?

[Mookie]

And that is a good possibility -

I will keep looking and see what other anomolies I can find.....[:D]

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

Nope - looked really carefully and even knoodged the driver - it said TTX - I did everything but taste the paint on it to make sure!

I think that when TTX changes the reporting marks, sometimes they do a bad job. I have seen several RTTX flatcars where the R was barely visible or gone (I could barely make out a change in the color of paint where the R was, and I have to look at it for a while).

[dldance]

I saw 5 earthmovers being unloaded here in Austin in August ( I was looking at the circus train.) The earthmovers were on 60 foot flats.

Ed has been playing with long flats over at the port - maybe you saw and empty windmill train?

dd

[icmr]

Cool.



ICMR

Happy Railroading[swg][swg]

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie


(Think long landing strip for MC....)

SJ

Think BIG sand pile at the end of the runway[:D]

Suspect that big Cat might be headed to Wagner Equipment at Prospect Jcn. / Denver (Passes under I-25 near BN/BNSF/CB&Q/C&S Globeville Yard and Rennick TOFC Yard that the beer train switches en route to Golden....)

Also, Johns-Manville in Pueblo (near Bragdon/Eden) makes large diameter plastic water transmission pipe (The sea-foam green colored stuff) in 50 foot sections that goes out banded on six high 89 foot flats. (not really heavy, just long)

[zzz][zzz][zzz]

[Mookie]

Nope - looked really carefully and even knoodged the driver - it said TTX - I did everything but taste the paint on it to make sure!

Still haven't heard if it was a special train of no-ended flat cars just for a specific reason and the ends will be stuck back on? Any clues?

(Think long landing strip for MC....)

SJ

[CShaveRR]

Now, dear Sister,

Was that 91222 car just like the ones you saw before?

It would have had another letter ahead of "TTX"--most likely OTTX. The number series (regardless of reporting mark) means that it's a 60-foot car, and the chains and so on that were holding MC's new baby to it are considered to be part of the car. I mentioned these OTTX cars in my previous post on this thread. Those cars are usually good for two or three John Deere tractors when I see 'em, and I seldom see the cars going through here one at a time--loaded or empty.

[Mookie]

With or without ends on them?

[tree68]

We regularly have a yard full of empty flats where I work - they are used to haul military equipment in and out. Sometimes they store some of them here, 60-70 or more, stretched down a dead-end track, with breaks for any roads that cross the lead.

We also have some flats come in configured for containers.

[Mookie]

The Rest of the Story:

For the one of you out there that may have read this and are still interested:

Saw the Coors Train - going west - with all the usual tanks, boxcars, etc. About 2-3 cars behind the motors was a flat car - TTX 91222 - had no bulkheads (ends). Had an earth mover strapped to it. Only one flatcar. My imagination runs wild on what Coors needs with an earthmover, but - my thinking is that it had no ends on the flatcar for easier removal of the equipment on and off the flatcar. Run it right to the edge and leap....no, no - just kidding. But it would make sense to me that you would run it down a ramp off one end and load it up the same way.

What I saw on the originals may be the reinforced flooring under the top.

And since they were all coming back from the West - Me thinks Der Mudchicken is building a new coop and needs lots of earth moving equipment. Obviously came up one short and had to send one out on the Coors Train.

End of story for now.

Mook

[ericsp]

I have seen "Long Runner" flatcars with in the TTEX 353000 and RTTX 165000 series.

[Junctionfan]

The ones with draw bars; aren't they the TTEX ones?

[mudchicken]

Still could be a bare-table move with regular 89 foot cars (JTTX has a gaggle of conventional flatcars where they removed the couplers and connected them with drawbars....plenty of them (several miles worth) have been sitting for years in storage out in the weeds on the former CK&P east of Pueblo (Old MoPac Hoisington Sub).....UPS & FedEx Ground expected to use plenty of 'em for the X-mas rush.

[swg][swg][swg]

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

What about LTV Copperweld (merger?)? Where are they located?

East of the Mississippi.

[Junctionfan]

What about LTV Copperweld (merger?)? Where are they located?

[ericsp]

Forget a unit train of wire coil flats. I doubt there is any place out west they makes or uses that much wire.

[Junctionfan]

http://www.trainnet.org/Libraries/catalog002.htm

What about a "Bare table" train? A large string of TOFC flats running back to an intermodal facility.

There is an ATSF bare table train video meeting an ATSF autorack train.

[Junctionfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CShaveRR

When you're talking about a lot of plain flat cars with no bulkheads, and nothing except flooring (maybe well-worn flooring if it had "ridges"), it sounds like empties coming back after carrying loads of tractors or something like that. We get a lot of tractor loads for eastern destinations (probably most of which are shipped out at various east-coast ports). Again, a reporting mark would be helpful--there are a couple of groups of cars with tiedowns (chains, etc) for this purpose: the 60-footers are usually lettered OTTX, and the 89-footers are ITTX.

