A Rare and Unusual Stack Car

[funnelfan]

I managed to catch a very rare and unusual stack car yesterday while railfanning the UP in the Columbia River Gorge. This car was built by FMC in 1984 for Sealand, and later sold to the SP as the SP 2397. This may be a one-of-a-kind car, but I'm not 100% certain of that. Here is a website with more photos from 2006.

http://www.elvastower.com/forums/index.php?/topic/12190-sp-2397-unique-double-stack-car/

 

[funnelfan]

I had it confirmed that this was a one of a kind car.

 

[North Coast Railroad]

or 5 of a kind!

 

[diburning]

How do they unload the bottom container?

 

[cv_acr]

How do they unload the bottom container?

The same way they unload any container from any other intermodal car. Lift it off from the top.

 

[diburning]

And the sides of the car don't get in the way?

 

[cv_acr]

They stack containers in massive piles in container terminals and in the cargo holds of container ships, so the lifting cranes are definately designed to lift containers that are right up against an obstruction like the side of the ship's hold, another stack of containers, or the bottom level of a railcar like this.

Most of the earliest double stack cars had these tall corner bulkheads (for lack of any other descriptive term). Like these old Gunderson Husky-Stacks:

http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=csxt620132&o=csxt
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=dttx63270&o=ttx

(A-Line modeled this type of car in HO.)