This last weekend, on my way to Oregon, to a memorial service, I noticed a long string of trailer train flats stored on tracks from North Reno to Feather river main line. Can anyone tell me why these are not being used, and why store them in the desert??.
They have been doing that over here in WV,a coal train comes by then have like 10 or 12, 89' flatcars and from what I heard, auto racks with the racks and sides cut off. I heard about 1,500 stored down in Cowen, WV but haven't had to time to drive 4 hours to see about it. I think eventually they will be hauled back out and scrapped.
As for why they store them in the desert, could it be they took a page from the airlines' book? Most non-needed airplanes are "stored" in the desert. The reasonf ro that, I am told is the lack of rust. I know there'e a big field of mothballed planes near Victorville, CA. William
The New Hampshire Central in North Stratford, NH, stores cars for GE Railcar and others on the old MEC Beechers Falls branch. Almost all 89' flats and boxcars. Some are awaiting scrapping and some are just waiting for a new lessee (sp?).
These are most likely just "baretable trains" and they store them wherever they can, the further out in the middle of nowhere the better. The ebb-and-flow of intermodal traffic creates lulls in equipment utilization and/or unbalanced terminals that are constantly sending out or receiving more than they reciprocate. So sometimes you have a train that hauls an entire baretable train to another terminal, sometime they are sent one or two at a time on general frieght trains, or sometimes they just haul them out into nowhere for storage until traffic picks back up.
