Canadian Railroads > Freight Car Friday - Flats With Bulkheads, Some With Plate Steel

The theme is in the title; bulkheads add a lot of visual interest to a flat car.
1. Arguably the most beautiful bulkhead flats ever, this graceful design showed up on CP and maybe CN, too. But the BCOL green trumps all, on BCOL 864138, eastbound in CN's #302 going over Range Road 225, east of Edmonton at Bremner. The date is January 20, 2019, the time 1342. The car was built in 7-80, and I have its length as ~62', but I didn't get that off any info in the photo. Any correction is welcome, as is the builder (it seems a lot like Marine Industries stock on CP, if my memory is good). I think the fish-belly centre sill, stretch length, and trapezoid bulkhead gussets, make for a perfect piece of industrial design - form follows function.
2. A loaded bulkhead flat this time, TTPX 804897 was built 05-01, with an exterior length of 67'11", an inner length of 62'0", and only a portion of that space occupied by a heavy load of plate steel. It's in #313 at 1111 on June 16, 2019, coming up to Bretville Junction.
3. Finally, we have CN 218010, a 52' flat with discontinuous bulkheads, built 9-73, in the consist of #302 at 1545, rolling across Highway 751 at MacKay, AB, between Niton and Leaman; the crossing is MP 92.26 or something like it, the date is July 12, 2019. Again, the car's volume capacity is severely underutilized by its load of plate steel. A sister car, carrying aluminum ingots, was posted up on 3/19/18 at https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,4512100,4512100#msg-4512100.
Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/19 13:46 by feclark.

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At one time, bulkhead flatcars were the preferred car for transporting milled lumber, a huge business for all railways in Canada.

However they have been largely replaced by centre beam flat cars. There are two reasons this has happened. The car end bulkheads were found to act as sails which caused increased fuel consumption and perhaps derailments. Since these cars regularly made the trip across the Canadian prairies, where trains were regularly slowed to crawl handling empty bulkhead flats.

Bulkhead flats required shipper supplied steel strapping to secure the bundles of milled lumber. This strapping regularly cut into the outer boards and sometimes broke, causing a hazard to anyone near the cars as they passed.

The first centre beam flat cars appeared on the Milwaukee Road, and the design has been much refined over the years. These cars did not catch the wind like the bulkhead cars, and most also came with tie down cables and corner brackets attached.

Bulkhead flats came in several lengths between bulkhead , and CP painted the cars of different capacity between bulkheads in different colours.
Lumber packages came in standard sizes, and shippers would specify certain types of car

I remember seeing a video at UP where there was some kind of harmonic (I suppose) motion caused by empty bulkheads. The motion actually caused wheel lift. At that point they got a 40 or 50 mph speed restriction when empty.

eminence_grise Wrote:
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> At one time, bulkhead flatcars were the preferred
> car for transporting milled lumber, a huge
> business for all railways in Canada.
>
> However they have been largely replaced by centre
> beam flat cars. There are two reasons this has
> happened. The car end bulkheads were found to act
> as sails which caused increased fuel consumption
> and perhaps derailments. Since these cars
> regularly made the trip across the Canadian
> prairies, where trains were regularly slowed to
> crawl handling empty bulkhead flats.
>
> Bulkhead flats required shipper supplied steel
> strapping to secure the bundles of milled lumber.
> This strapping regularly cut into the outer boards
> and sometimes broke, causing a hazard to anyone
> near the cars as they passed.
>
> The first centre beam flat cars appeared on the
> Milwaukee Road, and the design has been much
> refined over the years. These cars did not catch
> the wind like the bulkhead cars, and most also
> came with tie down cables and corner brackets
> attached.
>
> Bulkhead flats came in several lengths between
> bulkhead , and CP painted the cars of different
> capacity between bulkheads in different colours.
> Lumber packages came in standard sizes, and
> shippers would specify certain types of car

The centre-beam cars still catch the wind something fierce, though. I was out at Ardrossan one day shooting CN #347, empty lumber train, and it sailed through at whatever, at least 45 mph. I'd just pulled in with my little Nissan Sentra, the driver's door was open, and fortunately I was clear of it for my shot. The wind from the flats slammed the door shut, and if I'd been sitting half out, I'd have ended up with some broken bones, I'm sure. A thrilling experience, though, and I've never forgotten it. What a rush!
Fred

Bulkhead flats were nicknamed "sailboats" on the BC Northline.

Chris Rye