Those are my photos. I wish I saved all of them ... Following photos are from searching the internet.
As a business analyst, I was involved with cost studies for various enclosed auto carriers in the 1970's. GM was activily working with railroads to solve the problem of excessive Loss and Damage claims resulting from vandals and thieves. Vandals threw rocks at new vehicles on moving trains. Thieves would climb onto cars and steal parts from vehicles.
There were several proposed new auto carriers. GM favored special cars such as Verta-Pac and Stac-Pac. Both of those were built and operated for several years. The railroad companies prefered enclosing rack cars.
Below is a Verta-Pac car being loaded. Chevy Vegas were designed so they could be transported in these railcars.
Below are photos of Stac-Pac Cars ... The flat cars were typically owned by Trailer Train, and the containers were owned by the railroads. Containers were swapped between cars, and you could see more than one railroad name on each railcar.
I observed Cadillacs being loaded on Stac-Pacs in Detroit. I wish I kept my photos.
By about 1980, the enclosed tri-level became standard, and these continue to be used today. I recall back then, the mechanical engineers spent much effort to design the end doors.
Destination facilities needed a lot of land, needed to be fenced, and needed adequate lighting. Vehicles would be unloaded from auto racks and loaded onto trucks.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
The newer three tracks are in the foreground... The ramp moves between tracks. ... Each of the three older tracks has its own ramp. ... Bi-levels were used for pickup trucks.
Pickup trucks are lined up and ready to load.
Here you can see the truck is secured with chains. GM, Ford, and Chrysler each specified their own design of hooks, and therefore auto racks could not be easily transfered tween the auto companies. Some trucks were shipped without rear bumpers attached as was this one.
A switcher is ready to pull a string of loaded auto racks
Here are loaded racks being pulled towards the yard.
GTW served the following GM assembly plants: ... Oldsmobile in Lansing, MI; Pontiac in Pontiac, MI; GMC Trucks in Pontiac; Chevrolet trucks in Flint, MI.
In the 1970's, the Chevy plant in Flint produced more truacks annually than any other plant in the world. GTW served that plant. One of my projects as an analyst was to prepare the economic justifcation for GTW to increase the capacity of its loading ramp facility. We added three more loading tracks for a total of six tracks. I took these photos after the expansion. The three newer tracks had a single ramp which moved sideways between the tracks.
First is the GTW yard in Flint.... The Chevy assembly plant is barely visible in the distance to the right. The ramp is beyond a large highway bridge which crosses over GTW tracks.
Below, a switcher is moving parts cars.
New pickup trucks, Blazers, and Suburbans are ready to ship.
Next ..... The loading facility with bi-level racks.
The November MR has an interesting article by Jeff Wilson entitled "Open Auto Racks" . .. To be sure, Jeff did a great job providing information about the history of open auto rack cars in the 1960's and 1970's. The article has several good photos of various auto racks in that period.
During the 1970's I worked in the marketing department of Grand Trunk Western RR. GTW is owned by Canadian National, and it served numerous General Motors plants in Michigan. (Later, GTW acquired DT&I, and Ford became a major customer too.) I observed vehicles being loaded in Flint, Pontiac, Lansing, and Detroit. Unfortunately, I lost nearly all of my photos, but I did retain pictures I took in Flint, MI. I'll provide a little suplemental information to Jeff's outstanding article. The auto racks must be loaded at origin and unloaded at destination. Ramps were used and vehicles would be driven on or off.
At the destination, the auto racks must be facing the correct direction because vehicles were not backed out of the auto racks. Therefore, extra switching of auto racks might be needed to turn the auto racks. In some instances, the auto racks would be hauled to another town to do that because the destination had no wye.
In my next post in this thread, I will show my Flint photos.