How much can a freight train car haul?

ish6

Since 2001
Hi Community ---

How much of an item, let's say "lettuce" in "bulk-load" can be shipped by a freight car?

Thanks
Ish
 
This is an interesting question. It depends upon the capacity of the boxcar that is carrying lettuce. A single 53-foot boxcar can be 286,000 lbs! That's a lot of lettuce in boxes, but there's a certain height and quantity that can fit within a box car. How many boxes fit on the pallet, and what's the square footage of each pallet? How high do they stack?

It gets a bit complicated as you can see... There are other factors that get determined for the simple load of lettuce loaded in a boxcar, and the the load isn't just dumped into a boxcar, and is instead determined by cubic weight.

To take this a bit off topic, this is where it gets tricky too because this also weighs, pun not intended, into the cost of the shipping as well. A boxcar full of feathers, for example, will cost more to ship even though they can fit a lot more because the weight is far less, therefore the railroad will want to charge more for it to make up the difference, and the fact the lighter product is more prone to damage, i.e. insurance liability costs. Bulk items such as bricks and heavy items will cost less because they can make a lot of money on those as they are because of the lower risk in shipping bricks because they don't crush as easily. To keep the prices from being all over the place, there is an associated of common carriers, including truck companies, that has created a special pricing that is all in something called shipping classification codes.

http://www.fmlfreight.com/freight-101/freight-classes/

I found this out when I was estimating shipments of printing equipment, special film and paper, and other supplies worldwide.

Fun! :)
 
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One of the worst commodities in a boxcar is rolls of paper, especially when there is a shifted load, against a bent outward plug door. Sometimes there no salvaging it, and a wreck crew pulls it out, and rolls it out onto the ground, out of the way. One time a 2000 lb roll, 8 ft long, rolled off the loading dock, and it felt like an earthquake. Kids threw a fusee onto a loaded centerbeam flatcar of lumber, and there was no salvaging it, and the car was tipped over and rolled into the clear. They also opened a plug door, and seeing nothing worth stealing, they threw a fusee into the boxcar of DelMonte canned goods, and the entire load and railcar was destroyed. Slab steel is so heavy that it is loaded into open top gons, and is loaded only over top the trucks. Iron ore is so heavy that sometimes a hopper is only filled halfway to the brim, and still the swaybellied, bent, overloaded, long abused ore hopper had wheel flanges that were rings of fire, and showered sparks, emited by wheel contact with the hopper slope sheet and bay doors. The worst disaster was when a dispatcher did not calculate the extreme weight of a consist of loaded hoppers, that the train became a runaway, with no brakes on the Tragedy of Cajon pass.
 
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One of the worst commodities in a boxcar is rolls of paper, especially when there is a shifted load, against a bent outward plug door. Sometimes there no salvaging it, and a wreck crew pulls it out, and rolls it out onto the ground, out of the way. One time a 2000 lb roll, 8 ft long, rolled off the loading dock, and it felt like an earthquake. Kids threw a fusee onto a loaded flatcar of lumber, and there was no salvaging it, and the car was tipped over and rolled into the clear. They also opened a plug door, and seeing nothing worth stealing, they threw a fusee into the boxcar of DelMonte canned goods, and the entire load and railcar was destroyed. Slab steel is so heavy that it is loaded into open top gons, and is loaded only over top the trucks. Iron ore is so heavy that sometimes a hopper is only filled halfway to the brim, and still the swaybellied, bent, overloaded, long abused ore hopper flanges were rings of fire, and showered sparks, emited by wheel contact with the hopper slope sheet and bay doors. The worst disaster was when a dispatcher did not calculate the extreme weight of a consist of loaded hoppers, that the train became a runaway, with no brakes on the Tragedy of Cajon pass.

The bored local kids do a number on freight cars. The old Lawrence, MA freight house was torched a few years ago after some kids lit a boxcar full of paper products on fire and everything lit up.
 
