What are these cars?

As i understand it, they were actually being transported for scrapping - the KRX car underneath is a leased heavy flat that shows up in all sorts of other service.

 

I'm still puzzling over that. Those are incredibly heavy cars for 'empties', you've got a lot of steel there because it's all a matter of how much you can compress helium without refrigerating it, the cylinder wall thickness had to be obscene.

If you were after the steel, you'd just cut them up for the steel.

If it was 'in service' you'd have to have access to the end doors.

So I'm guessing they resold them as some kind of high-pressure gas storage unit, intact. And after they had been taken off UMLER as 'live rail' equipment, and maybe scrapped the trucks, as they were oddballs too.

But if you look at the way those are attached to the flatcar, they appear WELDED. With each car at 100 tons missing trucks (guess), that's a 200-ton load, you'd think there would be a little more holding it on, you know?

So I'm still baffled on the story behind that.
This was quite the move, here's a shot showing at least 8 in a train:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2963684

Ask anybody, I'm a relentless researcher. Here's the story, and lots of shots of the train:
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=195

 

I found a 4th Container car, MONSANTO,


On the Helium Cars I have found 6 differant cars numbers, Roco: US ARMY 211 & USNX 1016. Atlas: USQX 212, USNX 1019, ATMX 1020, MHAX 1200, the nams on the boxes say, US Army, US Navy, Atomic E. C., Dept of Mines.

 

Thanks for this Randy, it was very funny and I had to stop after a few answers. Nobody is close on the correct answer. But is was funny seeing all misapplied laws of physics........

But after seeing this thread, I wouldn't mind a small fleet of these cars! I can say that I have never seen this type of car before.

 

I have to assume that these helium cars were around for the Navy's Zepplin program in the 30s . I have a few of these cars for service based on this assumption. I don't know what if any part they played for the atomic energy commission but the Milwaukee did service the Hanford Wa. site.

Randy

 

These cars showed up at the Mississippi Test Facility (now Stennis Space Center) during the late 60s and early 70s when we were testing and flight rating the Apollo Saturn first and second stage rockets.

 

Looks like you could run the Helium cars even ina more modern layout:

Helium is used in cryogenics (its largest single use, absorbing about a quarter of production), particularly in the cooling of superconducting magnets, with the main commercial application being in MRI scanners. Helium's other industrial uses—as a pressurizing and purge gas, as a protective atmosphere for arc welding and in processes such as growing crystals to make silicon wafers—account for half of the gas produced. A well-known but minor use is as a lifting gas in balloons and airships.[SUP][2][/SUP] As with any gas with differing density from air, inhaling a small volume of helium temporarily changes the timbre and quality of the human voice. In scientific research, the behavior of the two fluid phases of helium-4 (helium I and helium II), is important to researchers studying quantum mechanics (in particular the property of superfluidity) and to those looking at the phenomena, such as superconductivity, that temperatures near absolute zero produce in matter.

 

The Navy also uses Helium in breathing gas mixtures for diving. I have seen identical tanks in racks on deep water research vessels on TV documentaries.

Mark H.
"CB&Q - Gone But Not Forgotten"

 

Love those helium cars.

Has anyone ever found pictures of the containers used on the chemical cars? I don't understand why they didn't make a loaded version.

 

go back to the first page of replies and click the links you find one.

 

Unfortunately, that picture does not show much.
Details on the containers would be helpful.
I'd love to see how they loaded these cars.

• 
  Did they use a forklift or crane to move the containers?
  Were the containers for solids, gasses or liquids?
  If the car was only partiall loaded di they use spacers to fill it up or separate different chemicals?
  Did the containers fit on trucks, or directly from one plant to the other?
  Did the cars ever get a second life?