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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by beaulieu Remember Dave, the railroads own less than 50 percent of the railcars now. Nothing would stop an ADM, Cargill, or XCel Energy from buying a six axle railcar. Remember though, the extra wheelsets will add rail wear which will offset some of the savings from lower axle load, and the longer wheelbase hurts too. Not to mention the higher purchase price and maintenance cost of the non-standard truck. [/quote] Nothing would stop them from buying 6 axle cars, but wouldn't the railroads simply refuse to run them? Isn't that what happened to the TTOX single axle cars? If the rail industry percieves a problem with an unconventional arrangement, they will refuse to run it rather than risk the unknown. As for relative rail wear, what you are saying is that spreading the increased gross weight over more axles (LAL) will cause more rail wear than putting more weight on the same number of axles (HAL). I would think the opposite would be true, simply because the physics of such are already proven in highway use. In other words 10,000 gross tons riding on 400 total axles (25 tons per axle with 28" wheels) should in theory cause less surface wear than 10,000 tons riding on 280 axles (35.8 tons per axle with 36" wheels). Concentrated weight on fewer axles should cause more rail wear than the extra wheel/rail interaction, otherwise why the need to upgrade to heavier rail for the 35 ton and projected 39 ton per axle standards? The extra tare of the third axle wouldn't be that much, and if I remember correctly the ABC-NACO three axle truck that came out a few years ago was not much longer than the standard three piece truck. (Unfortunately, since Meridian took over ABC-NACO's assets the spec sheets are no longer available online, so it's hard to check this statement for accuracy).
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