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I could never understand why in Altoona Pa, (as loaded coal was never shipped West) after an eastbound loaded coal train had already ascended the -2.75% grade, and the grade to the East was generally 0.5%, or less ... they then after the fact, re-weighed, and graded, the coal as to it's density and lump size ... wasn't that procedure already done at the mine loadout ?

Personally, in Trainz, I have never even loaded a railcar (aside from visible loads like: coal, scrap, trailers, and containers ... etc ...) Does a loaded Trainz consist physically react any differently, from that of a lighter, empty consist ?
 
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absolutely, if you actually run in cab mode.

Yup and I've actually stalled a train or two which was an interesting experience as I had to back down the hill and cut the train to bring part of it over then come back for the other half.
 
This is an interesting question. It depends upon the capacity of the boxcar that is carrying lettuce. A single 53-foot boxcar can be 286,000 lbs! That's a lot of lettuce in boxes, but there's a certain height and quantity that can fit within a box car. How many boxes fit on the pallet, and what's the square footage of each pallet? How high do they stack?

It gets a bit complicated as you can see... There are other factors that get determined for the simple load of lettuce loaded in a boxcar, and the the load isn't just dumped into a boxcar, and is instead determined by cubic weight.

To take this a bit off topic, this is where it gets tricky too because this also weighs, pun not intended, into the cost of the shipping as well. A boxcar full of feathers, for example, will cost more to ship even though they can fit a lot more because the weight is far less, therefore the railroad will want to charge more for it to make up the difference, and the fact the lighter product is more prone to damage, i.e. insurance liability costs. Bulk items such as bricks and heavy items will cost less because they can make a lot of money on those as they are because of the lower risk in shipping bricks because they don't crush as easily. To keep the prices from being all over the place, there is an associated of common carriers, including truck companies, that has created a special pricing that is all in something called shipping classification codes.

http://www.fmlfreight.com/freight-101/freight-classes/

I found this out when I was estimating shipments of printing equipment, special film and paper, and other supplies worldwide.

Fun! :)


Hello John,

Very informative, sir ---

I did 30 new products, all veggies from Cauliflower to lettuce, to Cloves. Etc. (not yet at the DLS, tho) … and kind of determine the mass for each in bulk, differently, of of course, since a lettuce is obviously heavier then clovers. etc. I hope I got everything right, or at least close to it! :wave:

@Cas -- thank U, sir for your posts, especially the one that mentioned slab steel... etc

Take Care both
Ish
 
A little late for your uploaded products info request, but info non-the-less:
-It gets even more complex, for your original question of "how much weight can a train car carry" when you consider all the variables.
Example: A 50 foot box car has a rough volume of approximately 4,165 cubic feet, but may be equipped with trucks (bogies) that have either 28 inch, 33 inch, 36 inch or 38 inch wheel-sets. The diameter of the wheel affects weight capacity, in that, the larger the diameter of the wheel, the more of the wheel is in contact with the rail head, thus is able to carry more weight. So, a 50 foot box with 38 inch wheels might carry a total weight of 305,000 lbs (286,000 pound load capacity), but a 50 foot box equipped with only 33 inch wheels may only carry 263,000 lbs of total weight (including the box car itself, and/or a 240,000 pound load capacity). (*note, numbers/weights are estimated/approximated for ease of explanation, and may not be accurate)

-As an aside, I think the better approach to this question might be to look at Volume, such as Jcitreon mentioned above. Produce is shipped in a pretty standard sized cardboard box, which when stacked in an interlocking pattern, will fit on a standard 40 inch wide by 48 inch long pallet/skid. These boxes are listed as "produce boxes" and give dimensions and capacities in "bushels" .. https://www.uline.com/BL_8363/Produce-Boxes
-- The product being shipped will never be larger than the volume of the car, nor over the car's maximum load weight .. So a load of Cabbage will weigh the same as a load of Lettuce, but the volume of Lettuce will be more than the volume of Cabbage, as Cabbage is heavier than Lettuce, for the same volume of product .. A load of Lettuce might fill the car completely, where a load of cabbage might only load the car 3/4 full.
 
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