Intermodal 53' conatiners - when new?

[nebrzephyr]

I'm trying to determine in what time frame (years) 53' containers (and well cars for that matter) first started to be introduced to the railroads.

Thanks. Bob

[edwardsutorik]

According to my timeline:

PacerStacktrain says 53' domestic boxes were introduced in 1989
APL introduced them in 1991
53' boxes introduced in 1992

Well, that's the ballpark, anyway

The Gunderson Maxi Stack IV in 53' was introduced in 1997

So, I guess 53' boxes were topload only for awhile. Not too big a deal.




Ed

[drolsen]

Jul 6, 2014 11:38:35 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

The Gunderson Maxi Stack IV in 53' was introduced in 1997

Ed - I thought this sounded a little early, so I found this in the Modern Freight Cars List archives, posted by Tim Costello, who was preparing a clinic on stack car development:

Per Dave Casdorph's "The Freight Cars Journal, Intermodal Well Car Register, 2000 Edition"

First deliveries were to TTX in 1-5/99

DTTX 723000 - 723500

Gunderson also delivered the following cars in 1999:

AOK 55000 - 55339
BNSF 211000 - 211332
MCER 5250 - 5269

They're just a little too new for my 1998 modeling period, which I guess saves me some money! I'll be using Maxi Is and IIIs to meet my needs, as well as a few 48' Thralls.

Dave

[edwardsutorik]

Thanks Dave,

I've made the correction.



Ed

[nebrzephyr]

Thanks guys. So if I interpreted your replies correctly for my 1995-1997 modeling time frame it looks like I could use a few 53' containers, but should not have any 53' well cars. Bob

[drolsen]

Bob, that's how I understand it, and that's my plan for modeling 1998. I would think you could also have a few Triple 53' / 57' TOFC flat cars, like the Genesis F89F paired drawbar sets, and have them carry 53' containers on container chassis. In 1998, I can also have 53' spine cars (the Bowser model), which I think first appeared in 1997 (I'll have to check that), so depending on your cut-off, you might be able to use some of those. The Athearn 57' spine cars are too new for me though.

Dave

[mlehman]

Jul 7, 2014 5:32:55 GMT -8 nebrzephyr said:

Thanks guys. So if I interpreted your replies correctly for my 1995-1997 modeling time frame it looks like I could use a few 53' containers, but should not have any 53' well cars. Bob

Actually,I'd say probably not, especially for 1995. The 53' container popped up seemingly overnight here in the Midwest. I was gonna hazard a guess of 1999, but that seems to not be far off. I'm not sure that any 53' domestic containers were built before the dates cited above. Since they could be top-loaded, that worked while the rail equipment pool caught up, so not super critical for it to be around, but you can't ship in 53' containers before they were built.

I found one source that says 1989, but that was in conjunction with 48' domestic containers and I'm pretty sure applies only to 48': www.tracintermodal.com/wp-content/uploads/PDFs/Introduction%20to%20Intermodal%20Industry%20-%20TRAC.pdf

Wikipedia also cites 1989, but that's just too early for 53' -- or my memory is totally hosed: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container#cite_note-containershippings1-20

Of course, if it really is 1989, you're home free to run it all.

[drolsen]

For what it's worth, I found a discussion about container modeling in 1993 in the Model Intermodal group on Yahoo. One member posted that 53' containers (and trailers) were becoming common in 1993, although 40', 45', and 48' containers were still much more numerous. He mentioned that the first 53' all-purpose spine car was built in 1993. Another post added to those comments, pointing out that J.B. Hunt and APL were the first major users of 53' containers, with J.B. Hunt introducing the 53' containers into their fleet in 1993, so early use of 53' containers would have been limited to the corridors that served those two users until the larger containers became more common. Obviously, things would have changed by 1995-1997, but this seems to indicate that 53' containers were definitely in use.

Edit: Brian Kreimendahl also posted the following:

The first 53-foot domestic containers were built by Neptune for APL: APCU 530000-530299. These were X-Post boxes introduced in 1988.

Hope that helps,

Dave

[mlehman]

Dave,
That makes sense. I suspect what I am remembering was the expansion of service beyond those initial regional corridors. It certainly allows more flexibility for the modeler who pays attention to the early users.

Also kind of make me wonder what happened to the 48' domestic container. It must've never really taken off as 53' found favor.

[drolsen]

As I understand it (and I'm not intermodal expert by any means), international containers are limited to a max length of 40', so that is obviously a length that US shippers are limited to for exports, and of course anything arriving from overseas will come in 40' containers. Since domestic containers (for goods shipped within the US - and Canada, I think?) have grown to 53', there's really no use for 48' containers. I.e., if you can't use a 48' container for international shipments, and you can fit more in a 53' container, there's no sense in continuing to use 48' containers.

