iron highway

[nbrodar]

As I have said before....the problem with the Front/Four runnings was NOT THE DRAWBARS.  The problem was the long rigid wheelbase of EACH INDIVIDUAL PLATFORM.    I had more operational problems with the single cars using standard couplers.

Traffic, even on the highway does not move at all the same speed.   Dave, you seem perfectly willing to discount passenger cars from your highway arguement.  Why? You say we're not talking about passenger traffic.  It doesn't matter.   Passengers are simply a commodity.  Just like gravel, coal, or anything else.   You can only put so much traffic in a given space, before speed suffers. 

How long is your commute to work?  Does it take longer at Rush Hour?  I'll be it does.  My commute is 45 mintues, at Rush Hour, it's 1 hour 15 minutes or more.

Are your highways dead flat and arrow straight?  Mine sure aren't.  Grade and curvature greatly effects speeds.  Traffic around here always bunches up around hills and curves.

Air travel isn't all its cracked up to be either.   I haven't been on a plane in five years that hasn't been delayed taking off, landing, or both (usually both). 

Nick

[TomDiehl]

And yes, the vendors need to stock all the railroad shops with the new style parts. A new specialized car sitting on the RIP track waiting for one of these parts is:1. taking up valuable space, and 2. not making any money for the owner.

Which is true for any railcar sitting on any siding anywhere for any length of time, a situation that is all to common these days.  Hardly a crisis situation. 

But a longer wait for the car that requires specialized and unavailable parts. Remember, the days of the railroad foundry and machine shop are long gone, so making their own isn't an option any more.

[TomDiehl]

Why bother?  Because even with the articulation modification, the neo Four Runners would still have a net tare advantage over the standard 53' spine cars, albeit reduced by half from 5000' per platform to about 2000' per platform.

Now for the best bite of the day.....

And where did you ever get the idea that a Four Runner only weighs one ton per platform?

I have no doubt you are the only one on this thread that made this blunder.  Where on earth did you get the idea that I said the Four Runner only weighs one ton per platform?

Maybe the fact that 2000 pounds equals one ton?

[TomDiehl]

The "retrofit" to make the 89 footers into long runners was simply pulling the coupler and draft gear out of one end of each car and putting in a rigid drawbar. Hardly an expensive change. The Front Runners and Four Runners would need the center spine lengthened, a major structural change.

When TTX retrofitted the 48' spines into 53' spines, that's exactly what they did - lengthened the spine.  What did you think I meant when I mentioned this particular retrofit by TTX?

If it works for one set, it'd work for the other.

Maybe YOU need to reread the statement on the cost of conversion. "Working" and the cost of conversion bring the question "Is it worth it?"

You're also assuming the spines in both types of car are made the same way.

[TomDiehl]

Let me try to simplify this just a bit more so MAYBE you can understand it.

Again, the pot calling the kettle black......

Any equipment that uses nonstandard parts, especially suspension parts, will be harder to maintain, if for no other reason than getting the parts is harder. Plus, the more specialized the part, the more expensive they are. Plus, being suspension parts, they are more critical and can sideline a car quicker.

There's such a thing as a volume discount. If parts are common (interchangable) to many types of equipment, it not only drives down the price per unit, but simplifies the parts stock necessary to have on hand at the shops. The less money you have to sink into having a huge selection of specialized and expensive parts, the more money will be available for other things, such as infrastructure improvements. Myabe you should check with an accountant to see how this affects the "bottom line" for a company, any company, not just railroads.

Please re-read the "Catch-22" analogy.

So why is the railroad industry supposed to absorb the cost of this "catch 22" just so you can prove some obscure point?

There is a point where an idea has to go from theory to practical application. The "idea guys" out there are a dime a dozen, it's the ones that can take an idea to a practical level that are in demand. Once you get out into the real world and realize that there's more to it than "theories" and "ideas that sound good," you may no longer be the black kettle.

[jchnhtfd]

I suppose I might as well jump in...

There are distinctively different domestic vs. overseas containers -- the domestic ones are longer.  They are also built very differently.  Keep in mind that overseas containers have to take conditions on a container ship, where they may be stacked five (for 9' 6" high) or six containers high, and subject to such jolly conditions as the winter North Atlantic.  All overseas containers are standardised at 20 feet or 40 feet long.

The standardization of parts issue is very significant.  Another issue sort of mentioned is maintainability: one of the things which a railroad is looking at, all the time, is that.  The last thing you want on a freight car is anything which takes extra maintenance or attention -- and Talgo style suspensions surely do come under that heading, as does any mechanism with independently turning wheels on an axle (to answer the question: the axle, just like a car, holds the wheels in alignment, but doesn't turn; the wheels have individual bearings in various arrangements).  Railroading succeeds as well as it does by keeping things simple and sturdy.

As to why various types of traffic move at different speeds, why not?  It is far more important for most traffic to arrive on time, predictably, reliably, than to move at a given speed.  Trucking is very different that way -- most truckers are paid by the mile, not by the hour, and they'd just as soon get there sooner, whether they're carrying post holes or priority merchandise.  Provided there is adequate siding capacity or cross over capacity (which is where the problems can come in -- ask any dispatcher) it is no big deal to mix speeds, within reason.  And speed, as has been pointed out, costs money.  There is a slight tradeoff which should be noted before someone else does: if you can make more turns with a car (or train) you don't need as many cars or trains -- but a car or unit train usuall is a lot less expensive than moving faster, so it is rare for that tradeoff to be in favour of extra speed for most traffic.

On an historical note, some 25 years ago I was involved in a proposal -- which never went anywhere for political reasons -- to take the basic Iron Highway concept, as developed and used by Canadian Pacific, and apply it to New England.  Specifically, we looked at the idea of installing a loading facility either at Maybrook (and refurbishing the Poughkeepsie bridge) or on the the Connecticut/New York line west of Danbury, CT, and running a scheduled Iron Highway type service, State subsidised (which is why it never went anywhere!) to another facility either at Palmer or Worcester, MA.  The objective being to take some of the truck traffic off I-84.  The DOT types would have none of it -- no extra concrete for them to build -- which is why it died -- but the economics worked rather nicely when compared with building more concrete, and a number of truckers we surveyed really liked the idea.

[Anonymous]

After spine cars came into wide spread use, there was no need to convert the Front Runners.   The problem wasn't the drawbar connections.  It was the long rigid wheelbase of the single car.   Personal experiance is all I need to know about these cars.  More then once, they have derailed on me.  And like I said before, one had a catastophic failure of both wheelsets, because of in-train forces.

It's becoming clear, that the Iron Highway cars were maintaince nightmares, possibly due to design, improper training, or the cost for specialty parts.  The answer is probably a combination of the three.    It seem CP had no spare parts.  Why?  Cost? Avalablility? Parts were requested and never delivered.   Did no -one order them?  Did the company not support it's product? You can't replace what you don't have.

As for the absurd comment about replacing coal gon journals.  Every car shop has parts in stock for that coal gon, so it's a quick, easy fix.   The Iron Highway parts were very speciallized and not widely avalable, or evidently avalable at all.

What it comes down to is a sort of Catch-22 for new concepts in railroading.  Railroads have become obsessed with standardization, yet most new ideas inherently incorporate parts and mechanisms that haven't had time to become standardized.  In the end, the vendor of new ideas better be able to stock all the rail shops with the necessary spare parts if he wants his idea to have the time to supply feedback, make the necessary modifications, and eventually gain acceptance.

