The Development of a New Design for Railroad Flatcar to Carry Cargo Containers and Highway Trailers Interchangeably

With the growth in the use of standardized freight containers by the maritime operators along with increased use in domestic rail freight operations, a need developed for a rail freight car to handle this traffic interchangeably with domestic piggyback traffic. This paper reviews the approach that was taken to evolve this design by (a) the initial writing of a short set of general specifications, (b) the purchase from each of four car builders of a prototype which embodied their individual ideas, (c) the laboratory testing of each prototype under one testing specification, (d) a period of service testing for each prototype, (e) the writing of final specifications for a production car on the basis of that which was learned during the laboratory and service testing, (f) the final performance testing of the production model. Data on end wall force measurements on containers, longitudinal restraint force, and trailer kingpin forces at various speeds of coupling impacts are presented for the final production design as well as for the tests on the four prototypes.