May 21, 2008 Norfolk Southern Receives First Uni-Level Railcars for Large Motor Vehicle Transport NORFOLK, VA. -- Norfolk Southern Corporation has put into service the first of the new Uni-Level railcars supplied by TTX Company. Last week, Norfolk Southern loaded the first 13 of 55 Uni-Level cars received from TTX, officially launching the railroad’s Uni-Level service network. The fully enclosed Uni-Level railcar is designed to provide economical rail transportation of large motorized vehicles, including Class 5-8 trucks and recreational vehicles. Transporting these types of vehicles in a Uni-Level car helps ensure that the vehicles will arrive at their distributors in factory-quality condition and will not require re-work, as is typically the case with over-the-road transportation. Prototypes of the Uni-Level railcar have been tested successfully in the marketplace over the past three years. Norfolk Southern’s Automotive Group and Modalgistics Supply Chain Services will provide dock-to-dock shipment management to Uni-Level users through their Load Planning, Web-Based VIN Visibility, Optimized Mode Selection, and Strategic Network Design services. The initial Uni-Level service network will be concentrated on local NS service lanes, with later expansion into Mexico, Canada, and the West Coast. For more information, please contact unilevel@nscorp.com. Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) is one of the nation’s premier transportation companies. Its Norfolk Southern Railway subsidiary operates approximately 21,000 route miles in 22 states and the District of Columbia, serving every major container port in the eastern United States and providing superior connections to western rail carriers. Norfolk Southern operates the most extensive intermodal network in the East and is North America’s largest rail carrier of metals and automotive products.
Very innovative....I hope this succeeds. NS, and Southern before that, has always seemed to develop outside-the-box concepts and solutions for their customers.
Check out the following link for a photo: http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nscorp/Media/News%20Releases/2008/unilevel.html How long are they? Doesn't look like 89ft....maybe 70?
Wouldn't it be interesting if 18-wheelers were loaded on trains to help with transportation costs and rising fuel prices? The independent truckers who have to pay their own fuel costs might jump at the chance to have their whole truck transported across the country load and all. Seems it would cost a lot less per load.
I've often wondered why that's never been tried. With fuel on the way to orbit, maybe now's the time for 'AutoTrain' to branch out into 'TruckTrain'. Drivers in a coach, tractor, trailer and load in a rack and run a hundred of them cross-country. If the cost of the trip on a train became more effective than driving, it might sell.
This should be a great thing ... I was in the transporter business for a year ... driving rv's , school busses , mail trucks , etc from manufacturer to destination ... NS will need to build an RV loading rack in Northern IN ... in the Elkhart vicinity ...
They do that in Germany and Switzerland - I seem to recall the term "rail ferries" applied to such trains. One difference is that a lot more European trucks appear to be integral, not tractor-trailers, and can't travel piggyback the American way. They have to drag the weight of the cab along.
With the greater distances in this country compared to most European locations, it seems that 'ferrying' would make even more sense here.
I had always thought of this type of service as what we do with Triple Crown. We get the trailers to the hub and the trucks get the trailers to the destination. It seems to me to be the best way to get trailers where they need to go with the least amount of fuel used by drivers. When I am pulling 150 trailers and meeting other trains with 150 trailers it adds up quickly!
so now what happend to the excess exsess height box cars that gunderson just came out with and was in a 03 or 04 trains magazene and the drop drop bottom lumber cars and the big horse manewer (thats what my couzin called it wen he first saw one) or refers haha funny thing about what is in parenthesies well heres the hole story behind that here it goes well one day we were waiting in taylor for a train me my cousin and my dad so we were waiting for 10 minuts and here it comes so about 30-40 cars back here are two brand new BNSF super refers and all of a sudden justin well my couzin goes to my dad "hey what are those horse manewer cars" they looked like horse manewer or horse cars that transport horses to farmers and my dad goes "no they are refrigerator cars not crap cars" so we are laughing and the end.......
