When to ship by rail .. (almost) Real loads for your Gondola.

The consignee may not have a rail siding so the flat car/gondola/box car would need to be unloaded, the tires placed on a flat bed trailer and hauled to the mine.  Time available may dictate the mode of transportation, trucks carrying over size loads can make 500 to 600 miles each day. If the trailer is 102 inches wide, the tires look to be about 106 inches OD. Best guess is about $10,000 each.   John in Lansing, ILL

Roger Peet posted:

I was pretty surprised when I pulled into a Iowa rest area to find an "oversized" load by truck. Had the Nikon in my lap and I decided to snap these three. The truck driver was from Northern Canada. He was polite enough to answer my city slicker questions. ( see pics ). This truck holds 6 tires going into Ontario, CN for large mining equipment. Each tire weighs 7500# so the aluminum trailer can only carry six at a time. These are the smallest tires they carry via motor transit. It's quite a piece of rubber. 

OK.. I am wondering now .. "Why NOT ship by rail".

Many reason not to ship by rail, for such a load:

1) Truck would be MUCH faster from factory to job-site/final destination.

2) Truck would likely be MUCH cheaper.

3) The rail car would likely have to be unloaded and the tires then transferred to a truck for the final destination anyway.

4) Such a load would NOT have been place in a gondola, since some sort of over head crane would be needed to load and unload a gondola, instead of a simple fork lift job.

 

Upon arrival home I made a small load for my Lionel consist. Pleasant memories. You truly learn something new everyday.. 

Doubt if Wally world auto dept. stocks those.

I see these oversized tire loads on I75 north in Atlanta about once a week.  

And, as a longtime shipper using both rail and truck; I believe Jack nailed it with his response numbers 1 and 2 above.

Curt