As I pointed out to Tom, if the railroads (via TTX) could go the length of retrofitting 89' flats into Long Runners and 48' spine cars into 53' spine cars, they would have done well to do the same for the Four Runners rather than scrapping the whole lot.  What I mentioned about the drawbar connections of the Four Runners goes right to the heart of the rigidity debate.  Articulating those AC and DB connections would reduce the overall rigidity of each platform, and should have mitigated any such derailment tendencies.  For what it's worth, I have accomplished such an improvement in scale model with a little kit bashing, so such an improvement in tracking should translate to full scale.

Why bother?  Because even with the articulation modification, the neo Four Runners would still have a net tare advantage over the standard 53' spine cars, albeit reduced by half from 5000' per platform to about 2000' per platform.

So many fish in a barrel, so little time...........

Let me try to simplify this just a bit more so MAYBE you can understand it.

Again, the pot calling the kettle black......

Any equipment that uses nonstandard parts, especially suspension parts, will be harder to maintain, if for no other reason than getting the parts is harder. Plus, the more specialized the part, the more expensive they are. Plus, being suspension parts, they are more critical and can sideline a car quicker.

There's such a thing as a volume discount. If parts are common (interchangable) to many types of equipment, it not only drives down the price per unit, but simplifies the parts stock necessary to have on hand at the shops. The less money you have to sink into having a huge selection of specialized and expensive parts, the more money will be available for other things, such as infrastructure improvements. Myabe you should check with an accountant to see how this affects the "bottom line" for a company, any company, not just railroads.

Please re-read the "Catch-22" analogy.

The "retrofit" to make the 89 footers into long runners was simply pulling the coupler and draft gear out of one end of each car and putting in a rigid drawbar. Hardly an expensive change. The Front Runners and Four Runners would need the center spine lengthened, a major structural change.

When TTX retrofitted the 48' spines into 53' spines, that's exactly what they did - lengthened the spine.  What did you think I meant when I mentioned this particular retrofit by TTX?

If it works for one set, it'd work for the other.

 

And yes, the vendors need to stock all the railroad shops with the new style parts. A new specialized car sitting on the RIP track waiting for one of these parts is:1. taking up valuable space, and 2. not making any money for the owner.

Which is true for any railcar sitting on any siding anywhere for any length of time, a situation that is all to common these days.  Hardly a crisis situation. 

Now for the best bite of the day.....

And where did you ever get the idea that a Four Runner only weighs one ton per platform?

I have no doubt you are the only one on this thread that made this blunder.  Where on earth did you get the idea that I said the Four Runner only weighs one ton per platform?

 

[Paul Milenkovic]

 For what it's worth, I doubt my side loading method would take any more time than what it takes to load/unload a double stack train, probably less time with multiple tractor units working.  I am of course projecting that the cost of a side loading tractor would be a fraction the cost of an overhead container crane.  As for intermediate stops, I can foresee a slide-on/slide-off adjunct working well in those situations, among other options.

John Kneiling was promoting the domestic container in a slide-on slide-off side-transfer system. 

The seagoing container is what it is because that is what you can get on ships.  I believe there was some kind of "TOFC" for shipping -- were they called RoRo ships, but you could imagine that the payload to tare weight and other cost factors were even more adverse for this kind of truck-trailer ferry than for a container ship.  The seagoing container has to be heavy to resist corrosion at sea and to be stacked on the container ship, and it has to be handled at least at the docks with big cranes, so double-stack trains are a natural given loading gauges that can take them.

For the domestic container, you would forgo the stacking because that would make the container heavy -- you would even forgo the lifting, relying on side transfer, making them lighter yet.

With the domestic bimodal container, the other part of the equation is the truck.  With TOFC, the truck part is really the truck tractor of the semi-trailer rig, and the truck trailer with wheels, brakes, and lights is the container element.  The truck trailer is the thing that gets left at a customer loading dock while the tractor grabs another load (there are of course exceptions, where the whole rig is parked for loading and unloading at the dock), but I see a lot of truck trailers without tractors parked at loading docks, just as I see a lot of boxcars/spine cars without locomotives parked at lumberyard sidings.

So with the side-transfer container, what is the part that gets left at the loading dock.? While the side-transfer gear is somewhat inexpensive, it is part of the truck trailer, but it might not be a part that you leave at a loading dock, unless you are parked with the whole rig to load or unload.  What you might want to do is side-transfer the container on to some kind of stationary container cradle with your side-transfer rig -- the tractor and side-transfer trailer is the unit under the control of the driver who picks up and delivers containers between customers and the rail head.

We are all familiar with the Dumpster -- essentially containerized garbage.  You order a Dumpster for a construction site or for regular exchange at some business.  When the Dumpster is full, a truck rig comes along and picks up the Dumpster and slides it on to a special platform.  It is an interesting sight to watch a Dumpster transfer.  The Dumpster is not left at the customer site with wheels, lights, and brakes attached -- it is a pure container.  The special truck rig that picks up a Dumpster stays together as a functional unit.

So if it works for garbage, why doesn't the domestic container work for bimodal?  I guess garbage is purely truck mode because it isn't usually hauled any distance by rail.  But garbage is a low-value commodity that 1) doesn't merit leaving a complete truck trailer parked somewhere, and 2) is something you want to containerize so you handle it is little as possible.

If the Dumpster were the domestic shipping container, there would be a means of having a truck rig pick up that container at a customer, transfer it to a railroad container train, another truck rig would pick up that container at the far end and take it to the remote customer.  But truck loading docks would have to be set up for these Dumpster-style containers in addition to the traditional truck trailer.

I guess there is a tare weight penalty to the domestic container.  Just as a RoadRailer trailer is somewhat heavier than an ordinary trailer, the container/side-transfer flatbed trailer combination is probably heavier as well.  But while some technologies are marginal or found wanting for known reasons, I suspect domestic containers and side-transfer are a technology that hasn't been given an adequate trial, or it may be one of those QWERTY vs Dvorak keyboard adoption effects where it just couldn't break in to the intermodal market on account of the way most truck loading docks aren't set up to hold a container.

[TomDiehl]

After spine cars came into wide spread use, there was no need to convert the Front Runners.   The problem wasn't the drawbar connections.  It was the long rigid wheelbase of the single car.   Personal experiance is all I need to know about these cars.  More then once, they have derailed on me.  And like I said before, one had a catastophic failure of both wheelsets, because of in-train forces.

It's becoming clear, that the Iron Highway cars were maintaince nightmares, possibly due to design, improper training, or the cost for specialty parts.  The answer is probably a combination of the three.    It seem CP had no spare parts.  Why?  Cost? Avalablility? Parts were requested and never delivered.   Did no -one order them?  Did the company not support it's product? You can't replace what you don't have.

As for the absurd comment about replacing coal gon journals.  Every car shop has parts in stock for that coal gon, so it's a quick, easy fix.   The Iron Highway parts were very speciallized and not widely avalable, or evidently avalable at all.

What it comes down to is a sort of Catch-22 for new concepts in railroading.  Railroads have become obsessed with standardization, yet most new ideas inherently incorporate parts and mechanisms that haven't had time to become standardized.  In the end, the vendor of new ideas better be able to stock all the rail shops with the necessary spare parts if he wants his idea to have the time to supply feedback, make the necessary modifications, and eventually gain acceptance.

As I pointed out to Tom, if the railroads (via TTX) could go the length of retrofitting 89' flats into Long Runners and 48' spine cars into 53' spine cars, they would have done well to do the same for the Four Runners rather than scrapping the whole lot.  What I mentioned about the drawbar connections of the Four Runners goes right to the heart of the rigidity debate.  Articulating those AC and DB connections would reduce the overall rigidity of each platform, and should have mitigated any such derailment tendencies.  For what it's worth, I have accomplished such an improvement in scale model with a little kit bashing, so such an improvement in tracking should translate to full scale.

