Roadrailer questions

[jettrainfan]

Hi, i have a few questions about roadrailers.

1.Wat are the advantages over them(compared to intermodels and such)
2.Why are they only 1 road name like triple crown and swift
3.Whats the whole point of them?

Thanks

[Cody J]

I'm not an expert on this but may provide some insight:

1. The advantages of them are that they don't have to put the trucks on rail cars, they put them directly on the rails, well, not directly but you get the point.

2. I'm not sure why there is only a few roadnames.

3. Obviously, the whole point of them is to move fast freight long distances. Or that they don't have to use intermodal-type cars on these and they can use them for other trains.

Again, I'm not an expert and some of my info may be wrong but I hope that this provides some insight.

[Dr EMD]

See Wikipedia under roadrailer.

[jward]

the roadrailer's advantage is lower tare weight. the weight of the flatcar is eliminated. thus a roadrailer train is very lightweight, and can in theory accelerate faster than a traditional train.

the disadvantage is that you can't mix roadrailers into a regular train. even when amtrak had theirs, they always trailed the regular consist. roadrailers are not as strong as regular freight cars, and they have non standard couplings.

as far as i know, norfolk southern is the only railroad committed to the concept, they operate them under the name triple crown. i have 4 or more trains a day by my house.

[jettrainfan]

alright, thanks for the info!