50' Hi-Cube Boxcar

[Anonymous]

Do 50' Hi-Cube Boxcars carry anything besides Paper or lumber products? Do they ever carry food or metals?

[CShaveRR]

Probably not metals, as the load limit would max out well before the car's volume was filled. An exception to that would be auto parts--while 60 feet is the preferred length for those, I think GTW has some rebuilt 50-footers in that service, too.

I have seen some of the newer high-roof box cars hauling beer, so that's one other use for them. They would also seem to be a natural for cereal--but in that case the cars would be full well before the 286K gross weight limit was reached.

[ericsp]

I know I once saw three TBOX (60' excess height) boxcars on the Express Lane train. I think I may have seen FBOX boxcars on that train once or twice. I remember in 2001 see a Southern Pacific class B-70-43R on that train.

When I went by a tomato processing plant west of Bakersfield, I saw several FBOX boxcars there. I do not know if they were delivering the wood for the boxes (bag-in-box packaging), they were there to pick up tomato products, or both.

[Anonymous]

In years past, they were popular for hauling appliances - but most of that traffic moves via containers today if moving by rail.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I was thinking of the appliance haulers, and here in oregon we have a strange thing going on, our hardwood plants are sending furniture sticks back east and then the same 50' ft cars are bringing the furniture back here for sell lololol

[Anonymous]

I used to work for guilford rail and we had a D&RGW 60 foot hi-cube billed for Grossmans lumber in Salem N.H. once that had a load of bricks on pallets. they were not stacked, and it was a waste of a lot of space-oh and the car would not fit under a bridge on the way up the branch and we had to take it back to Lawrence Ma. so it could get unloaded by the yard office and trucked to salem
so you never know what is in a high cube-it might just be empty space

[theodorefisk]

In a backhaul situation, anything that will make money. When I distributed boxcars at the Santa Fe, I put 60' airpak load dividers in for loading tin plate in coils. Each coil was 30K in weight and I had six of them loaded. Weighed out without even hardly denting the cube. So the moral of the story is - anything will be loaded.

Ted

[Anonymous]

Many of them are also used to haul furniture and appliances. I've also heard of clothing companies receiving their fabric rolls that way too.

[JoeUmp]

QUOTE: In years past, they were popular for hauling appliances - but most of that traffic moves via containers today if moving by rail.

They still do. The GE refrigerator plant ships 10 or more box cars a day without a container in sight.

[edbenton]

Anything and everything in them I know they haul rubber in them plus a lot of other stuff. Wine is another commiadty hauled in them these are all things I have seen with my own eyes.

[jsanchez]

They sitll haul just about anything, I think use for can goods seems to be increasing again, I've seen pet food, toys, bricks, wool, roofing shingles, wood pulp, steel products(coils), rice, beer, bagged cement, paper products, lumber, cardboard, scrap products, lead, aluminum, copper, bottled water, breakfast cereal, fabric, you name it somebody is shipping it in a boxcar somewhere. Most of the customers that prefer boxcars like the fact that they equal 3 to 5 truckloads and make logistics easier for their facilities and is cheaper than truck or intermodal. The new TTbox, and Fbox cars have been a big hit with many customers. I keep finding new commodities shipped in them, I think the general purpose boxcar is far from dead, no matter the RR press says.

[Anonymous]

For what it's worth, there may be some cross-interest in the "boxcar-sized container" thread.....

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=58186

....at least in terms of what kind of commodities might move in such internationally relative to ISO containers.