Why bother?  Because even with the articulation modification, the neo Four Runners would still have a net tare advantage over the standard 53' spine cars, albeit reduced by half from 5000' per platform to about 2000' per platform.

Let me try to simplify this just a bit more so MAYBE you can understand it.

Any equipment that uses nonstandard parts, especially suspension parts, will be harder to maintain, if for no other reason than getting the parts is harder. Plus, the more specialized the part, the more expensive they are. Plus, being suspension parts, they are more critical and can sideline a car quicker.

There's such a thing as a volume discount. If parts are common (interchangable) to many types of equipment, it not only drives down the price per unit, but simplifies the parts stock necessary to have on hand at the shops. The less money you have to sink into having a huge selection of specialized and expensive parts, the more money will be available for other things, such as infrastructure improvements. Myabe you should check with an accountant to see how this affects the "bottom line" for a company, any company, not just railroads.

The "retrofit" to make the 89 footers into long runners was simply pulling the coupler and draft gear out of one end of each car and putting in a rigid drawbar. Hardly an expensive change. The Front Runners and Four Runners would need the center spine lengthened, a major structural change.

And yes, the vendors need to stock all the railroad shops with the new style parts. A new specialized car sitting on the RIP track waiting for one of these parts is:1. taking up valuable space, and 2. not making any money for the owner.

And where did you ever get the idea that a Four Runner only weighs one ton per platform?

[Anonymous]

After spine cars came into wide spread use, there was no need to convert the Front Runners.   The problem wasn't the drawbar connections.  It was the long rigid wheelbase of the single car.   Personal experiance is all I need to know about these cars.  More then once, they have derailed on me.  And like I said before, one had a catastophic failure of both wheelsets, because of in-train forces.

It's becoming clear, that the Iron Highway cars were maintaince nightmares, possibly due to design, improper training, or the cost for specialty parts.  The answer is probably a combination of the three.    It seem CP had no spare parts.  Why?  Cost? Avalablility? Parts were requested and never delivered.   Did no -one order them?  Did the company not support it's product? You can't replace what you don't have.

As for the absurd comment about replacing coal gon journals.  Every car shop has parts in stock for that coal gon, so it's a quick, easy fix.   The Iron Highway parts were very speciallized and not widely avalable, or evidently avalable at all.

What it comes down to is a sort of Catch-22 for new concepts in railroading.  Railroads have become obsessed with standardization, yet most new ideas inherently incorporate parts and mechanisms that haven't had time to become standardized.  In the end, the vendor of new ideas better be able to stock all the rail shops with the necessary spare parts if he wants his idea to have the time to supply feedback, make the necessary modifications, and eventually gain acceptance.

As I pointed out to Tom, if the railroads (via TTX) could go the length of retrofitting 89' flats into Long Runners and 48' spine cars into 53' spine cars, they would have done well to do the same for the Four Runners rather than scrapping the whole lot.  What I mentioned about the drawbar connections of the Four Runners goes right to the heart of the rigidity debate.  Articulating those AC and DB connections would reduce the overall rigidity of each platform, and should have mitigated any such derailment tendencies.  For what it's worth, I have accomplished such an improvement in scale model with a little kit bashing, so such an improvement in tracking should translate to full scale.

Why bother?  Because even with the articulation modification, the neo Four Runners would still have a net tare advantage over the standard 53' spine cars, albeit reduced by half from 5000' per platform to about 2000' per platform.

[Anonymous]

The main issue with the 700 mile limit  is speed.   High speed intermodal trains are the bane of smooth traffic flow.   Especially on single track.  When that hot intermodal guy comes on your sub, everything, and I mean everything stops for it.   I often have trains sit in the siding for an hour or more waiting for the UPS train to pass. So you get the idea of how fouled up this is,  it takes between 2 and 3 hours to cover my subdivision at track speed.

To compete, you have to be as fast or faster then the truckers.  This includes, not only the point to point running time, but also time need to pick up and drop cars, place the cars for loading/unloading and the time needed to lift and drop the trailer.  And don't forget the time required to get the trailer to and from the drop site.

The capital return on intermodal is slim.   You need to be priced competitvely with the truckers, which holds revenue down.  Intermodal is also a capital intensive game.   You need lots of people and equipement avalable around the clock to make it work.

It's one of those things.  Everyone wants the business, but no-one wants the traffic. 

Nick 

I'll ask the same question I've asked over and over again:  Why can't it all move at the same high speed?  The only reason those hot intermodals foul up the system is that everything else is moving too slow.  I mean, the railroads have been dragging their arses at about 25 mph average speed for decades now.  Will we ever see a significant improvement in this key performance indicator in our lifetimes?

Every other transport mode has it's "hot" players and it's not so hot players moving at the same relative speed - Gravel trucks move at the same 65 mph as those UPS trucks down most Interstates.  Grain barges and container barges move at the same speed up and down the Columbia-Snake River Waterway (in fact, they move in the same barge tow).  Container ships and break bulk ships move at the same speed (although if Fast Ship ever gets going, it will bust that axiom!).  Air freight and passenger jets move at the same speed.

See any UPS trailers on those barges? What is the average speed of those barges 12 mph, maybe. On Iron Ore from Northern Minnesota to the Indiana mills the ships top speed is about 14 mph, the are a few old steamers with a bit higher speed. The distance they have to travel is about twice that of the railroads, but the railroads can't dent the traffic except for a few trains when the lakes are iced over.

Why can't (or why doesn't) rail do the same?  Is it this obsession with fuel economy?
  If so, is optimizing fuel use worth the lost business?

Indirectly its the fuel economy, directly its the cost, more fuel burned means higher cost, fuel is one of the largest expenses of a railroad. Do you see any of the big railroads that aren't choked with too much traffic right now?

And as this thread has implicity stated, intermodal doesn't have to be capital intensive, the railroads just seem to prefer it that way, for any number of misplaced reasons.  If a trailer can't be lifted onto a spine car by a big expensive crane, forget it!  (insert comic voiceover here) We don't need no stinkin' roll-on/roll-off trailers with their Frenchie circus ramps and one tractor at a time on the consist waiting games (nevermind that Iron Highway cut the circus style loading time in half, and my parallel side loader idea would cut loading time to minutes).  We don't need no stinkin' bi-modal trailers with their lack of actual railcars and subsequent prime load factor.  If we can't hump it, dump it!  And for that matter, we don't particularly like having to deal with your trailers anyhow.  Put it all in a container so we can double stack it.  (end comic voiceover here)

Dave, when it suits you you keep carping about how little Intermodal earns, then also when it suits you, you suggest ideas that reduce the productivity of the system. How many trailers can you put in a given length of train versus a doublestack. Even if the rate for a container is only 75 percent that of a trailer, the doublestack will be generating more revenue.  A good portal crane operator can load one container per minute consistently if they can bring them fast enough to him, I doubt seriously that a loader can back a trailer down a length of flats and drive back off in one minute, obviously when he is nearly finish he can do better. With your side loading you still have the hitches to connect which takes time, or what ever else you would use to secure the trailer. With the doublestack you can pick a container out of the train at an intermediate terminal fairly easily, with a circus sytem you can't.

Nevermind that double stacking domestic containers is the most capital intensive form of intermodal, and the one that is least preferable to the trucking companies.

