Eastern Railroad Discussion > 125-T lettering on well cars?

Just something I've been wondering for a while; why do many articulated well cars have "125-T" painted on them near the articulated section? Does anyone know what this means? Thanks in advance...

MC6853 Wrote:
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> Just something I've been wondering for a while;
> why do many articulated well cars have "125-T"
> painted on them near the articulated section? Does
> anyone know what this means? Thanks in advance...

Location of 125-ton capacity trucks, with 38" wheels.

To further clarify, just a bit, the use of 125 ton trucks at the articulated joints of double stack cars means that the weight carrying capacity of the axles at those joints is 78,750 pounds for each axle. (315,000 Gross Weight on Rail per the journal and wheel size of a 38" wheel) is 315,000 pounds divided by four equals 78,750 pounds per axle. That means the intermediate wells of a stack car, which have only two axles to support their load above, is 157,500 pounds or 78.75 short tons. This includes the weight of that intermediate section of the well car ( I think 26000-28000 lbs) plus the tare weight of  maximum two containers above, AND the net weight of whatever cargo they are carrying. Most empty containers weigh around 9000 lbs. Correct me if I am wrong. So if my calculations are right the intermediate sections of a well car can carry 157,500 lbs minus 26,000 lbs for the well section of the railroad car minus 18,000 pounds for the two containers equals 113,500 of net weight carrying capacity or about 28.4 tons of cargo in each container. This is a bit over what my next question on TO asked, which referred to the current 80,000 pound gross limit on most highway for five axle semi-trailers.My estimates for tare weights of the intermediate wells and containers may be low. BUT, before the introduction of 125 trucks at intermediate locations in a well car many of them could not handle what the truckers could legally handle on most roads. Remember, this goes back to the mid-1980s and early 1990's when some of these decisions were made.

I can't give you any better numbers for the weight of the well sections or tare weight of the containers, but your calculation methodology looks correct to me.  One point I would add is that the well cars are often tasked with loading two 20' containers on the bottom, rather than a 40' container.  Even though each 20' container is highway legal, putting both of them together in a well will in effect increase the weight beyond what highway loadings would be for a 40' container.

To czephry.............you are absolutely correct. Thank you. I usually do my Trainorders check in the evening often when i am watching M*A*S*H re-runs; and I loose thoughts. In fact, I think it was shipper demand to load two 20 ft cons in the lower wells that pushed the use of 125 ton intermediate trucks. Twenty foot boxes are usually used for heavier items, like steel coils and their cradles. I'd like to know of other commodities more common to 20ft containers, where they would 'weigh out' before they would 'cube out'. And of course two twenty's fully loaded would weigh a lot more than one heavily loaded 40 footer. When visiting my son in Chicago I have seen plenty of marine five pak wells with 10 twenty footers on the bottom and five forty footers above, for 15 cons per well car. From what I have been able to research, 20ft cons are around 20% of the marine intermodal box fleet. But they are still very much in demand. One note is that twenty footers cannot be double stacked; I think it has to do with room to maneuver the lever on the IBC's that would be in the middle. HOWEVER, UPS convinced the RR's to build around 100 56ft single well cars that could carry four stacked 28ft containers they used. How they overcame the stacking issue is unknown to me. But some still exist; saw one in my area a few weeks ago, empty.

JLinDE Wrote:
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> Twenty foot boxes are usually
> used for heavier items, like steel coils and their
> cradles. I'd like to know of other commodities
> more common to 20ft containers, where they would
> 'weigh out' before they would 'cube out'.

Take a look at your local granite and quartz countertop supplier.  Many of them receive stone slabs from overseas, in 20' shipping containers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/16 11:52 by bioyans.