Freight car

Types of freight car

In the nearly 200 years after the railroad was invented, special railcars were developed to carry any form of commodity imaginable.

Nowadays, freight trains can deliver large quantities of goods across the country. Freight trains transport raw materials such as coal and other types of minerals. Freight train also carries refrigerated goods as vegetables or other various dairy products.

Freight wagons or goods wagons are unpowered railway vehicles that are used for the transportation of cargo. Each wagon is generally assigned a unique identifier. This is for tracking and identification of cargo that the freight train carried.

Nonetheless, there are nine main types of railcars used in international trade.

Boxcar/ Covered wagon

Covered wagons or vans are also known as boxcars have a fixed roof and are mainly used for the transportation of part-load goods or parcels. It is the most common type of cargo railcar in use worldwide. Boxcars are designed to carry all types of boxed, crated, or palletized freight. Popular transported commodities include; paper products, canned goods, bulky freight.

Boxcar is a high-capacity wagon that is fitted with sliding walls and can be pushed by individuals. The whole loading area of the wagon can be reached from both sides when it is open. It requires loading and unloading of the wagon by means of forklift trucks. Many of those wagons are fitted with lockable partitions. The partitions allow the division of the wagon's interior into individual chambers.

Key features

Boxcars come in 50, 60, and 86-foot lengths with load capacities ranging from 70 to 105 tons.
Single or double doors with plug or sliding configuration, cushioned or non-cushioned under-frames, insulated or non-insulated interiors.

Double door box car

A double-door boxcar has two sliding doors on each side instead of one. Double-door boxcars can be more convenient for household storage and passage uses. The double door gives the user a wider range of options than a standard one. It allows for the loading of larger bulkier items & quicker loading and unloading of smaller merchandise.

Refrigerated box car

Reefers (refrigerated) boxcars have been designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. It is a train wagon with cooling equipment. It also operates as insulated covered vans which are either cooled by a cooling medium such as water or dry ice like conventional refrigerated vans or are machine-cooled wagons with their own cooling system.

Reefer boxcars carry many common commodities including vegetables, fruit, juices, milk, meat, and poultry.

Key Features:

Reefers can be cooled with air, a mechanical cooling system, or carbon dioxide (as dry ice or as liquid).
Many fruit and vegetable shipments need only insulated and ventilated boxcars to reduce the heat produced in the ripening process.
Meat reefers are equipped with specialized beef rails.
Dairy and poultry products also required specialized interior racks to ensure the circulation of cooled air.

Container stack railcar

Designed to carry international standard 20', 40', 45', 48', and 53' ocean freight containers in various stacking combinations.

Flatcar

Flatcars designs come in a variety of lengths, tonnage and capacities for specialized commodities that are not subject to damage from the elements. Flat wagons or known as flatcars have no wall or low walls which not higher than 60cm (23.6 in). Flatcars are available in numerous lengths and feature large flat cargo surfaces that will accommodate virtually any commodity that is not subject to damage from the element.

Flatcars are designed to carry oversized goods and cargo, which have to be loaded from the side or top.

Normal cargo for flatcars includes ocean freight containers, intermodal truck trailers, machinery, farm equipment, heavy construction equipment, lumber, plywood, steel products, spooled wire, pipe and rebar.

Key Features

Available in many sizes.
Features a wide flat cargo surface that can handle almost any commodity not affected or damaged by the elements.
Often used to transport intermodal containers or trailers as part of intermodal freight transport shipping.

Tanker car

Tankers are designed to carry bulk liquid. It is are suitable for a wide variety of fluids and gases. Tank cars carrying dangerous goods are generally made of different types of steel, depending on the intended cargo and operating pressure. These containers come in a wide variety of capacities. Each differs in terms of the technical equipment required for transporting specific products.

A standard tank container: Long 20 feet ( 6.10 m ) x High 8 feet ( 2.44 m ) x Wide 8 feet ( 2.44 m ).

Popular products transported in tankers include refined fuel, heating oil, alcohol, industrial chemicals, acids (sulphuric acid, oleum, phosphoric acid, hydrochloric acid, ferric chloride, hydrofluosilicate acid), clay slurry, corn syrup, and other foodstuffs.

Hooper car

Hopper cars come in both covered and uncovered models. Hopper cars have the advantage of loading bulk from the top, and unloading bulk from the bottom by hoppers.

Key features:

Hopper cars are designed to carry dry bulk commodities which flow free.
Widely known transported commodities include grain, industrial minerals, plastic pellets, crushed rock, gravel and sand. There are two types of hopper cars :
A covered hopper car is transported bulk cargo, for instance, grain, sugar and fertilizer.
An uncovered hopper car (open hopper car) is to carry commodities such as coal.

Gondola car

In US road terminology, a gondola is an open-topped rail vehicle used for transporting loose bulk materials. Because of their low sidewall, gondolas are also suitable for the carriage of such high-density cargos as steel plates or coils, or of bulky items such as prefabricated sections of rail track.

For many years the gondola remained basically the same in design and character.

However, in the 20th century, several specialized types entered services such as a side-dump version for bulk materials, one which could carry large sheets of steel, and the most popular in today's industry the "Bathtub" gondola for use in hauling coal.

Mill railcar gondolas are highly robust. It is intended for the transport of iron and steel scrap, ingots of steel, coiled steel, sheet steel, pipes and other steel items.

The gondolas are built to hold industrial minerals, crushed rock and gravel.

Key Features:

Standard gondola lengths range from 48' to 66'.
Mill gondolas normal wall heights vary from 5 'to 6' and higher with aggregate gondolas.
Mill gondolas are primarily designed for the steel industry.
Options include crossbars, load-restraining systems, and specialized cargo handling wooden troughs.

Center partition railcar

Center partition railcars (also called centerbeam flatcars) are designed to bundled building supplies carrying such as dimensional lumber, plywood, building materials, wallboard, fence posts and other products.

The cargoes must be loaded symmetrically, with half of the payload on one side of the centerbeam and half on the other to avoid tipping over.

Auto carrier railcar

Auto carriers are designed to transport automobiles from and to automobile manufacturing plants, ocean import/export facilities, and distribution centres. Rail auto carriers are the most efficient way to transport large numbers of motor vehicles long distances by land.

Transported motor vehicles include passenger cars, SUVs, trucks, and minivans.

Key Features:

Auto carriers have interchangeable decks that can be moved to two or three levels to accommodate changes in the design of the automotive industry.

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