It also generates the highest unit volume per acre. Where land is scarce or expensive it is the only way to go. There is no way that a facility like Hobart Yard in LA could handle its current volume with circus style loading. Expansion anywhere close isn't an option either. If it was all trailers the would have to require a time frame in minutes for how long until you pick up your trailer. UPS normally has drivers ready and waiting, but otherwise you need some holding time.

1.  No, UPS doesn't ship by barge as far as I know.  They do ship by air, which was another of the modes I mentioned that all go at the same relative speed.  But haven't you noticed something?  Only railroads seem to relate a given speed to a given commodity.  It's something to ponder.

2.  RE:  Intermodal.  What I have said is that import intermodal has such small margins.  Domestic intermodal can get away with higher margins, because the alternative (trucking) has a higher per mile charge than the average railroad rate.  Compare that to landbridge traffic, which in addition to having cutthoat competition from the various container lines and competing US ports, must also compete with the low

[beaulieu]

A couple questions:

Does the Iron Highway/Ramp Car uncouple or separate to put the ramp down?  If so, how do you do the spotting to couple it back together without a crewmember standing dangerously between sections?

I search the ep.espacenet.com worldwide patent database, and Wabtec only has patents back to about 2000.  Was New York Air Brake the original applicant/consignee?  Does anyone know any names of any inventors working for those companies to help with the patent search?  Also, things are sometimes called by funny names in patents, but "articulated train" "guided axle" and other terms are not turning anything up on Iron Highway.

Yes, New York Air Brake was one of the originators, NYAB is now part of the German firm Knorr Bremse. Don't forget that before Wabtec was called that, it was Wabco, and Westinghouse Air Brake.

[Paul Milenkovic]

A couple questions:

Does the Iron Highway/Ramp Car uncouple or separate to put the ramp down?  If so, how do you do the spotting to couple it back together without a crewmember standing dangerously between sections?

I search the ep.espacenet.com worldwide patent database, and Wabtec only has patents back to about 2000.  Was New York Air Brake the original applicant/consignee?  Does anyone know any names of any inventors working for those companies to help with the patent search?  Also, things are sometimes called by funny names in patents, but "articulated train" "guided axle" and other terms are not turning anything up on Iron Highway.

[beaulieu]

The main issue with the 700 mile limit  is speed.   High speed intermodal trains are the bane of smooth traffic flow.   Especially on single track.  When that hot intermodal guy comes on your sub, everything, and I mean everything stops for it.   I often have trains sit in the siding for an hour or more waiting for the UPS train to pass. So you get the idea of how fouled up this is,  it takes between 2 and 3 hours to cover my subdivision at track speed.

To compete, you have to be as fast or faster then the truckers.  This includes, not only the point to point running time, but also time need to pick up and drop cars, place the cars for loading/unloading and the time needed to lift and drop the trailer.  And don't forget the time required to get the trailer to and from the drop site.

The capital return on intermodal is slim.   You need to be priced competitvely with the truckers, which holds revenue down.  Intermodal is also a capital intensive game.   You need lots of people and equipement avalable around the clock to make it work.

It's one of those things.  Everyone wants the business, but no-one wants the traffic. 

Nick 

I'll ask the same question I've asked over and over again:  Why can't it all move at the same high speed?  The only reason those hot intermodals foul up the system is that everything else is moving too slow.  I mean, the railroads have been dragging their arses at about 25 mph average speed for decades now.  Will we ever see a significant improvement in this key performance indicator in our lifetimes?

Every other transport mode has it's "hot" players and it's not so hot players moving at the same relative speed - Gravel trucks move at the same 65 mph as those UPS trucks down most Interstates.  Grain barges and container barges move at the same speed up and down the Columbia-Snake River Waterway (in fact, they move in the same barge tow).  Container ships and break bulk ships move at the same speed (although if Fast Ship ever gets going, it will bust that axiom!).  Air freight and passenger jets move at the same speed.

See any UPS trailers on those barges? What is the average speed of those barges 12 mph, maybe. On Iron Ore from Northern Minnesota to the Indiana mills the ships top speed is about 14 mph, the are a few old steamers with a bit higher speed. The distance they have to travel is about twice that of the railroads, but the railroads can't dent the traffic except for a few trains when the lakes are iced over.

Why can't (or why doesn't) rail do the same?  Is it this obsession with fuel economy?
  If so, is optimizing fuel use worth the lost business?

Indirectly its the fuel economy, directly its the cost, more fuel burned means higher cost, fuel is one of the largest expenses of a railroad. Do you see any of the big railroads that aren't choked with too much traffic right now?

And as this thread has implicity stated, intermodal doesn't have to be capital intensive, the railroads just seem to prefer it that way, for any number of misplaced reasons.  If a trailer can't be lifted onto a spine car by a big expensive crane, forget it!  (insert comic voiceover here) We don't need no stinkin' roll-on/roll-off trailers with their Frenchie circus ramps and one tractor at a time on the consist waiting games (nevermind that Iron Highway cut the circus style loading time in half, and my parallel side loader idea would cut loading time to minutes).  We don't need no stinkin' bi-modal trailers with their lack of actual railcars and subsequent prime load factor.  If we can't hump it, dump it!  And for that matter, we don't particularly like having to deal with your trailers anyhow.  Put it all in a container so we can double stack it.  (end comic voiceover here)

Dave, when it suits you you keep carping about how little Intermodal earns, then also when it suits you, you suggest ideas that reduce the productivity of the system. How many trailers can you put in a given length of train versus a doublestack. Even if the rate for a container is only 75 percent that of a trailer, the doublestack will be generating more revenue.  A good portal crane operator can load one container per minute consistently if they can bring them fast enough to him, I doubt seriously that a loader can back a trailer down a length of flats and drive back off in one minute, obviously when he is nearly finish he can do better. With your side loading you still have the hitches to connect which takes time, or what ever else you would use to secure the trailer. With the doublestack you can pick a container out of the train at an intermediate terminal fairly easily, with a circus sytem you can't.

Nevermind that double stacking domestic containers is the most capital intensive form of intermodal, and the one that is least preferable to the trucking companies.

It also generates the highest unit volume per acre. Where land is scarce or expensive it is the only way to go. There is no way that a facility like Hobart Yard in LA could handle its current volume with circus style loading. Expansion anywhere close isn't an option either. If it was all trailers the would have to require a time frame in minutes for how long until you pick up your trailer. UPS normally has drivers ready and waiting, but otherwise you need some holding time.

[TomDiehl]

Since we're talking freight, how passenger traffic interacts with trucks is not relevent to the railroad comparison (Amtrak aside).  Most trucks, regardless of what they are hauling, will move at the same speed.  Ocassionally, you'll get some trucking company that uses speed governors on it's trucks which do not allow that rig to move at the speed of traffic, and of course heavier trucks will be slower on grades than lighter trucks.  But other than that, truck speed is not related to commodity type.

Maybe when you get old enough to drive, you'll figure out this just isn't the way it is.

[Anonymous]

I'll ask the same question I've asked over and over again:  Why can't it all move at the same high speed?  The only reason those hot intermodals foul up the system is that everything else is moving too slow.  I mean, the railroads have been dragging their arses at about 25 mph average speed for decades now.  Will we ever see a significant improvement in this key performance indicator in our lifetimes?

Speed costs money.   You  need a.) more engines for longer trains, b.) shorter more frequent trains, or c.) more capacity.   This adds up to more fuel, locomotives, and crews, all of which is expensive,  adding capacity - the best solution - the outragously expensive.

It's not a matter of everything moving at the same speed. You forget, that traffic moves in BOTH directions on the single track.  Sometime, someone has to pull over to pass.  Moving in the same direction, (which all your examples are) it's easeir to move everything at the same speed.   Which even on the highways rarely happens.  (How many times do YOU pass someone or get passed?)

