Posted on 06/01/2015 10:30:30 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
Those car carriers have been around for a long time. I’ve seen them loaded with cars sidelined next to Van Buren Blvd. on my way to work back in the 1990’s prior to retiring.
If you are suggesting as some of the responses these are some new innovation for people hauling to the gulag, or the like, then you’re assuming incorrectly. These things are like regular car carriers but with sides to protect the cars from rocks being thrown at them, and graffiti being painted on them. The railroads had to go to the extra expense of these covered cars due idiots vandalizing the cargo of automobiles.
Periodically I'm forced to stop at a RR crossing but the monotony is broken by all the cars with spray painted graffiti on them......lots of good stuff.
Don’t know if the tank was full, but it had to have some gas in it to drive the cars on and off of the rail cars and the transport trucks. As for the keys, I imagine they shipped with the cars. If not, this was in the days when hot-wiring was common. All I know is my uncle caught guys in cars. Sometimes they were “rough” with bums on trains back in the day.
LOL.
I thought I read where they were 2-piece articulated cars, hence the gasket. I saw where one model railroad company was selling little replicas of those to train buffs.
Tampa has an auto distribution lot, so I’ve seen them on the CSX tracks. They are used for SUVs and Pickups, as they are bigger then regular auto carriers.
Why of course. It's obvious that is why there's all that razor ribbon there.
Here - just look at my drone video that proves it.. ;-)
(Do I need a /s?)
Walmart, it’s the ‘everything’ store.
Erik, you are spoiling a perfectly good conspiracy thread before it can even get a good start.
I can see bums sleeping in cars for comfort on the seats and with the windows down. Just kind of amuses me if they were actually riding on the train with the windows up and AC and the engine running.
There you go. Sell you two cars with only 3 sets of wheels, cheapskates.
The round vent holes in the sides are so bums trapped inside can easily pee outside and watch the countryside pass by.
“There’s a u-toob video on the vega and (as I recall) those vertical car carriers were specially designed for them.”
The Vegas were designed to allow vertical transport - the engine oil system. They probably spent more on engineering the design to be shippable rather then reliable. How many turds can you stack on a rail car?
Union Pacific “failed”?
It isn’t UP’s job to do for you what you can do with 15 seconds and an internet connection.
I think the Vega transport was essentially an experiment and one that failed
http://www.trainweb.org/funnelfan/automax.htm
Articulation is for handling turns.... these things are huge.
In the early 70’s new cars were transported in open rail carriers. The insurance companies got tired of paying claims on broken windows and body dents from people throwing rocks at the trains. Thus the invention of the enclosed car carrier.
Don’t see a lot of trains in Florida... do you live around Chicago?
No, a suburb just north of Detroit.......
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