European Railroad Discussion > Freightliner - a Genese and Wyoming company

66420 seen at Basingstoke.   First time I've noticed the reference to G & W.

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Wait 'till they start painting the locos orange!
Keith G, London, UK

Are Freightliner trucks in the US and Freightliner locomotives in Australia one and
same ownership or are the names coincidental??

Frank30

Frank30 Wrote:
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> Are Freightliner trucks in the US and Freightliner
> locomotives in Australia one and
> same ownership or are the names coincidental??
>
> Frank30

Coincidental.

Freightliner in the UK was used as the brand name for a new operation introduced by British Rail in 1965. This was most innovative as it used (for the first time in Europe, and possibly the world)? ISO standard 8ft square boxes in length modules of 10ft (ie 10, 20, 30 and 40ft) on  permanently coupled into five unit, each of 60ft, sets. Initially the aim was for domestic container traffic, as the highway system in the UK was poor and containerisation of shipping had scarely begun. Howvere this soon changed, and now Freightliner is overwhelmingly a port - to - inland distribution centre operation It was privatised as a self contained opertaion in the late 1990s, and has since diversified into other forms of rail freight, as well as having changed owners.  I doubt it has any  connection to US trucking or Australian rail freight, although both are possible

Same company in the UK and Australia (both now being owned by G&W), zero to do with the truck manufacturer.

spflow Wrote:
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> I doubt it has any  connection to US
> trucking or Australian rail freight, although both
> are possible

???

exhaustED Wrote:
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> spflow Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I doubt it has any  connection to US
> > trucking or Australian rail freight, although
> both
> > are possible
>
> ???
I said this because I really didn't know but thought it unlikely, especially the US trucking bit!

More importantly - did the BR Freightliner concept really cause the ISO container movement to take off? Someone must know.

While it seemed like it at the time, I was only 16 in 1965 and believed everything that Harold Wilson (and the journal "Modern Railways") said!
AL6 locos (now class 86) seemed to epitomise the famous "white heat of the technological revolution", along with Concorde and the QE2, to say nothing of long-welded rail and Pandrol rail clips!

MitchGDRMCo Wrote:
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> Same company in the UK and Australia (both now
> being owned by G&W)


Poland and the Netherlands too.