Greetings;


We have had great success using Silk Road Transport. They have a web site and are quite helpful at taking on tasks that other might not wish to help with or be inovated enough to be of use. And they do thier best to as economical as possible too.

In the early 90's I was at the old Morrison-Knudson plant In Hornell, NY (on a very regular basis, work related) and watched many times as new double deck passenger car bodies came into the plant via the hyway from the port of Baltimore. They had a dolly under one end, and a fifth wheel plate on the tractor end, lights,...

Recently, out here in northern California, Silk Road had a contract to move new articulated LRV's from the Vallejo (Mare Island) to San Jose, and other (used) articulated cars rom San Jose to Salt Lake City, all via the highway.

Good luck. I agree with others, moving over your local RR maybe more of a pain than it's worth. Too bad, but unless it's FRA compliant, generally that's how it is (or so I am told!).

Karl Johnson
MUNI Ry.

Thanks all, great ideas here. It is NOT one of the Quaker Square cars. I cannot say more at the moment.

I have pretty much eliminated the possiblity of a rail move already, too many complications at the other end of the move pretty much confirms that we have to use over-the-road truck the last 3-4 miles anyway and I do not want to deal with the Class 1 if not necessary.

It will take some time just to followup all the ideas you have generously provided. We'll do this one by one starting this week.

Peter Bowler, Akron

I've seen Silk Road make a lot of moves lately. We sometimes use Robbins for moves we can't handle ourselves.

There are two basic ways of moving the car, on it's wheels and off.

On its wheels entails loading the car on a lowboy trailer that has rails and can take the weight. For a heavyweight Pullman-type car, you're talking 80-90 tons for the car, and 80+ feet long, so that's quite a trailer, probably with two big, steerable bogies. But you can roll it on and off and don't need a crane. The load will be high and heavy and possibly have problems going over vertical curves.

Option 2 is off its wheels which means either lifting it with a crane or jacking it. Unless your crane is big enough to swing the car, the trailer or dollies that will hold the car will have to move under the car where it is, so the site where the car is to be loaded will have to be wheeled vehicle capable under the carbody. Lift the car, pull the trucks out, roll the dolly, tractor or trailer in. Lower the car onto the bed you have prepared to hold it securely, tie it down and you're good. Load the trucks on a flatbed and go. Reverse proceedure at the destination.

Then sign big checks.

Permit requirements and load restrictions are usually available for each state by doing a little web searching. Over 100 tons is usually considered a "super load", defined in Pennsylvania's code as follows: "Super load—A vehicle or combination or load having a gross weight exceeding 201,000 pounds, a total length exceeding 160 feet, or a total width exceeding 16 feet . . . . " Super loads usually call for bridge engineers to review structure ratings.

Alan Maples

.

Was the car EVER moved?