Next Round of Trainworx 53' Trailers (May 2016)

[jagged ben]

Alliance was a popular user of the ATSF in the 90's. There trailers were quite popular on the Chicago-Cali routes. I think they were 53ft but they might have been 48ft.

Earliest photo evidence I have of the familiar paint scheme on ATSF is from 1993.   They could have been around earlier, Alliance goes back to the 70s according to the company website.  Hard to figure from the photos if those trailers in 1993 were 53' or 48'.   But 53' was starting to take over in the 90s.  Spine car production I believe switched over from 48' to 53' in 1993 as well.   So quite plausible the 53' footers could go back to 1993.  Of course you'd probably want to remove that URL if you're being accurate to then.  I'm sure that wasn't added until later.

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  I know you were joking, but if he made them, I'll bet they'd sell!

[peteski]

Peteski:  I know you were joking, but if he made them, I'll bet they'd sell!

Very true Nick, very true. Modern farm tractors in N scale would be a good seller.

[nscaler711]

Very true Nick, very true. Modern farm tractors in N scale would be a good seller.

Modern vehicles would sell period.
Need some American vehicles like GM Ford and Chrysler... But mainly GM... I need some Camaros in my life...

[Ngineer]

the "death" of the Deluxe Innovations 53'er

Has Deluxe Innovations shut down? Have they stopped making models at all? What a pity!

I was hoping for a rerun of (very) early well cars.

   Javier

[Smike]

Another bullseye.  Pat is reading my mind.   We're gonna need another run of spine cars pretty soon.

What a great time to be in N scale!

Absolutely. I filled up all of current spin car capacity just in the last UPS run.   I know the spine cars were the more challenging car for BLMA to produce. Hopefully the last run with the adjusted price brought it up to a viable product for Atlas to re-run.

[James Costello]

Earliest photo evidence I have of the familiar paint scheme on ATSF is from 1993.   They could have been around earlier, Alliance goes back to the 70s according to the company website.  Hard to figure from the photos if those trailers in 1993 were 53' or 48'.   But 53' was starting to take over in the 90s.  Spine car production I believe switched over from 48' to 53' in 1993 as well.   So quite plausible the 53' footers could go back to 1993.  Of course you'd probably want to remove that URL if you're being accurate to then.  I'm sure that wasn't added until later.

My earliest reference of the Alliance logo is also from 1993 (and also one of my most FAVE loop photos)
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=60397&nseq=579&favsearch=1

Can you share yours @jagged ben?

My guess is any early-mid 90s trailers are 45s or 48s. The 45' reefer trailers hung on forever out of the Central Valley and it was only around this time we start seeing less Transamerica / AXXA / IMEX etc 45' reefers and more of the "IMC" type of Clipper (ex-AXXA) / CH Robinson / Alliance / Martrac refrigerated 48s.

Alliance had those cool 48' containers with the exposed reefer units in the late 90s which I where I remember the big blue logo from. They ventured into 53' ReeferRailers in 2001 along with BNSF and Clipper, which was big news at the time. I'll have to look on my older hard drive to see whether they had any 53' refrigerated trailer in regular intermodal service before then, but I'm guessing not. BNSF used to always run the 48' reefer containers on chassis OFC out of Stockton (so they at least looked like trailers) but when UP picked up some lanes for Alliance they ran them double stacked with Pacer/APL across the midwest.

As an aside, I've always though those exposed reefer units were a great candidate for an etched metal kit. If only I had the time for CAD....

[jagged ben]

My earliest reference of the Alliance logo is also from 1993 (and also one of my most FAVE loop photos)
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=60397&nseq=579&favsearch=1

Are you saying that the bottom middle trailer is an older Alliance logo?  I would never have guessed.   I looked at the photo yesterday, too.
Now I will have to peruse my collection for that logo.   
Also I swear to god I see a faded Tranfax paint scheme weathering pattern underneath!   Didn't see that ever before!   

Can you share yours @jagged ben?

Both are the logo that resembles the current one.
BTW, did I say 1993?  I meant 1994. Oops.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=270504  (see the left side in the distance, a bit ambiguous I admit)
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=506059

My guess is any early-mid 90s trailers are 45s or 48s. The 45' reefer trailers hung on forever out of the Central Valley and it was only around this time we start seeing less Transamerica / AXXA / IMEX etc 45' reefers and more of the "IMC" type of Clipper (ex-AXXA) / CH Robinson / Alliance / Martrac refrigerated 48s.

