My calendar for December 2018

‘Railer. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—The December 2018 entry of MY calendar is out-of-date = 2015. That’s because RoadRailer is defunct. The concept was to make highway trailers also railroad-worthy, then couple together long strings to be pulled by a railroad locomotive.
This works because highway trailers easily fit railroading’s metric. But compared to railroad cars, highway trailers are fragile. The only railroad thing left is the railroad trucks/wheels. The heavy construction of railroad equipment is gone.
Highway trailers can’t be slammed in a railroad-yard. They can’t be switched or humped. They can’t even be pushed. All you can do is pull ‘em.
A long concrete pad is needed to assemble RoadRailer. Highway trailers won’t stand by themselves. The railroad wheels are only on the rear of the trailer. The front rests on the railroad wheels on the rear of the trailer ahead.
A highway trailer has to be positioned by truck before railroad wheels can be attached. RoadRailer requires a separate facility. It isn’t established railroading. To switch to ‘Railer, massive investment is needed. Typical railroad practice ends.
Railroading is also excellent moving heavy bulk loads; like coal or crude-oil or grain. The railroad has to be built to accommodate that — ‘Railer is a feather.
RoadRailer continued as long as the wheels, etc, weren’t due for replacement. The highway trailers also needed additional equipment to fit the railroad wheels. —No one was willing to invest.
It was easier for the railroads to continue “Trailer-on-Flatcar” (TOFC). We see a lot of that. Plus trailers without highway wheels mounted on “spine-cars;” just enough framing to be a railroad car.
In each case the locomotives are also pulling the weight of the railroad equipment; although it’s light.
With Trailer-on-Flatcar the trailer is ready-to-rubber as soon as it hits the ground. It already has highway wheels. Highway wheels were already on RoadRailer, inches above the track. But ‘Railer isn’t railroad equipment, and has to be taken apart.
Railroads began double-stacking container bodies, the equivalent of trailer-bodies without wheels. Such containers are used in trans-ocean shipping; 40 feet. Larger than 40 feet are “domestic” — not trans-ocean — as long as 53 feet. “Domestic” is “intermodal;” doublestacked on railroads, then “rubbered” to their final destination on highway spine equipment.
This train is westbound into Portage PA. It’s coming off the bypass Pennsy built in 1898 to take out torturous curves toward Allegheny Mountain.