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Piggyback and Containers A history of Rail Intermodal on America's steel highw
Piggyback and Containers A history of Rail Intermodal on Americas steel highway by David DeBoer
Hard cover with dust jacket
Copyright 1992
Contents:
Introduction 10
1. The Less Than Carload Problem 13
2. It's Soup - The First Generation 21
3. The Amazing Mr. Ryan 27
4. Commercial Implications 33
5. "Load 'Ern Up" 43
6. Technology - Never Weres, WannaBes, and Sorta Weres 51
7. The Birth of Trailer Train 67
8. Intermodal Gains a Voice 73
9. Trailer Leasing 77
10. Terminal Mechanization 83
11. United Parcel Service - The Little Brown Package Car99
12. Trailer Train and Gene Ryan 105
13. Santa Fe - Super C and the Coax Train 111
14. Federal Railroad Administration 119
15. RoadRailer 129
16. New Technology 135
17. Deregulation - Free at Last 147
18. Putting Technology to Work 151
19. The Movement to Domestic Containers 167
20. End of the Beginning 175
Appendix 179
Bibliography184
Index 188
191 pages
This is the story of rail-intermodal, the process of transporting truck trailers or containers on specifically designed railroad cars. During the last 20 years, intermodal has revolutionized the American railroads. It is not simply the growth of all-new business, but a restructuring of the nation's overall transportation system. Years ago, who would have predicted that railroads, truckers and steamship lines would interface in the transportation of domestic and international containers.
Intermodal is the transfer of freight from one mode of transportation to another (e.g. ship-rail-truck). This idea is not new. The Birmingham & Darby Railway carried containers way back in 1839. However, in 1926, the electrified North Shore Line reinstated the system when they initiated a "Ferry Truck" service between Chicago and Milwaukee aboard flatcars and in special trains. In 1926 the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central flirted with containerization, only to be thwarted by regulations. Nevertheless, it was the Chicago Great Western Railroad, in order to boost depression revenues, who began to carry common-carrier truck trailers between Minneapolis and Chicago, in open gondola cars. The New Haven began to move trailers on flatcars with gusto, beginning in 1937. Following World War II, "Piggyback" began to grow by leaps and bounds.
Piggyback and Containers: A History of Rail Intermodal on America's Steel Highway presents the complete intermodal story. The development of Gene Ryan's Rail-Trailer Co., General Motors flirtation with a depressed center-car design, the establishment of Trailer Train, Southern Pacific's truck-trailer train experiment between Los Angeles-San Francisco (handling only company-owned Pacific Motor Trucking trailers), the separation of Pennsylvania Railroad's influence over Trailer Train, the combination rail-highway units familiarly called Rail Van and RoadRailer. Featured are the various hitch arrangements, the once popular trailer-leasing program, the expansion of United Parcel from a department store delivery service to the nation's largest freight carrier and their influence on rail-piggyback.
This book describes in detail the container phenomenon. How trucker Malcolm McLean introduced the modern container idea, the development of the highway-rail-sea container box, New York Central's love affair with Flexi-Van, American Car & Foundry's container experiments such as Convert-A-Frate and Adapto containers, the development of Sea-Land into a major rail-sea service and the evolution of the "Land-Bridge" concept of carrying containers from coast-to-coast. Not forgotten is the coming of the double-stack concept, the entrance of American President Lines as a major influence on container traffic and the explosive growth of domestic containerization.
Presented are the various types of rolling stock associated with intermodal. The "Clejan" car, the spine car, the "Portager" and the experiment with single-axle cars, plus the coming of Santa Fe's 10-pack articulated cars, the "FuelFoiler," the "Land-Bridger" car and today's double-stack cars. Not forgotten is the loading and unloading process. From circus-style loading to the various lift cranes and heavy-duty lift equipment that can pick up a trailer or container with ease.
The whole story of rail intermodal is between the covers of this book, starting with the earliest times to current date. It is illustrated with photographs of the various cars, the loading and unloading equipment and how-it-is-done views. Here, in book form, is the biggest container load of information about this modern day rail-freight phenomenon. All of the material is served up in an easy-to-read and understandable style, compiled by a man who has spent a great deal of time in rail intermodal. He knows everyone who is or ever was in the business of intermodal and, also, why things were done the way they were over the years.
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