Hi, again. I was wondering which of the Articulated Autoracks are the excess height ones, the Athearn or Atlas. I heard one was the same height as normal auto racks, one was higher. Thanks
Well technically all autoracks are excess height but the Auto-max one's made by Athearn are taller then the Atlas which are the same height as stardard autoracks.
The Gunderson Auto-Max articulated autorack (made in N by Athearn) is about 1-2' taller than the norm ... about the max height any car can be The Thrall articulated autorack (made in N by Atlas) is simply the normal size autorack ... but longer.
You may have different experiences on this than I have, but I believe that the AutoMax cars are used in specific movements, usually in groups and do not mingle with the autorack pool. The Atlas cars on the other hand intermingle with the rest of the autorack pool. At least that's what I've observed.... Lou
While I have seen solid trains of the Gunderson car, we also saw small blocks of them in other rack trains crossing the Belen cutoff during Memorial Day weekend. Rarely singles. Strangely we see very few Thrall cars on the BNSF but they regularly appear on the 'Golden State" (UP) line through Vaughn, NM. While the Gundersons have not been seen by me on UP but they are frequently seen on the BNSF.
I heard the Auto-Maxes travel in units of 6. So if you wanna get prototypical, have at least 6 or 12 of them in your train.
I see the Thrall cars sometimes, mixed in with regular autoracks. The Auto-Max cars never come through here.
the reason why you are more likely to see the Thrall articulated auto-racks has to do with max clearances along the routes they are used on. Since they are essentially the same size (except for length) as the normal 89 footers ... they can go anywhere the normal ones can. Since the automax is a bit larger ... there are restrictions as to where it can travel ... you don't want to get one jammed in a tunnel or under a bridge The automax was put into service before thrall's version ... so if you haven't seen one on your local tracks yet ... then you will probably never see one (unless they clear the path so-to-speak.)
Auto max's run in dedicated trains, by themselves. The atlas cars run mixed in with standard racks in any order. If you see a max by itself or with a coupleothers in a mixed frieght, it is either going home for repairs or coming back from them to a place where they can be spliced back into a cut. Max's rarely, if ever run by themselves, but that seems to be changing, as they are being spliced into regular cuts of racks lately...keep an eye out....