Nick

You forget, the Wall Street rail analysts use the average velocity measure as an indicator of profitability potential.  Speed costs money, but more importantly time costs money.  And it is the time sensitive traffic that usually pays the highest margins - this is true across all modes that incorporate the speed variable.  This all goes back to the railroads' tendency to focus on reduced costs rather than increased business.  Again, you can move stuff that is not time critical at the same speed as the time critical stuff and keep all the business, but not the other way around.

You're original post on the subject makes it appear that the hot TOFC business isn't worth it, as it's demand for sustained speed is out of kilter with the rest of the 25 mph average velocity system.  Yet the biggest potential growth market for railroads is intermodal, and since a majority of cross country freight still moves by over the road truck, there's a big chunk of business going to waste.

Since we're talking freight, how passenger traffic interacts with trucks is not relevent to the railroad comparison (Amtrak aside).  Most trucks, regardless of what they are hauling, will move at the same speed.  Ocassionally, you'll get some trucking company that uses speed governors on it's trucks which do not allow that rig to move at the speed of traffic, and of course heavier trucks will be slower on grades than lighter trucks.  But other than that, truck speed is not related to commodity type.

[M636C]

One good point about the train being dismantled was that the single axle trucks were stored inverted near the fence at the CRT compound, and I was able to check them out in some detail without having to climb under any cars. There was a problem that I had to stop my jaw hitting the ground as I realised what I was looking at!

Any insights into how the axles were steered?  Did they use the same kind of "bell crank" (actually a Watt's Link) arrangement as Talgo?

It is interesting that the independent rotating wheels were to accomodate the articulation hinge, and that they decided to couple the wheels with a light axle, perhaps for tracking reasons.  I still wonder how Talgo manages with independent rotating wheels -- yes, they guide the axles, but something still has to center the wheels over the rails between flanges.

As to use of somewhat European-style single axle trucks to produce 4-wheel freight cars, that sounds like shades of Aerotrain.  If you have single axle trucks on long wheelbases without guided axle, radial steering, or what have you, you have to place some give in the journal boxes to allow the wheelset to steer without being up on the flanges all the time, and if there is too much give, you have a hunting problem.

Paul,

I didn't see any indication of a Watt's Link arrangement, but I did take some photos and it might be worth checking them. There was a good article on "Iron Highway" in a contemporary issue of "Diesel Era", which shows how the ramps worked, but because of the low height of the car structure, gave few clues as to the suspension details.

I've ridden in the classic "Talgo III", the "Catalan Talgo" both on broad gauge in Spain and on standard gauge in France. It ran at 90 MPH in France and was reasonably acceptable from a comfort point of view, but you wouldn't mistake it for a passenger car with four wheel trucks. I also rode on the early TGV at the same time and it was better, but not as good as a "real" passenger car. Bring back the 1969 "Mistral" cars which glided over the excellent track at up to 200 km/h isolated from most aspects of the real world except as viewed through the large windows and glass corridor partitions!

M636C

[greyhounds]

Definition of frustration.

I've got three good pictures of the lastest version of the "Iron Highway", now called the "Ramp Car".  They were emailed to me by the car's patentholder, Wabtec.

They show the articulated car complete with the ramp up and stowed for movement, the ramp down for trailer loading, and the ramp halfway between "down" and "up".  They were sent to me by Wabtec for use in a presentation I put together.

I got them into the presentation, but I have absolutely no idea how to post them here.

Let's see if I can descriibe it --- imagine one of those armored bridging contraptions the Army uses.  You know, where they modify a tank to carry a folding bridge on top.  Then the modified tank roles up to a river, ravine, whatever and unfolds the bridge so the battle tanks can cross -- you know, that kind of thing only smaller and tucked on the end of a flatcar.  OK, I know, I'll keep trying to post the photographs.

 

 

[nbrodar]

I'll ask the same question I've asked over and over again:  Why can't it all move at the same high speed?  The only reason those hot intermodals foul up the system is that everything else is moving too slow.  I mean, the railroads have been dragging their arses at about 25 mph average speed for decades now.  Will we ever see a significant improvement in this key performance indicator in our lifetimes?

Speed costs money.   You  need a.) more engines for longer trains, b.) shorter more frequent trains, or c.) more capacity.   This adds up to more fuel, locomotives, and crews, all of which is expensive,  adding capacity - the best solution - the outragously expensive.

It's not a matter of everything moving at the same speed. You forget, that traffic moves in BOTH directions on the single track.  Sometime, someone has to pull over to pass.  Moving in the same direction, (which all your examples are) it's easeir to move everything at the same speed.   Which even on the highways rarely happens.  (How many times do YOU pass someone or get passed?)

Nick

[TomDiehl]

I'll ask the same question I've asked over and over again:  Why can't it all move at the same high speed?  The only reason those hot intermodals foul up the system is that everything else is moving too slow.  I mean, the railroads have been dragging their arses at about 25 mph average speed for decades now.  Will we ever see a significant improvement in this key performance indicator in our lifetimes?

Because the answer is the same as every other time you've asked the question: your analogy is flawed. All trucks do NOT move at the same speed. Even on the interstates.

And the second part, it has to do with horsepower to tonnage ratio of each train. Premium trains get better ratios. You seem to like spending the railroad's money to get an insignificant return by speeding up lower class trains. On a single or double track mainline, it's like moving trucks over a 2 lane highway. Or are you going to come up with more money so the railroads can build triple or quad tracks?

[Paul Milenkovic]

One good point about the train being dismantled was that the single axle trucks were stored inverted near the fence at the CRT compound, and I was able to check them out in some detail without having to clim under any cars. There was a problem that I had to stop my jaw hitting the ground as I realised what I was looking at!

Any insights into how the axles were steered?  Did they use the same kind of "bell crank" (actually a Watt's Link) arrangement as Talgo?

It is interesting that the independent rotating wheels were to accomodate the articulation hinge, and that they decided to couple the wheels with a light axle, perhaps for tracking reasons.  I still wonder how Talgo manages with independent rotating wheels -- yes, they guide the axles, but something still has to center the wheels over the rails between flanges.

As to use of somewhat European-style single axle trucks to produce 4-wheel freight cars, that sounds like shades of Aerotrain.  If you have single axle trucks on long wheelbases without guided axle, radial steering, or what have you, you have to place some give in the journal boxes to allow the wheelset to steer without being up on the flanges all the time, and if there is too much give, you have a hunting problem.

[TomDiehl]

BTW - do you have any of those "well documented" documents regarding the performance of the Front Runners and Four Runners?  Some of the earlier versions did not have a later modification that helped the wheels "give" a little into a curve.  Could it be that the whole lot was tossed based on the performance of the earlier versions?  If the wheelbase of the Four Runners were deemed to long for curve negotiability with single axles, why not try and "hybridize" the concept with my aforementioned articulation with a standard two axle bogy at the "A-C" and "D-B" connections?  That in and of itself would have solved the curve negotiability issues, if such was the case.

Apparently, such simplified solutions were not even contemplated.

I think Nick essentially answered the first part of this.

Even though you think it "wasn't even contemplated" what you've described here is essentially the articulated spine car, a somewhat common intermodal car these days. By doing away with the single axle bogie and going to the two axle bogies (what the rest of us call a standard freight truck), they used an item that was easily supportable by maintenance personnel and parts are readily available, not to mention the long time they've been used successfully in this country. This attempt to "reinvent the wheel" didn't work too well.