Dave

[curtmc]

For several years 53' containers were top loaded over 48' containers (which had become very common in the late-1980s) in the Maxi-III 48' well cars... One common train of them was the "Apple Stacks" (APL) train from Mexico to Michigan. Intermountain (and A-Line before) used to make a HO model of those earliest 53' containers that APL, Santa Fe, and even Conrail had... (the latter almost always seen on chassis on the CR van trains NY-Chicago)

Remember that back in the intermodal/double stack "explosion" of the late 1980s 20', 40' and 45' containers were "sea boxes" and the 48'ers "domestics"... The 48' containers were very popular for several years (JB Hunt, APL, CSX, BN America, and SP had thousands of them) but those faded quickly in the mid/late 1990s as the 53' containers became more common.

Then the OTR truckers tried to push the 57' trailers, and those didn't take off like the 53' did...

PS. The first full order of Maxi-IV cars may not have been until 1999 but TTX had some pre-production test cars in service 1997...

[edwardsutorik]

Jul 7, 2014 11:04:10 GMT -8 drolsen said:

As I understand it (and I'm not intermodal expert by any means), international containers are limited to a max length of 40'...

As Curt mentions, there are also ocean 45's. I think there are also ocean 53's, but on a VERY limited routing.

In a container ship's hold, the max is 40', as there are vertical guides at that spacing. On top, it's possible for 45's to overhang the 40's, though I think the diagonal tie-downs have to be allowed for.

It seems that different lines are more or less into the ocean 45's. It's my impression, for example, that Evergreen has very few, while Hyundai has "lots and lots".



Ed

[drolsen]

Curt and Ed - thanks for the clarification. It's interesting hearing about intermodal trends. I just haven't been able to keep up with that aspect of prototype (and model) railroading. I need to watching some CSX videos from the '90s to get a better idea of what containers and trailers I should be modeling.

Curt (or Ed) - Did CSX have any 53' containers in the '90s? I bought the white Atlas Jindo containers when they first came out, but I realized after the fact that they are a later production container (mid-2000s?). Intermountain and Athearn have fortunately produced some nice 45' and 48' CSX/CSL containers.

Jul 7, 2014 11:20:22 GMT -8 curtmc said:

PS. The first full order of Maxi-IV cars may not have been until 1999 but TTX had some pre-production test cars in service 1997...

Very interesting! I'd love to know the TTX numbers for those test cars so I could research them a little. I'd love to be able to justify just one set of 53' well cars for a little variety.

Dave

[mlehman]

In looking around for info, I never really found a good page illustrating the history of containers from the viewpoint of modelers. This one (it's a PDF, BTW) is OK from the view of global logisticians, though: www.tracintermodal.com/wp-content/uploads/PDFs/Introduction%20to%20Intermodal%20Industry%20-%20TRAC.pdf

Wikipedia had a comment that efforts to get the 53' container into international shipping founder on the lack of sufficient backhaul traffic to make it viable in cross-Pacific traffic to South China ports. Apparently, ToysRUs and another retailer were very interested because lots of their product cubed out before that got close to what they were being charged per pound (I probably mangled that description, but WTH ) Toys are pretty darn light, while most other international traffic often hit the over-the-road limit before the trailer is full.

It surprised me that shippers apparently are making a rather large practice of transloading three ocean/overseas containers into two 53' domestic boxes now. So while it may seem like you're seeing relatively fewer overseas containers on RRs on many routes, the percentage of imports carried is as high or higher than ever, it's just riding in those 53' containers now.

Curt,
Good point on the 48' boxes serving as a transition method to serve the 53' traffic before enough platforms were available. Having done that small but vital part in the development of intermodal, the 48's seem to have shuffled off to an early retirement. I see very few anyway.

[drolsen]

Jul 7, 2014 11:20:22 GMT -8 curtmc said:

PS. The first full order of Maxi-IV cars may not have been until 1999 but TTX had some pre-production test cars in service 1997...

The resident TTX expert on the Modern Freight Cars List provided some feedback indicating that TTX had a single, 5-unit Gunderson 53' stack car, DTTX 11088, built in 1993 for testing. They also had a 5-unit Thrall 53' stack car built in 1994:

DTTX 11092:
www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?id=42148

Both of these would be interesting but expensive to model, since you'd need to acquire two additional intermediate wells.

Lastly, they had a 3-unit Thrall prototype built in 1999. I'd have to find some more photos to see how these prototypes might differ from the production models (other than the obvious 5 units vs. 3 units on the production cars).

Dave

[curtmc]

Dave,
Checking my July 1997 ORER...
DTTX 110089 was single 53' well test car.
DTTX 110088, 110092 and 110094 were 5-section 53' well cars (I thought 110088 was Maxi-IV demo but forgot it was 5-section)

When looking at TTX cars of any type one must look for the 1100xx cars as most were test cars... For example BTTX 110053 and 110095-96 were the pre-production articulated autoracks that were testing several years before the production ones entered service.