That accords with what I've seen and gathered.  All from photos mind you, I barely got to see any of it at the time.

Alliance had those cool 48' containers with the exposed reefer units in the late 90s which I where I remember the big blue logo from. They ventured into 53' ReeferRailers in 2001 along with BNSF and Clipper, which was big news at the time. I'll have to look on my older hard drive to see whether they had any 53' refrigerated trailer in regular intermodal service before then, but I'm guessing not. BNSF used to always run the 48' reefer containers on chassis OFC out of Stockton (so they at least looked like trailers) but when UP picked up some lanes for Alliance they ran them double stacked with Pacer/APL across the midwest.

I will have to peruse my photos for this stuff, too.   Do you have any references?

[jagged ben]

Aha!  James!  Check out this video starting at 1:22.   1990!

[James Costello]

Are you saying that the bottom middle trailer is an older Alliance logo?  I would never have guessed.   I looked at the photo yesterday, too.
Now I will have to peruse my collection for that logo.   
Also I swear to god I see a faded Tranfax paint scheme weathering pattern underneath!   Didn't see that ever before!   

It's my belief that it is a red Alliance logo on a former Tranfax trailer. Thanks for the video link too mate, good to know the logo goes back a bit further than 93. I must admit the video did have me second guessing the logo for a while though...

Both are the logo that resembles the current one.
BTW, did I say 1993?  I meant 1994. Oops.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=270504  (see the left side in the distance, a bit ambiguous I admit)
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=506059

I'm very confident in saying these are both 48' refrigerated containers on chassis OFC.

I will have to peruse my photos for this stuff, too.   Do you have any references?

So these are the quotes from the modelintermodal yahoo group, which archives only go back to late '99

-- an Alliance Shippers 48-foot reefer box with nose mounted reefer doublestacked on a UP train. When BNSF has/had this business these boxes
were mounted on a chassis when shipped OFC.
Brian Kreimendahl - 12 July 2003

Paul Duncan wrote 5 March 2002:
>>I have noticed that on some APL stack trains, there are now Alliance Shippers refrigerated boxes. UP must have recently won some of
this business, because I had never seen these on UP up until a few months ago. I know that BNSF hauls a lot of Alliance business out of San Berdoo and Stockton, anyone know where UP's loading the business at?<<

Brian Kreimendahl wrote 6 March 2002:
Paul, that's very interesting news. I don't know for sure, but if I had to hazard a wild guess, I'd say that these might be loaded at UP ramp in
Lathrop. I will keep an eye out for these boxes on UP trains.

The 48-foot Alliance Shippers reefer boxes were shipped on chassis on the BNSF (and ATSF prior to that). These were usually LSFZ 48-foot fixed length container chassis. When you saw these Alliance reefer boxes on the UP were they doublestacked or riding TOFC-style on chassis?

Also, these boxes were supposed to be retired last year so it is good to see them still in service. I did pass one a couple of weeks ago on a local
freeway and breathed a sigh of relief.

Paul Duncan wrote 6 March 2002:
I saw them doublestacked with some APL boxes.

I'm pretty sure this photo from Matt Hannes site is on the UP at Cheyenne
http://www.matts-place.com/intermodal/part3/images/asiu578627.jpg

Otherwise, I need to spend some more time with my photo references to see if I have any better OFC shots for us.

[James Costello]

Spring 92 positive confirmation:
https://youtu.be/DWRRL5A5w5g

But it appears you know the date already @jagged ben   

So much pre-double stack goodness on this clip!

[jagged ben]

Spring 92 positive confirmation:
https://youtu.be/DWRRL5A5w5g

But it appears you know the date already @jagged ben   

So much pre-double stack goodness on this clip!

I was trying to find that video yesterday!  Totally remembered it but couldn't find it for the life of me.   

Yeah, so much good stuff in there.  A 10-pack, front runners, (not to mention the SD45-2B) ...   And I love the fact that it's an entire train with no interruptions, and the angle is close enough to decipher most of the road numbers.

Also that's great stuff about the Alliance 48 footers.    Interestingly, Scale Trains has announced a similar reefer cage with their 53' containers.   I guess the question remains when the 53' Alliance trailers are legitimately good for.