Wanted to ship a helicopter

@CALNNC posted:

I was curious about a real helicopter would be shipped on a flat car.  Amazingly, a search of images revealed not on picture of a real on.  So, went to the UP site,  just because it came up, and looked around for some information.  I found this statement,

"Freight railroads do not ship personal property (including personal vehicles), passengers or pets"

So if I really wanted to ship my personal helicopter (if I owned one and was a gazillionaire) from CA to NC, would a truck be the only option?

Yes.

Weird, I would have thought for very large objects, the personal property thing wouldn't apply? Like if you're a gazillionaire and ordered something like a huge bronze that could not move by road? Though maybe those sorts of things would be owned by the contractor or whatever you'd hire to move\order the thing from. I presume that RR's don't want to touch this because of the insane liability they'd incur if something like that got damaged? Or does it have to do with the legal definitions of shippers?

It occurs to me that this may also one of the reasons why, back in the old days, there was alot of mail & baggage traffic, since small businesses & the general public would have been able to send LCL packages that way. Now that the freight carriers are out of that business, it's no longer possible.

I want to say I've seen pictures of helicopters, non-privately owned, on flatcars under tarps somewhere before. I suppose one of the smaller, 1950s ones might, disassembled, might also be able to be packed in a auto boxcar which would protect it in transit...?

The U.S. Army ships their rotor wings on trucks when ground transportation is required.

If you snuck it into a container, perhaps?

To ship it by rail, you would need to go through a third-party shipping agent.  That's the only way a helicopter owner could do it.

But . . . It would probably be a "dimensional load" requiring that clearances be checked ahead of time.  They charge for checking.  If a routing with adequate clearance was found, then it would also become a "high value load" and the inspection and shipping charges would be very high.  Securement and tie-downs for rail shipment would be extensive and would require en route inspection.  The rotors would likely have to be removed prior to shipment.

It would be a big hassle, which is why you never see helicopters shipped by rail.

@Redshirt214 posted:

I presume that RR's don't want to touch this because of the insane liability they'd incur if something like that got damaged?

@Redshirt214,

What "insane" liability are you speaking of?  I've heard this phrase applied to carrying people, i.e. excursions, but never cargo or bulk materials, and even then it never turns out to be overly unreasonable, just plain unreasonable (higher than normal).

Where does the "insane" part come from when hauling stuff?

Mike

to ship anything by rail you first have to get a rate. every railroad that touches it gives you their rate, these are totaled along with car hire to the car owner .the agent on the receiving end would have to first determine a route then contact each railroad on that route for a their rate. this usually takes a bit of time sometimes a week or two. speciality flat cars are hard to come buy and the hourly rate is very high as well. the railroads are not really interested in one off shipments that's the truckers world. if its oversize that brings in even more cost and time as the route gets complicated do to clearances. the railroad I worked for used to get several large transformers a year and it usually took the shipper and the railroad about two months Prior to shipping to complete all the paper work from each railroads engineering departments. remember the railroad is a 40 MPH conveyor belt for large quantities not overnight air. and a helicopter OMG some of the class one railroads even managed to damage locomotives being shipped to us, hate to see what a chopper would look like after a cross country trip.

I would fly the darn thing across; much easier and cheaper.

Two Sikosrky S-64 departing the factory in April, 1969.  These two are the first  civilian 'Flying Cranes' The North Slope is many fuel stops away.

One of them ninety days later.

S-64  showing fire suppression tank attached to the four hard points, the rigid scoop is used for salt water(on the fly) and the flexible scoop for fresh water(at a hover).

Let's get back to basics..  Which model?  Some can be shipped by rail via a freight consolidator.  No big deal.  Others may be shipped by highway, others by highway with overdimension permits required. And of course the tandem helicopters and S-64(Flying Crane) need to be ferried. Or call up your friendly US Air Force and borrow a C-5 or C-17.  John

So here's my crazy dream - dig up the axle to the original Ferris Wheel, somewhere in the Saint Louis area, ship back by rail to the Illinois Railway Musuem and put it on display. Or any other museum wanting it.

https://drloihjournal.blogspot...d-fair-was-over.html

Kind of a silly thread. General aviation or privately owned helicopters are ferried (that’s what ferry pilots do) just like fixed wing aircraft. Often times, the new owner will take a commercial flight to pick up the aircraft, then fly it to its new home himself.

With larger helicopters which are mostly military, they may contract a railroad to move them, but usually handle it themselves, with a large military transport plane, (C-17), or the like.

I was on a oil exploration crew in northern Michigan. We had an older Hiller 12E (I think that was its model), but we were venturing further away from home base and it was too slow. The company paid for a faster one, a Hughes 500, and it was flown by the contractor from Wyoming to Michigan. When the contract was over the Hughes was flown back to Wyoming and the Hiller was put on a special trailer to be driven back via pickup (that’s how it got there too).

Interestingly, to take it back the pilot would not fly it across Lake Michigan (from around Traverse City). He flew overland to Chicago or so, then to Wyoming. He said the lake crossing would have been either 3 hours shorter, or a lot longer.

Guys....keep the discussion on real trains.  Posts were deleted in this thread with pictures of toy trains, etc.

The right answer is from Yellowstone Special.  Not by rail, I’m sure there is an exception.  How do l know, I worked for a helicopter manufacturer for 40 years.

@Yellowstone Special posted:

General aviation or privately owned helicopters are ferried (that’s what ferry pilots do) just like fixed wing aircraft.

That isn't always the case. If the aircraft needs to be moved and it isn't flyable, then ground transportation is the only method to move it. I have been an Army rotor wing maintainer for 28 years and have seen many acft moved on truck trailers because they weren't flyable. When one of our acft goes down, i.e. precautionary/emergency landing or mishap, then we will go recover them using a specialized trailer with our International truck pulling it. When we ship them out of our location for transfer to another location and they aren't flyable, we load them up on a commercial flat bed for transport to the new location.

Our new aircraft are ferried when new from the manufacturer or returning from recap/depot and when transferring out to a new location and they are flyable.

If someone just bought a flyable aircraft, then yes, they would go get it and fly it back or pay someone else to ferry it to it's new home. That would be cheaper than paying to have it prepped for transport, paying for shipping, then paying to have it prepped for flight, post shipping maintenance/inspections and test flights to return it to flyable status.