Nostalgia & History > Early APL train

Back in March of 1987, the OAAP6 was making its way through the "S" curve south of Oroville, Ca. Seems like back then, more of the train was double stacked as opposed to mixing of single and double stacked containers.

Adam

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nice! I would love to see more pics of these trains. It brings back tons of my child hood memories.

Assuming that's true, that solid double-stack
(instead of single-stack mixed in) was more
common then, why would that be? More heavy
containers now, and lots of less-than-125-ton
cars for them to ride? Or can some containers
not be doubled even on 125-ton platforms?

In those days (late 80s into the early 90s), APL was responsible for "loading" the train. This was accomplished by communicating to the UPRR a load plan that was to be executed exactly to plan. APL's agreement with UPRR contained provisions that affected train cost (up or down) based upon actual slot utilization. Thus, APL always attempted to attain 100% slot utilization. The results were very efficient double stack trains with few open slots. That's all changed now with the underlying rail carriers responsible for loading their own trains.

Pete Baumhefner
Retired APL AVP Rail Operations