Railroad Innovation

40 years ago US railroads would load a semi-trailer on a flat car and deliver the trailer to its destination city. Box cars were another major form of rail transportation that would be loaded at a factory and delivered to the destination. 

Portland Oregon rail car manufacturer Greenbrier's 1984 innovation of a new money-saving railcar design would change rail transportation. Greenbriar planned to construct a low-profile rail car with the floor just a few inches above the rail. The railcar was mostly open on the sides, 8.5' wide with supports on each end, designed to hold an overseas 40' long metal container that sat low enough to place a second container on top...a double-stack container car.

To an outsider, this is a no-brainer, a compact rail car that can carry double the capacity of a single flatcar spot without the undercarriage and wheels (chassis). There would be less weight and easier loading, the container is sized for street transport pulled behind a semi-truck, providing rear doors for forklift loading at a dock-hi warehouse door.

Instead, there was pushback from the railroads;

-Not all containers should move in well-cars.

-they (double stacks) have a role in 8 to 10 key railroad corridors.

-well cars are not suited for heavy 20-foot containers.

-heavier domestic traffic would exceed the design capabilities of articulated well cars.

- will the container cars have a suitable life expectancy or break down?

Originally a 15-year life expectancy was given for the cars, another group gave them 18 years.

The railroad industry car owner Trailer Train (now called TTX) initially refused to purchase stack cars for member railroads. 

Said one Trailer Train executive 'We're the experts in intermodal and you folks really shouldn't be dabbling in this exotic technology'.

'We don't want containers in our rail yards because you've got a container, chassis, and there is all this extra equipment and we don't want to get involved in that'

Why so much pushback?

The rates the railroads were receiving for their domestic trailer on flat car (TOFC) shipments were a premium price and they didn't want double-stacks coming on and stealing their profitable traffic.

Maybe because the status quo was just too comfortable. 

Fortunately, Greenbriar had great salespeople who wouldn't settle for 'no'. More than one railroad executive said ' If you don't cease and desist, we will never order railcars from your company again'. 

With all this resistance at the start, today the double-stack train is the most visible type of rail car in the US. Mile+-long moving walls of metal containers traverse the nation's rails. Each container is said to take the place of a semi-trailer on the nation's highways.

Typically a container train is for long-haul shipments saving over-the-road drivers for more profitable time-sensitive shipments.   

In 2024, 179,000 domestic wells (a well can stack two containers) and 77,000 international wells are in service.

Additionally, most cars are articulated, with 3 and 5-well cars sharing a wheelset between the wells. There are also single-well cars with wheelsets at each end for heavier-loaded containers.  Articulated are shorter because they hook every 3 or 5 cars rather than on every single car, more cars fit on the same length of train

There are two types of containers,

International - typically carrying a 40' or 20' colorful container from overseas, sometimes with the name of a foreign shipping company on the side. Containers arrive at a port and are moved into the US for distribution. For the backhaul, the containers are loaded and shipped from a major inland terminal like Dallas or Chicago, back to the port, and onto a container ship. Many containers are sent back empty.

Domestic - a 53' container, often with a trucking company name like JB Hunt or Swift Transportation on the side.  These containers are typically shipped between cities and seldom leave North America. 

As usual, almost all of the negative objections and projections were wrong. 

Double-stack trains are now on every major railroad.

The height of bridges and tunnels that were too low, have been increased to allow double-stack trains, many were 'raised' by lowering the tunnel/bridge floor rather than raising the roof.

And the worry about longevity...today 40 years later, those original double stack cars estimated to last 15 years...are still on the road, surpassing 4 million miles of service. 

The annual railroad cost savings from double-stack cars is $4.1 billion.

Railway Age Magazine