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I hope some of you can clear this up for me. I have been researching the use of modern two axle car designs such as the TTOX skeletal flats, and it seems well documented that these designs have inherent tare weight advantages over the standard four axle/two bogey cars, e.g. the TTOX were roughly 5,000 lbs per platform lighter in tare weight than the articulated spine cars of similar platform length. To summarize, the reasons I have found so far as to why these cars (specifically the TTOX) have been taken out of service is: (1)The rigid wheelbase design causes problems with track curvature, (2)The TTOX has a load limit of 65,000 lbs, too light for modern heavy trailer weights, (3)The light weight of the cars (25,000 lbs) can cause problems if an empty TTOX car was placed near the front of a train with a heavy trailing load, (4)The TTOX cannot handle trailers over 48', a problem since most trailers today are 53' (5)???? With these points in mind, why wouldn't it be prudent to do the following: (1) Replace the 28" wheels (with an axle load limit of 55,000 [?] lbs) with 36" wheels with an axle load limit of 71,000 lbs, along with a beefed up suspension. This would allow load limits of up to 112,000 lbs per platform, qualifying the cars to handle the 129,000 GVW trailers. (2) Add radial steering to the single axle bogeys to allow better curving characteristics (3) Extend the platforms roughly 2' on each end to accomodate the 53' trailers (4) With the modifications listed in (1), (2), and (3) above, the light weight should increase to 30,000 lbs, decreasing the pull over tendancy when an empty TTOX+ is placed at the front of a consist, while still being roughly 5,000 lbs per platform lighter than a corresponding articulated spine car with 53' platforms. With a 5,000 lbs per platform weight savings, an 8,000' long train of TTOX+ cars would weigh approximately 360 tons less than a corresponding train of articulated spine cars (assuming the same relative load weights). For a time sensitive TOFC train, I would think this weight savings would have a significant impact on fuel consumption. Any thoughts?
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