[TomDiehl]

After spine cars came into wide spread use, there was no need to convert the Front Runners.   The problem wasn't the drawbar connections.  It was the long rigid wheelbase of the single car.   Personal experiance is all I need to know about these cars.  More then once, they have derailed on me.  And like I said before, one had a catastophic failure of both wheelsets, because of in-train forces.

It's becoming clear, that the Iron Highway cars were maintaince nightmares, possibly due to design, improper training, or the cost for specialty parts.  The answer is probably a combination of the three.    It seem CP had no spare parts.  Why?  Cost? Avalablility? Parts were requested and never delivered.   Did no -one order them?  Did the company not support it's product? You can't replace what you don't have.

As for the absurd comment about replacing coal gon journals.  Every car shop has parts in stock for that coal gon, so it's a quick, easy fix.   The Iron Highway parts were very speciallized and not widely avalable, or evidently avalable at all.

Again it comes down to money.  Did Iron Highway make dollars then it cost to operate.  And the answer is apparently no.

Nick

Well Dave, it looks like Nick beat me to the answer.

[M636C]

Iron Highway, now called Expressway is running twice daily each way between Toronto and Montreal on the CP. I think one train per day on weekends. CP tried running the train to Windsor(Detroit) but loadings never came up to profitable and the service from there was dropped. There were intentions of service between Montreal and Chicago, and Montreal to New York, but marketing could never develop enough interested potential customers. Running times between Detroit and Chicago over CSX were not fast enough to interest the truckers. The same problem for Montreal to New York.

There is/was a physical difference between the original Iron Highway concept and CP's modern Expressway.  The Iron Highway originated with New York Air Brake and CSX as a 1200 foot segmented platform car with hydraulic ramps at both ends.  The platform sections were short (28') with two wheel bogies attatched at one end (wheels attatched directly to the platform, no axles, so they turned independently) and the other end of the car resting on the next platfrom, semi-articulated at the two wheel bogie end.

http://members.aol.com/jsundin357/ironhwy.html

http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=1G1:10730996&ctrlInfo=Round19%3AMode19b%3ADocG%3AResult&ao=

CP's Expressway cars are more normal 50+' platforms articulated together with standard two axle bogies.  I think CP uses normal circus style ramps at it's terminals, so there is no on-car ramp.

http://www8.cpr.ca/cms/English/Media/Photo+Gallery/Intermodal/default.htm?Show=Truck%20trailers

So the "physical difference" between the Iron Highway and Expressway sounds like the railroads DID update the idea. By ratio, how many 28 foot trailers do you see on the highway these days?

And I still see Roadrailers on the Interstate. It would be hard to believe that they're using them strictly as road trailers with the extra tare weight they carry.

Ideas were tried, they didn't work in every situation, but found their niche.

I don't think the original "Iron Highway" is all that related to CP's Expressway nee Iron Highway, other than in general principle and name.  The use of 28' platforms and free turning twin wheelsets was for reducing  the tare and lowering the center of gravity of the consist.  That is the part of the concept the railroads gave up on, and the subsequent Expressway version of the general concept goes back to the heavier and higher center of gravity.

And the use of articulated 28' platforms did not mean only 28' trailers could be hauled, they actually focussed on 48' and the later 53' trailers which would straddle the articulated section.  This is yet another area which the railroads have failed to take advantage of relatively simply engineering to reduce tare and fuel consumption.  Using single axles (or twin independent wheelsets), short platforms, and articulation helps to reduce the car body weight per a given length of consist, and works well for trucks which can straddle the area between the car bodies.  And single axles and smaller diameter wheels allow lower center of gravity.

 

SCOOP! SCOOP! SCOOP!

I have found the original CSX Iron Highway prototype!

Are you all sitting comfortably?

It was purchased by an AUSTRALIAN Road Transport company CRT which had an interest in expanding into rail operation. The train is currently dismantled and sitting at the CRT intermodal centre at Altona, a western suburb of Melbourne Victoria. The train was purchased more than three years ago but has not been operated.

Since that time, CRT has been purchased by QRN, the second largest Australian Rail operator owned by the Queensland state government.

Two units from the train were sent to the Seymour Rail Heritage Centre in central Victoria, where it appears the cars were assembled and generally inspected for conformance to regulations and ability to operate on the national rail system.

One obvious problem is that clearances in Australia are much less than in the USA, and this train could only be used in TOFC service on lines west of Adelaide, South Australia. There are very few TOFC services in Australia, although Shell Oil use TOFC for road tankers between Adelaide and Darwin (largely because since the rail service is very recent and there are no connections to existing oil terminals in Darwin).

Some publicity was given to the Iron Highway in seminars about energy conservation and reduction of greenhouse gases, particularly in Western Australia. CRT purchased a German "Cargo Sprinter" (with a federal government grant for greenhouse gas reduction) an underfloor engine diesel railcar for container service. This did not go to QRN and it is stored out of service in Junee in southern New South Wales.

The CSX prototype included the dummy "power cars" that were to represent the riding qualities of a self powered "Iron Highway". It isn't clear what would be done with these, but they might be converted to normal flat cars to allow over the end loading. The train only has intermediate ramps which act like a car when running, but split to provide loading ramps.

One point I should make to Futuremodal: although the cars were clearly built with individual wheels with full roller bearings each side, at some stage Boise (or someone) fitted light hollow shafts connecting the two wheels so that they would act like a normal pair of wheels on an axle. This shaft was about one inch diameter and was bolted to the wheels using three of the bolts used to attach the bearing cap to the stub axle.

The articulation joint sat between the wheels, and prevented the use of a standard wheelset, because this would have fouled on the articulation. Even the one inch pipe just fitted clear of the articulation! I know Talgo trains run successfully with separate wheels, so I am interested in this modification. I can only assume that it was intended to improve tracking, but it made the expense of providing four roller bearings per "axle" seem a bit superfluous. I have worked in track dynamics testing, and I think I know what they were trying to do.

One good point about the train being dismantled was that the single axle trucks were stored inverted near the fence at the CRT compound, and I was able to check them out in some detail without having to clim under any cars. There was a problem tha

[Anonymous]

The main issue with the 700 mile limit  is speed.   High speed intermodal trains are the bane of smooth traffic flow.   Especially on single track.  When that hot intermodal guy comes on your sub, everything, and I mean everything stops for it.   I often have trains sit in the siding for an hour or more waiting for the UPS train to pass. So you get the idea of how fouled up this is,  it takes between 2 and 3 hours to cover my subdivision at track speed.

To compete, you have to be as fast or faster then the truckers.  This includes, not only the point to point running time, but also time need to pick up and drop cars, place the cars for loading/unloading and the time needed to lift and drop the trailer.  And don't forget the time required to get the trailer to and from the drop site.

The capital return on intermodal is slim.   You need to be priced competitvely with the truckers, which holds revenue down.  Intermodal is also a capital intensive game.   You need lots of people and equipement avalable around the clock to make it work.

It's one of those things.  Everyone wants the business, but no-one wants the traffic. 

Nick 

I'll ask the same question I've asked over and over again:  Why can't it all move at the same high speed?  The only reason those hot intermodals foul up the system is that everything else is moving too slow.  I mean, the railroads have been dragging their arses at about 25 mph average speed for decades now.  Will we ever see a significant improvement in this key performance indicator in our lifetimes?

Every other transport mode has it's "hot" players and it's not so hot players moving at the same relative speed - Gravel trucks move at the same 65 mph as those UPS trucks down most Interstates.  Grain barges and container barges move at the same speed up and down the Columbia-Snake River Waterway (in fact, they move in the same barge tow).  Container ships and break bulk ships move at the same speed (although if Fast Ship ever gets going, it will bust that axiom!).  Air freight and passenger jets move at the same speed.

