I originally posted this on the trains forum. I decided to put it here also because it might be an interesting scene to add to a model railroad.
When most of us think about loading and unloading container, we think about them being unloaded from the flat car or container car first. While probably this is done over 99% of the time, there are exceptions. I was driving on the surface of the moon, otherwise know as southwestern Kern County, today and drove by the Taft Manufacturing Company plant. I noticed that they load, or possibly unload, tank containers while they are sitting on the flatcars.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
There were many such plans in the 1960s/1970s for such siding side business - containers were designed w/ side doors (more common in Europe) to be parked on a siding and unloaded like Boxcars. Of course this didn't take off, possibly because the class Is in North America (and apparently the national RR in Europe) became very adverse to car-load handling during the 1980s, sad to say.
Another method of unloading was mentioned in a short article in Railway Age during the mid-70s, whereas 2 20' containers were loaded on opposite ends of a intermodal 89' flat car, doors facing into each other, and opening each container's doors, one container at a time, a forklift would drive on the middle of the flatcar (via ramp/plate), and unload the container with the open door, much as unloading a truck. Obviously this concept didn't take off either.