53' containers....!

[Modelcar]

....Either I haven't been paying attention and notice before...53' containers...A surprise to me...Was in Muncie just now, doing some bike riding on our trail and a bit of railfaning...{simply watching}, as the NS, N and S route parallels our trail at the depot for several hundred ft. and watched a container train roll through...{by the way, it was led by a UP engine}, and business must be good as it was an extra long train....and rolling smooth it did. But noticing 53' containers....Lots of them, was a surprise to me....Just have not noticed them before. Looked like two 4000 horse engines pulling the consist and moving right along......

[dldance]

Lot's of 53's out there - mostly for domestic use. International is still based on 40' and 20'.

dd

[blhanel]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dldance

Lot's of 53's out there - mostly for domestic use. International is still based on 40' and 20'.

dd

Hmmm, another tidbit of knowledge I didn't know before!

[TheS.P.caboose]

I've seen the 53 footers for an awful long time now. Southern Pacific, pre-merger, was the railroad that started the stack train scene. Living in the Los Angeles area, I see lots of containers travel thru coming into the port of Long Beach.

[samfp1943]

At this time i do not think that 53' containers are allowed in International service
[ except maybe to Canada, Mexico?].. THey are primarily an intra US container, the 53' length being preferred by volumn shippers. THe 53' tlr is primarily a standard trucking industry size now, you will generally see them stacked on top of a 48, in a well deck style car, or on a conventional chassis utilizing three 53' fters on a tripple unit flat set of cars.. Most of the JB Hunt boxes are 53's.

[Modelcar]

....In thinking about what I did see today....Many were on 48 footers in well cars and some of the well cars even had a big lettering on one end..."53"....and had two 53 footers stacked in each....Also, believe most were of aluminum construction.

[samfp1943]

THe 48's and 53's are domestic use containers, and the 20,40,45 are ued in International service..MOst of the International service containers are of steel construction, while the domestic use conatiners are aluminum. BUilt like the box portion of a road trailer, with the chassis a removable unit to which the box can be locked onto..

[ndbprr]

Which begs a question I have been curious about for some time. What keeps the top row of containers from sliding off or skewing?

[Modelcar]

....Yes, aluminum with ribbed sides.....

[Modelcar]

ndbprr.....Exactly what I was looking for today trying to see if the top box was locked in place at their fastening points but could not see anything....Looked like they were just mating to the receptable it was sitting on and not really fastened to it.....At least that's what it looked like to me.

[samfp1943]

THey are locked together with a kind of toggle pin device at the corners, and sometime they do get skewed, when someone failes to lock them down, I have see it a couple of times east of Memphis on the NS, when they went out with a tow truck to realign a skewed container, then set the car out to bring it back to the terminal, to be reset

[Anonymous]

53' containers have been around for a while. But,I notice that some of the newer well-cars or spine cars have markings for triple 57s...Is this for future trailer expansions or what?

Cway

[doghouse]

One of the things they pay me to do is to watch trains. Some of you may find that hard to believe, but yes, there are a couple "outfits" that do that. 53 footers came along somewhere around 1988(?). The 57 footer was petitioned for but rejected, some where around 2003 or 4, again(?). And yes, there are 53 footers that ply the international trade routes. Seen "Stacker Train" 53 footers on UP through El Paso, Texas. Blue boxes with red lettering. Can't think of the other lines that have ocean 53' rs, but there are some.

[Modelcar]

....A lot of the containers on the train I observed today were painted red and had a Co. name on them in fairly large letters, but I've forgotten the name....Train had quite a few of them all lined up together. It was a rather short name....

[Anonymous]

Rather than thinking of domestic and international containers think of them as marine and NAFTA containers. The marine containers are made of steel because they are stacked much higher than the domestic containers due to the depth of the holds in container ships and therefore have to support more weight. Since it is very expensive to change the configuration of a ocean vessel and the road height, length and weight constraints overseas are more limiting the 53' container has not caught on for marine use. The 53' containers basically travel all over North America however containers owned by CN and CP generally stay in Canada on domestic use. For containerized freight to the US or Mexico from Canada the containers are usually NACS, EMPU's or Pacer Stacktrains rather than railroad containers because the railroads in the US have abandoned or been forced to abandon the retail container trade and only deal in the wholesale trade with Intermodal Marketing Companies (IMC's) such as Pacer, Hub, Multimodal and companies such as Schneider, JB Hunt and UPS. The NACS and EMPU fleets are funded or contributed by the participating railroads including CN and CP.
If other people know anymore about this let us know.

[oltmannd]

I think some western states allow 57'ers.

The 53' containers have been around for about 10 years. JB Hunt was an "early adopter".

[edbenton]

J B Hunt is getting rid of its containers same with Schneider they discovered that they actually have less avaiblity than a standard trailer. JB hunt is still shipping by rail just using the standard trailer now. You have to remember that with containers you must have a chassis for it when you need it they were having a chassis shortage. The railyards were putting anything and everything on JB Hunts' chassis. The only difference between the 53 foot and the regular container is construction. On the 57 foot out west on the I-5 corridor they are legal. The ATA pushed for 57 foot trailers at one time saying it would cut the number of trucks on the road. However the drivers and about everyone else were against them. If you are running a 57 footer the only way you can pull one and stay in the bridge law is with a cabover. I for one do not want to see those make a large scale comeback. In a lighter note can you see a 57 foot trailer in downtown Philadelphia or Boston. Time to replace all the light poles again.

[zapp]

I spent eight years on the road till the RR hired me. So I do know a little bit about this one.
53's came out in the early 80's. Scheinder and Dart Transit (St Paul,Mn.)(I was leased to them for a while) were hauling coke and beer cans. These types of loads you actually cube out before you weigh out. So they and American Can,Crown Cork and Seal,Coka Cola,Pepsi,and a bunch of other manufacturers petitioned for the longer combinations.
Maryland was one the last "holdout" states. They are also the reason the sides of 53's say 53. There is also a certain place the rear tandum on the trailer has to be in. Otherwise it is considered overlength.

The 57 footer. Was a product of Dart Transits Texas division,Fleetline-Lancaster,Tx.
Texas had and still has no legth law. It was used down here for the same thing-cans,but then they started loading these things with everything.These trailers have a 102" outside width and a 101 1/2" inside width. The sides are skinned with 1/4 aluminum so they held alot of problems with the trailers "spliting". That is the load was simply to heavy for the trailers design. They redesigned the floor to handle the stress.
I was leased to Fleetline in the early 90's and we could,at that time,legally take the trailers into: TX,NM,AZ,CO,OK,KS,LA,AL,MS,FLA,and Ark. with a oversized permit. Every now and then when we got up there in "Yankee country" Dart would have a 57 find it's way into Chicago, Milwaukee,St Paul,and we would have to get back down here. They would pay us loaded miles to get it back down here under the radar (ie,arund the scales,interstates,etc).

They actually tried out five 60 footers, but the highway/city systems couldn't handle the wide turns we had to make with them, so they were scraped.

QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd

I think some western states allow 57'ers.

The 53' containers have been around for about 10 years. JB Hunt was an "early adopter".

[Modelcar]

...Yes, I noted the 53 containers also had 102 stenciled on the top sides....

[spbed]

Sorry 45's & 48's also travel overseas as well to what you mentioned. [:p][:)]

Originally posted by dldance
[

Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR  Austin TX Sub

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