Why can't (or why doesn't) rail do the same?  Is it this obsession with fuel economy?  If so, is optimizing fuel use worth the lost business?

And as this thread has implicity stated, intermodal doesn't have to be capital intensive, the railroads just seem to prefer it that way, for any number of misplaced reasons.  If a trailer can't be lifted onto a spine car by a big expensive crane, forget it!  (insert comic voiceover here) We don't need no stinkin' roll-on/roll-off trailers with their Frenchie circus ramps and one tractor at a time on the consist waiting games (nevermind that Iron Highway cut the circus style loading time in half, and my parallel side loader idea would cut loading time to minutes).  We don't need no stinkin' bi-modal trailers with their lack of actual railcars and subsequent prime load factor.  If we can't hump it, dump it!  And for that matter, we don't particularly like having to deal with your trailers anyhow.  Put it all in a container so we can double stack it.  (end comic voiceover here)

Nevermind that double stacking domestic containers is the most capital intensive form of intermodal, and the one that is least preferable to the trucking companies.

[nbrodar]

After spine cars came into wide spread use, there was no need to convert the Front Runners.   The problem wasn't the drawbar connections.  It was the long rigid wheelbase of the single car.   Personal experiance is all I need to know about these cars.  More then once, they have derailed on me.  And like I said before, one had a catastophic failure of both wheelsets, because of in-train forces.

It's becoming clear, that the Iron Highway cars were maintaince nightmares, possibly due to design, improper training, or the cost for specialty parts.  The answer is probably a combination of the three.    It seem CP had no spare parts.  Why?  Cost? Avalablility? Parts were requested and never delivered.   Did no -one order them?  Did the company not support it's product? You can't replace what you don't have.

As for the absurd comment about replacing coal gon journals.  Every car shop has parts in stock for that coal gon, so it's a quick, easy fix.   The Iron Highway parts were very speciallized and not widely avalable, or evidently avalable at all.

Again it comes down to money.  Did Iron Highway make dollars then it cost to operate.  And the answer is apparently no.

Nick

[Anonymous]

I guess I am answering my own question with this link:

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/en/reports/rail/1997/r97h0008/r97h0008.asp

Apparently, a truck trailer got loose from the hitch mooring on an Iron Highway trainset in service in Canada, and that trailer then smashed into a highway overpass, damaging it.  The accident report gives photos, diagrams, and text explanations of the Iron Highway trainset by way of background of how this rather exotic piece of train equipment contributed to the wreck.  They ascribe the accident to misuse of the hitch owing to its unorthodox design and lack of training of crews, but they also point to the Iron Highway trainset being operated with many broken or inoperative hardware appliances.

It seems that no one properly knew either how to operate or how to maintain this piece of equipment.  A number of shock absorbers (dampers) for vertical motion of the single-axle trucks were disconnected -- perhaps when these dampers failed, it was easier to unhook them then find replacements.

I sure wish I could learn how the guided-axle mechanism works as I am a Talgo/TurboTrain enthusiast.  But the accident report and related photos gives a flavor for what Iron Highway is or was and perhaps why it failed in the marketplace.

It seems that Iron Highway was Yet Another Piece of TOFC Rolling Stock of which there are many others of various advantages and disadvantages to chose from.  One idea was that there would be those short platforms supported by guided axles and with frequent spacing of hitches -- the notion is that instead of discrete trailer parking spaces, there would be the effect of a continuous platform, and you could mix and match 28', 40' and 53' trailers as desired without wasting a lot of space.  The other idea was to revert to circus loading.  Each trainset could separate in the middle into two parts, each part fed by a ramp.  I guess the idea was that if the load points were interspersed throughout a train made up of multiple train sets, circus loading would be OK.  The other part to this is that you only had ramps at this trainset midsections -- there were no Clejan car bridgeplates between articulated sections, only small gaps in the platform where the platforms articulated over a guided-axle wheelset.

How the mid-section ramps worked is not clear from the report -- did the trainset uncouple and separate to let down the ramps, or did the train stay coupled but the ramps swung to the sides?

Inasmuch as Iron Highway is TOFC, and there are many competing designs for low-profile light-weight TOFC trainsets, Iron Highway does not seem like that big of a deal.  The sense that Iron Highway was an improvement was that it was supposed to do away with expensive hoist equipment -- a terminal could be simply a grade crossing where you parked the ramp car in the middle of a trainset.  Also, reverting to circus loading meant that the trailers didn't have to be beefed up to take hoisting, and a long train had multiple load points, one in the middle of each trainset, supposedly making circus loading go faster.  Also, you did not have to lower and raise between-car ramps because the guided axle arrangement made the trainset appear as one continous surface.

As to why Iron Highway went away, the accident report hints that it was too mechanically complex for freight service, given the money the railroad wanted to spend on maintenance and crew training on some specialty equipment.  The Iron Highway trainset didn't need to be left in such a state of disrepair, but it ended up that way.  I am wondering of Talgo has similar problems, say in Cascade Service, but the Talgo Company may have their own people in Washington State to play nursemaid to this equipment until such time that Talgo becomes more commonplace.

I'll present this as I presented the question to Tom - if the independent wheelsets were too much of a maintenance hassle for inexperienced crews, why not just go with standard single axle bogies?  I don't believe that the short wheelbase of 28' and the opposite end articulation would have required any further modification for curve negotiability, e.g. no need for radial steering arms, etc.  And I can't see where using standard single axle bogies would detract from the low profile or any other advantageous aspect of the concept.

There were other railcar innovations that utilized single axle bogies - the Southern 100 four bay hopper, and the Trough Train.  The Southern 100 was basically four 25' single hoppers with single axle bogies on both ends of the hopper units, and were connected by a primitive link pin connection.  Had probably the best load factor of any coal hopper or gondola, better than most current equipment.  The basic problem that caused the cessation of the idea wasn't the single axle bogies (although they could have used beefier suspension), but with the link pin connections between the individual units.

The Trough Train used single axle bogies at the coupler ends, and standard two axle articulated bogies between units.  Again, no problem with the single axle bogies was reported, rather the problems lay in the relative inflexibility of the total unit when it came to replacing a bad wheelset, etc.  You had to take out the entire unit, or about 13 hopper bays.

Both these examples show that single axle bogies (and the inherent tare savings of using single axle bogies over regular two axle bogies) are useful evolutions of rail equipment, but have been relegated to the dust bin of history because of a lack of patience in working out the usual kinks of new equipment.  Whether the 36' wheelbase of the TTOX/Four Runner cars was just too long, even with radial steering, has not been answered or documented by the detractors.  Given the relative success of the single axle type with the Southern 100 and the Trough Train, it could be that keeping the wheelbase to about 25' or using standard two axle articulated trucks on the opposite end of the single axles would have been the simpler solution. 

All the Southern 100 probably needed was a better method of interconnecting the units and more modern suspension of the single axles, and it might still be around in some form.

All the Trough Train needed was to be broken down into smaller unit numbers per car, and it would probably still be running the rails today.

And all the Four Runner needed was to employ a hybrid of single axles with standard two axle articulation, and it would still be running out there today.

And the Iron Highway probaby could have been saved by using standard single axle bogies rather than indepedent wheelsets, and it would be out there working for us.

And all four examples would have provided the prime benefits of saving fuel, et al, as all four provided improved load factor and simplified modal transfer options over currently used equipment.

