Is there a roster for Norfolk Southern Roadrailers?

[learmoia]

I'm looking for a timeline for when the UP, CN and Amtrak Trailers would have transferred to Triple Crown ownership/service.

I found this:
http://www.qstation.org/BNSF_Triple_Crown/

But it doesn't really give a good timeline, just shows the Amtrak and UP trailers.

[James Costello]

The ex-UP and all 48'ers in the 410xxx series were off the roster in 1998.

Both Amtrak and CN exited the roadrailer business in 2004 and they were into TCS service in 04/05.

There's an article in the January 2001 edition of Railmodel Journal that covers the TCS fleet up to then, but the best source if you can find it is Eric Neubauer's Roadrailer ebook.

[learmoia]

Great  thanks James..

I'll look up that book..

~Ian

[Mark5]

You can contact Eric via the info here: http://eaneubauer.ipower.com/books.htm

The "books" are PDF.

Mark

[Jim Starbuck]

This is great information and a blast from my past.
My Dad, brother and close family friend all drove for Triple Crown operating between eastern Iowa and the Chicago rail terminal. All this was Norfolk Southern as far as I know. They were a great company to be involved with.
All the roadrailrers moved over the highway between end customers and the various rail yards via owner operator trucks. Other than yard spotters to assemble the trains, Triple Crown didn’t own any trucks.
I was in business with Dad from about 2011 until just after he passed in 2015 selling trucks on contract exclusively with Triple Crown operators. At peak, we had 50 trucks at various locations including Chicago, KC, Minneapolis, Fort Worth, Sandusky, Detroit, Harrisburg, Atlanta and the home terminal in Fort Wayne, IN.
It was cool to see how the the trains were assembled and broken down. A heavy duty forklift would position the rail bogies at intervals along the track and spotter trucks would position the trailers. I don’t know if it’s accurate but Dad always told me they could break down a 125 car train in 90 minutes. The yard looked like a bustling ant farm.

[learmoia]

I contacted Eric, and he responded quickly with availability for of the file.

I've got some ideas rolling around in the brain to make a 3d Design for a Mark IV bogie to convert 48' Trailers into Roadrailers.

~Ian

[DirtyD79]

This is great information and a blast from my past.
My Dad, brother and close family friend all drove for Triple Crown operating between eastern Iowa and the Chicago rail terminal. All this was Norfolk Southern as far as I know. They were a great company to be involved with.
All the roadrailrers moved over the highway between end customers and the various rail yards via owner operator trucks. Other than yard spotters to assemble the trains, Triple Crown didn’t own any trucks.
I was in business with Dad from about 2011 until just after he passed in 2015 selling trucks on contract exclusively with Triple Crown operators. At peak, we had 50 trucks at various locations including Chicago, KC, Minneapolis, Fort Worth, Sandusky, Detroit, Harrisburg, Atlanta and the home terminal in Fort Wayne, IN.
It was cool to see how the the trains were assembled and broken down. A heavy duty forklift would position the rail bogies at intervals along the track and spotter trucks would position the trailers. I don’t know if it’s accurate but Dad always told me they could break down a 125 car train in 90 minutes. The yard looked like a bustling ant farm.

I think nowadays roadrailers only run hauling auto parts between Kansas City and Detroit. Haven't seen `em here in western PA in quite a while. They were just such a common sight for so long you could almost take `em for granted.

[Mark5]

Yup!

[learmoia]

Yup!

Neat to catch the two remaining Roadrailer trains meet each other en route....

Either it is a really special catch, or they still run a pretty tight schedule and the meet happens close to that location each time the train runs (daily?/weekly?)

I have two memories of Roadrailers..
1: I saw at least one train on my trip to Altoona (at Horseshoe curve no less) in 1995ish
2: I could sometimes catch the Kansas City-Fort Worth Train in Oklahoma when I lived down there..  The one I remember had a GP60M with around 7-10 trailers.. 

[learmoia]

Ya know.. I'm surprised they never made a Container Chassis Roadrailer..

If they did, could you double stack them..

In a sense.. Double stack trains without well cars.

[DMetz]

Ya know.. I'm surprised they never made a Container Chassis Roadrailer..

If they did, could you double stack them..

In a sense.. Double stack trains without well cars.

Actually they did make container chassis Roadrailers, called Railrunner.  https://railrunner.com/   This is not related to the commuter railroad in New Mexico.  I saw something like this being tested at the Triple Crown yard in Fort Wayne.  The bogies and chassis for that test were kept along the fence in Fort Wayne for a few years.  The bogies were distinctly different from the normal roadrailer bogies.  I think the chassis were later stored in the parking lot at 41.06886, -85.11878.  There was no way to double stack these, they used a modified container chassis.  It would be too tall for another container on top.  And the point was to be able to use these without a crane or lift at the terminals.  It was supposed to operate just like the Triple Crown trailers.

The most interesting thing for me with the Triple Crown trains was when they started combining smaller trains for parts of the run.  The trailers of each section were facing opposite directions, and they needed to couple them together on the back end.  They had a special drawbar to connect the back bogies together, in a link and pin fashion.  It looked a lot like a drawbar used with disconnect type logging cars.

Dan M