SeeYou190
Nice lookin', Kevin! Very railroady.
Ed
45' boxes have never been all that popular. But they were certainly around in 2015. I noticed that Hyundai has been pretty big into 45's, while Evergreen not so much. I'm doing a Hyundai "train", and an Evergreen; and I expect to go 10% 45's on the Hyundai, and maybe 2% for Evergreen (one, maybe two).
I think the 28's were a UPS experiment that wasn't all that successful. The special 56' well cars were made just for them. After a few years, the cars were released into the general population.
Now the 48's. Those might very well be goners.
NittanyLionFor instance, the 28, 45, and 48 foot containers have all but vanished in the 2010-2021 window.
Might depend on where you live. I see tons of Crowley 45' containers running around Florida these days. Looks like they are making big investments in that size:
Crowley buying 1500 45' containers in 2019
7j43kIntermodal railroad equipment has been around since at least 1884, when the Long Island Railroad transported wagons on their trains.
I play just a little loose with the timeline for Trailer-On-Flat-Car service, and use equipment of a style that was not wide-spread for a few years on my 1954 STRATTON AND GILLETTE.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Intermodal railroad equipment has been around since at least 1884, when the Long Island Railroad transported wagons on their trains.
And it has changed a lot since then.
Saying "I want to model intermodal" is almost as broad as saying "I want to model a railroad."
Do you want to model that Long Island operation? Or perhaps the New Haven in the fifties? Or what you see when you walk down to the tracks wherever you live?
Might want to be more specific, especially when you then ask after appropriate equipment.
By the way, hauling trailers on flat cars is "intermodal".
The photo I posted above is "intermodal". Those are 20' containers on an 89' flat.
I recommend educating yourself on intermodal modeling. Far better than coming here and hoping you ask the right questions and get the right answers is a book:
Jeff Wilson's "The Model Railroader's Guide to Intermodal Equipment & Operations"
It very much should be updated, but except for that, the book is very much the best way to learn about modeling intermodal.
Jeff Wilson has also written "Piggyback & Container Traffic", which I presume is about the prototype only. I'm sure it is also very informative.
Once you have read these and know something about the subject, THEN is the time to come back and ask questions like:
Do those special 56' well cars still run? Do they still carry 28' containers? If not, what do they do?
What do I do when my Intermountain containers are too wide to fit in my well cars?
Intermodal, speaking specifically about containers, has several distinct generations. Your selection of models, and in turn what to buy, is tied to what generation you're looking at. Assuming that's something you want to worry about or not.
For instance, the 28, 45, and 48 foot containers have all but vanished in the 2010-2021 window. Even the 20s aren't as common as they once were, at least outside of the immediate area around ports. With them, the 48' and 56' wells have disappeared. International settled into the 40' container and domestic is overwhelmingly 53' containers, so 40' and 53' wells dominate. I don't even remember the last time I saw a 48' well. The 57' spines have become less common (TTX's website doesn't even mention them any more) and the 89' flats are an endangered species.
Hi John,
You can use any type container you like. I would check some of the online dealers like modeltrainstuff.com or trainworld.com for other containers available, as well as ebay. The only suggestion I made would be to use the same brand when you stack two containers together. Despite the 'universal' pin and hole placement, I've found some don't quite line up correctly.
Neal
Neal,
Thank you for the reply! I do have other Kato power and cars, so their well cars would work best for me. Can I use a different maker's containers in a Kato well car? It seems that Walthers has the most containers available.
I appreciate the advice on curve size and using weights.
Thank you again!
John
I have quite a few intermodal cars in HO scale. The majority are 53' and 48' with a few 56' and 40' thrown in. I do like the Kato 3 car sets. They are heavy (made with some type of metal) and run well. The latest Walthers intermodal cars are nice and heavy as well. Athearn are good, but need some weight to them. Atlas (at least the ones I bought) are plastic and need to be weighted down. I just purchased my first sets of the Athearn 3 car spine units. They're made with metal and seem that I'll have no issues running them.
My containers vary, I buy the names I like and when I double stack, I keep them to the same manufacturer.
On my layout the cars run on 24" minimum in certain areas. Other areas I have 26" - 30". Of course the wider radius the better they will look on your layout.
Good luck in your pursuit!
In all of my containers I add 1/4oz weights to the bottom container, usually about 4-5 pieces.
I want to model intermodal. From my search, it seems that HO Scale is where you can find the most intermodal well cars and containers. But, I wanted to verify. After that question, what model intermodal car maker do you folks prefer the most? And, what would be the minimum curve size I would need to reliably run the cars? Thank you!