[Anonymous]

 

So intermodal with different names isn't related. Trailer Train 86 foot TOFC flatcars aren't related to Thrall Industries 5 unit articulated cars. One is an earlier experiment with hauling truck trailers on the rails, the latter a refinement of the concept. All steps between the two weren't a success. The Front Runner cars come to mind.

It is interesting that you bring up the Front Runners.  Basically taking outdated TOFC cars (too short to host two 48+' trailers, too long to carry just one without wasting space) and combining them via drawbar to allow three long trailers to ride on the two platforms with no wasted space.  A good way to utilize otherwise obsolete equipment.  But in no way an innovative forward thinking plunge into technological superiority.  The Front Runners were still overly heavy on the tare compared to spine cars and the TTOX/Four Runners.  What was saved in using available equipment was lost in the extra fuel costs.  The TTOX/Four Runners were much better potential adaptation of using existing equipment and modifying it to conform to the evolution of the highway trailer, but alas such was an opportunity lost due to undocumented speculation regarding the single axle bogies and the subsequent spacing on the units themselves.

Wrong again. The Front Runner was a single unit spine car, the name owned by TTX. These were discussed back in February:

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/1/717192/ShowPost.aspx#717192

Not to be confused with Utah Transit's new trains, using the name by permission from TTX.

If you actually talk about the Front Runner, it was an inovation in intermodal, that led to the development of the articulated spine car.

The drawbar connected 89 foot flats you're talking about were a utilization of obsolete and underused equipment to help gain income from these cars until the value of the car was depreciated.

And the criticism of the two axle per platform Four Runners was well documented. They just didn't track well in longer trains like the railroads in this country run.

And nothing about the obviously failed tests of the Iron Highway cars.

You're right.  The Front Runner was the single unit single axle TOFC car.  The Four Runners were four such TTOX Front Runners connected by drawbar to form one car with four platforms.  The Long Runners are the two 89' flats connected by drawbar.  My apologies to the forum.

BTW - do you have any of those "well documented" documents regarding the performance of the Front Runners and Four Runners?  Some of the earlier versions did not have a later modification that helped the wheels "give" a little into a curve.  Could it be that the whole lot was tossed based on the performance of the earlier versions?  If the wheelbase of the Four Runners were deemed to long for curve negotiability with single axles, why not try and "hybridize" the concept with my aforementioned articulation with a standard two axle bogy at the "A-C" and "D-B" connections?  That in and of itself would have solved the curve negotiability issues, if such was the case.

As for the Iron Highway carsets, Paul gives a good explanation for why the railroad industry would rather bail on an idea rather than making the necessary adjustments.  So the independent wheels caused problems when dampers were not replaced - doesn't this beg the question as to why the dampers were not replaced in the first place?  Wouldn't just about any piece of railroad equipment be subject to probable failure if a key piece of equipment is removed and not replaced?  What's gonna happen to a coal gon if a failed journal is not replaced?

The second question that is begged is this - if the independent wheelsets were just too much of a problem, why not go with regular solid single axle bogies?

Apparently, such simplified solutions were not even contemplated.

[beaulieu]

I guess I am answering my own question with this link:

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/en/reports/rail/1997/r97h0008/r97h0008.asp

Apparently, a truck trailer got loose from the hitch mooring on an Iron Highway trainset in service in Canada, and that trailer then smashed into a highway overpass, damaging it.  The accident report gives photos, diagrams, and text explanations of the Iron Highway trainset by way of background of how this rather exotic piece of train equipment contributed to the wreck.  They ascribe the accident to misuse of the hitch owing to its unorthodox design and lack of training of crews, but they also point to the Iron Highway trainset being operated with many broken or inoperative hardware appliances.

It seems that no one properly knew either how to operate or how to maintain this piece of equipment.  A number of shock absorbers (dampers) for vertical motion of the single-axle trucks were disconnected -- perhaps when these dampers failed, it was easier to unhook them then find replacements.

I sure wish I could learn how the guided-axle mechanism works as I am a Talgo/TurboTrain enthusiast.  But the accident report and related photos gives a flavor for what Iron Highway is or was and perhaps why it failed in the marketplace.

It seems that Iron Highway was Yet Another Piece of TOFC Rolling Stock of which there are many others of various advantages and disadvantages to chose from.  One idea was that there would be those short platforms supported by guided axles and with frequent spacing of hitches -- the notion is that instead of discrete trailer parking spaces, there would be the effect of a continuous platform, and you could mix and match 28', 40' and 53' trailers as desired without wasting a lot of space.  The other idea was to revert to circus loading.  Each trainset could separate in the middle into two parts, each part fed by a ramp.  I guess the idea was that if the load points were interspersed throughout a train made up of multiple train sets, circus loading would be OK.  The other part to this is that you only had ramps at this trainset midsections -- there were no Clejan car bridgeplates between articulated sections, only small gaps in the platform where the platforms articulated over a guided-axle wheelset.

How the mid-section ramps worked is not clear from the report -- did the trainset uncouple and separate to let down the ramps, or did the train stay coupled but the ramps swung to the sides?

Inasmuch as Iron Highway is TOFC, and there are many competing designs for low-profile light-weight TOFC trainsets, Iron Highway does not seem like that big of a deal.  The sense that Iron Highway was an improvement was that it was supposed to do away with expensive hoist equipment -- a terminal could be simply a grade crossing where you parked the ramp car in the middle of a trainset.  Also, reverting to circus loading meant that the trailers didn't have to be beefed up to take hoisting, and a long train had multiple load points, one in the middle of each trainset, supposedly making circus loading go faster.  Also, you did not have to lower and raise between-car ramps because the guided axle arrangement made the trainset appear as one continous surface.

As to why Iron Highway went away, the accident report hints that it was too mechanically complex for freight service, given the money the railroad wanted to spend on maintenance and crew training on some specialty equipment.  The Iron Highway trainset didn't need to be left in such a state of disrepair, but it ended up that way.  I am wondering of Talgo has similar problems, say in Cascade Service, but the Talgo Company may have their own people in Washington State to play nursemaid to this equipment until such time that Talgo becomes more commonplace.

No reason to compare the Talgo trainsets in Washington State, with the Iron Highway. The Talgo trainsets in Spain have many millions of kilometers experience on them, Now a comparison of their track condition versus ours might be a cause for concern. The Talgo affiliate in Finland is Transtech.
Not all of Talgo's innovations revolve around their axleless wheeled passenger cars. Their freight car design that doubles as a bilevel enclosed autorack and a high cube boxcar is popular with Volvo and Saab, The racks move out of the way and the hoods slide to give complete access to half the car at a time for racks of autoparts. Har to say wwhat the effect of all the new High-speed trains on Talgo will be, they haven't managed to get a piece of the action. Of course most of the new AVE equipment is integrated trainsets, not Talgo's best suite (they haven't built much in the way of locomotives or powercars).

[TH&B]

While we are on the subject of guided axles, there is some system called KERF produced by Alsthom or someone else in France, and it is used in Denmark on their S-tog (surface trains or what we call commuter trains).  Anyone have links to photos or any other info on that?  I haven't found anything in the patent databases but maybe I am using the wrong search words.

This stramge train with a leading single axle with integrated articulated cars derailed a few years ago near Valby station (split the switch it seems). It took all week to rerail the complex integrated train and shut down the main S tog rail line for many days. I though it was very unfair to the traveling public in Copenhagen to have their main comuter line with 24trains an hour each way all day shut down for so long because of "unique experimental wheel design", the passengers don't care weather it's on conventional wheel sets or not unless this kind of things happen.

The main problem was crews could bot figure out how to rerail the thing !!!  Whatever cost savings in design there are for the railroad was passed on to the public in such a major inconvenience.