Over The Road Truck Also Rides The Rails

Over the Road Truck also Rides the Rails TRUCKS Modifications 12-3-32 Rather than load your truck to haul grain to an elevator for shipment by rail, you may soon load directly into railroad cars right on the farm. A far-out idea? Not really. A hopper car that can travel on rails to a destination, and then be derailed and moved over conventional roads to a feed mill, feed-lot, or farm bins is being built in Gainsville, Georgia. E.C. Agee of Rail & Trail, the company formed to develop, test and market the new dual road/rail car says the idea has tremendous potential. "Railroads have to modernize their equipment to compete with trucks. This rail and road car is the first step," he says, noting that the idea will work with hopper cars, flat cars, box cars, and any other rail car. Agee says the new hopper cars look a lot like standard rail cars. The prototype is 65 ft. long and is capable of carrying about 75,000lbs. of cargo. Rail couplers protrude out the rear just as on conventional railcars. Steel rail wheels mount just inside overthe-mad rubber-tired wheels. To ride the rails, air pressure is simply reduced in the rubber tires. The same undercarriage is used for both modes of travels. For more information, contact FARM SHOW Followup, E.C. Agee, Rail & Trail, Box 720338, Atlanta, Georgia 30358 (ph 404 847-0512).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.