Western Railroad Discussion > Load The Pipe Its Friday.................

  Been seeing these long pipe flat cars running empty for awhile now! It is nice to see some of them packed with loads!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/19 22:00 by Fiftyfooter.

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They're pipe flats. They travel empty at least 50% of the time.

PHall Wrote:
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> They're pipe flats. They travel empty at least 50%
> of the time.

Like center-beams

PHall Wrote:
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> They're pipe flats. They travel empty at least 50%
> of the time.

Isn't every car empty half the time? Like a broken clock is right twice a day.

Posted from Android

I  wonder how often manifest freight cars have a backhaul.  I know it is standard in intermodal to at least try to find one in some areas.

Depends on the lane and the available freight if cars are backhaul loads.   Some time ago we would send centerbeam cars back to california with plastic rolls for agricultural purposes.   Would be 2/3 cars per week.
UP has a large consumer of TBOX boxcar loads on the east side of Savage MN.  On the west side is a large loader of tbox boxcars, empty move is less then 8 miles.   We wopuld do the same with TBOX's, get them with inbound lumber loads, and send them
back to UP with canned good loads, and aluminum ingot loads.   It takes effort and someone to coordinate but backhauls or really short empty moves happen.