.

[chutton01]

tree68

 

chutton01

Actually, I have a slightly different question - Greenbrier touts the adjustablity of the Multi-Max (and the earlier Auto-Max) to be configured either as bi-level (2 decks) or tri-level (3 decks).

 I would opine it was because the "form factor" of automobiles "in the beginning" was fairly consistent - there was no real need for variable shipping options.  Nowadays, you've got everything from sub-compacts to large SUV's being shipped.

Well, fair enough for the 1960s and even the 1970s (SUVs were a very small % of the Market, although there was certainly a significant % of Vans and Pickups by the 1970s). However, by the 1980s Vans, P/U, Mini-Vans, and SUV (Broncos and Jimmy's anyone?) were kicking into high gear, so by that time adjustable deck auto-racks should have been introduced and become common (after all, Ford pick-ups became the best selling vehicles in the US during the 1980s) so traffic managers wouldn't have to worry about juggling the fleets of Bi-levels vs Tri-levels.
OK, let me ask - when were adjustable decks auto-racks (in the current 89ft plate H form factor) first introduced?
When did they become common?

[CShaveRR]

These new adjustable/variable racks were introduced only a few years ago, by Union Pacific.  I believe that the UP racks were first installed on TTX flat cars in the ETTX 715000 series.  The Greenbrier variant all came about in the past two or three years, and were put on the 690000-691000-serie flat cars and given CTTX reporting marks.  There's nothing "historic" about those reporting marks, except that they were currently vacant, and could be used by TTX to denote "convertible" cars.  (CTTX reporting marks had previously been used for container-only flat cars, then later for "coverless" trilevels--cars that had end doors and side sheets but no roofs).

So now CTTX reporting marks were assigned to these convertible cars, that can be made into bilevels or trilevels, by adjusting the levels of two intermediate decks.  Presumably, if the car is in bilevel configuration, the unnecessary deck is up against the roof of the other deck.  

What I'm thinking has happened is that shippers, given a CTTX flat car, don't know what kind of car they're getting.  The adjustments probably take a while to perform, and can't just be done as necessary at a loading dock.  So you get a cut of cars with a CTTX in there...is it a bilevel or a trilevel?  They'd rather see all TTGX (bilevel) or ETTX (trilevels).

Or, perhaps, it has just worked out that these cars are needed only as bilevels, in which case the extra deck was removed (or, if the cars are brand-new, not installed), making them bilevels with an adjustable-height deck (still a fairly useful creature).  If there was a need for more trilevels down the road, the added deck might be able to be more easiy installed on one of these than on an ordinary bilevel, or a new flat car.

Just speculation, but tempered with a little rack experience.

[Deggesty]

Quoting Carl: "...tempered with a little rack experience." On a rack, or operating a rack in a dungeon? Sorry, Carl, I just couldn't help it.

[carnej1]

Deggesty

Quoting Carl: "...tempered with a little rack experience." On a rack, or operating a rack in a dungeon? Sorry, Carl, I just couldn't help it.

 

Careful, if we start making Dungeon jokes we might attract "FEMA prison train Shackle Boxcars" conspiracy crackpots..they seem to fixate on auto racks as harbingers of Doom....

[chutton01]

CShaveRR

These new adjustable/variable racks were introduced only a few years ago, by Union Pacific.  I believe that the UP racks were first installed on TTX flat cars in the ETTX 715000 series.  The Greenbrier variant all came about in the past two or three years, and were put on the 690000-691000-serie flat cars and given CTTX reporting marks. 

Greenbrier's own website backs you up on this, saying the Auto-Max 2 was introduced in 2011.  That would indicate that railroad fleets had to bulk up on bi-levels during the huge growth in SUVs & P/U from the late '80s till the turn of the century, and then more Tri-levels during the '00s, and now a balance (since SUV/Crosseovers sales are currently on parity with Sedans) - no longer they finally went adjustable deck counts. You'd think with the flexibilty inherenet in adjustable deck racks, they would have been introduced much earlier, in the 1980s for example (I doubt that the new racks require nano-technology or 16-core blade server systems).
Seems to me a bit like Jeep Wrangler - they could of easily extended the chassis of the Wrangler in the 1980s to support a 4 door model, but they waited till 2007 to do it - now it seems everyone and their grandmother has a 4 door Jeep Wrangler (hence the parity in SUV/Sedan sales).

[CShaveRR]

Deggesty

Quoting Carl: "...tempered with a little rack experience." On a rack, or operating a rack in a dungeon? Sorry, Carl, I just couldn't help it

I saw your post a while ago, Johnny, but I had to go down to the dungeon for my stretching exercises...

[edblysard]

Little bit of “Fifty Shades of Grey” going on there Carl?

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

See this "Tri-Level Railcar" patent from 2002-2003: http://www.google.com/patents/US20040016362  

and the several other more recent patents that are referenced at the bottom (perhaps not directly on point, but you'll get the trend of the developments in the field).

- Paul North. 

[ericsp]

I would imagine that adjustable level racks require more maintenance and repairs than fixed racks. Therefore, TTX, and others, probably do not want them unless they think savings from added flexibility will pay for the increased maintenance costs.

[Andrew Falconer]

The reporting marks were adhesive backed lables on the TTX flat cars for the new Greenbrier Mulit-Max. They were able to peel off the original CTTX reporting marks and stick on the new TTGX reporting marks quickly. I saw one set of reporting marks that was ripped apart by somebody and one numbers decal completely missing during the summer.