Do the railroads still operate unit John Dere tractor trains (the railroads that serve it)?

[Mookie]

I know it was TTX for sure. It may have had an I in the front, but that would have been the only alpha letter besides TTX. I remember looking at the ends and seeing the TTX on the side. Any other letter other than the I would have stuck in my mind....

Excuse me - I have to go call the BNSF and find out.....[}:)]

They said they will give the message to the same person that is supposed to send my reward check re: the broken rail I reported!

[sigh]

[CShaveRR]

When you're talking about a lot of plain flat cars with no bulkheads, and nothing except flooring (maybe well-worn flooring if it had "ridges"), it sounds like empties coming back after carrying loads of tractors or something like that. We get a lot of tractor loads for eastern destinations (probably most of which are shipped out at various east-coast ports). Again, a reporting mark would be helpful--there are a couple of groups of cars with tiedowns (chains, etc) for this purpose: the 60-footers are usually lettered OTTX, and the 89-footers are ITTX.

[Mookie]

The first picture is the flat car I am used to seeing - just not with wire. We do see a lot of the coil cars, which always remind me of a smoker for BBQ (with the lids) but I digress....

The 2nd one I haven't seen at all. That's interesting.

Take the 1st picture, remove the bulkheads and all the "sticks" on the sides - just a bare platform with no ends. That's what I saw. A lot of them....

What about machinery - really long machinery? Maybe moved to a location on many trainloads and when all unloaded, all the flat cars were sent back on one train?

The machinery couldn't be too heavy - otherwise, they would have to do a different wheel arrangement. You can't put all your weight over the wheels. Did I get that right?

I gotta stop - one question is leading to another!

Mook

[Junctionfan]

No; not always. CN does use there own bulkheads that seem to be especially for that kind of loads.

http://freight.railfan.ca/cn/cnis621110.jpg

However, they do use 89 foot flat plus the 50 foot versions. Here is a 89 foot version I believe.

http://www.niagararails.com/cgi-bin/railcars1.cgi?/railcars/cn/639236cn.jpg

[Mookie]

Andrew - wouldn't the transfer of wire still have bulkheads to separate the cars? I don't know. I don't think I have ever seen any wire being moved.

I have decided either they were unfinished flat cars or they had hauled something that was long enough that it would cover maybe a flat and a half and then tied on somehow. The cargo was delivered and now they were all headed back home to have their ends put back on.

Am I living in fantasy land? I know what I saw (and confirmed it with the driver!)- just don't know why they don't route that unusual stuff through Kansas so I don't see it and then have to always wonder!

[Junctionfan]

What about wire? I quite often see CN 89 foot flats carrying spools of steel wire.

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by fuzzybroken

Hmmm... Here's my guess... Might they have been MT auto-frame flatcars? They usually have a little basket on one/both ends, like... the one I thought I had an online picture of... sorry Mook![banghead]

At least I got my signature to work now... (finally!)

I doubt it, there are very few auto assembly plants out west. I know the one in Warm Springs, CA does not bring in parts by rail. They are probably empty pipe cars.

[Mookie]

Mark - I went on Google and found them - they look just like those, but take the ends off. That is why they looked so strange - they had no ends!

That's why they looked so odd - and dangerous in the dark - nothing stuck up so you would see it as it passed by. Looked like ironing boards on wheels. (well, the women on the forum will get a charge out of this!)

[fuzzybroken]

Hmmm... Here's my guess... Might they have been MT auto-frame flatcars? They usually have a little basket on one/both ends, like... the one I thought I had an online picture of... sorry Mook![banghead]

At least I got my signature to work now... (finally!)

[Mookie]

Ok - let's start with the picture above. They had no ends and nothing stuck up above the "floor". That was what was so fascinating - it was beginning to get dark and past the engines, you had nothing in your line of sight to indicate there was something on the tracks. Just pure flat, but with the open ends that, like I said, looked a little like maybe there were slots for single pipes or rebars. I couldn't see the ends well enough and we were too low to see if they had actual "floors", so they could have been open or covered.

I know what a gon looks like and these were flat cars - TTX Flat cars. Wouldn't rebar go in gons for travel? I have seen pipe stacked on flat cars - there was nothing on the "top" of these flat cars, so maybe they were just empty and traveling east - a whole lot of them - I am guesstimating at least 80 cars - comparing them with the length of coal trains.

The ends just looked odd, since there were no bulkheads -is that the term for the end caps?

I get so involved in watching, I forget to write down pertinent info - gotta work on that.

[ericsp]

Here are some photographs of TTJX flatcars.