For those of you who regularly see the large Auto Max rack cars...where do the railroads haul these cars? Front of the train together; back of the train together; or wherever they fit in the train? What are they hauling...cars, trucks or SUV's? Gene Trescott Virginia & Gulf Coast Railway Gulf Coast Industries, Inc.
All of the above! I personally handled only a very very few AutoMax cars, but a LOT of the regular kind. We used to put together a large cut of auto racks at Eola for pickup by a mid evening stack train departure from Cicero. We would platoon the cars by their setout points, ie the first set-outs at the head of the cut etc. That stack train was a pretty good job to catch on the I.D. pool even though it had work enroute. After the pick-up, it was normally "high green" all the way to LaCrosse WI. The set outs would be done by the crew(s)taking the train west from La Crosse. CT
Anytime I've seen them up here is usually been a single mixed into a normal set of autorack. There was a single parked on a siding for about 2 weeks by itself waiting to be picked back up and moved. Toyota only uses the standard autoracks so anything else gets stored in the yard by the mainline till it get routed out. I've even seen regular autoracks hang our on a siding for a week or two because they don't have the right hold downs for Toyota as well.
