#train #unique #history

In 1952, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad conceived an innovative way to provide service to customers who did not have a rail siding - the 'Railvan', a truck trailer that could quickly switch between railroad and highway travel without the use of a rail car. After much testing, the first of what eventually became known as 'Roadrailers' entered service in 1955, carrying mail and express on the rear of C&O passenger trains between Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Unfortunately, as the passenger trains faded away in the 1960s and the mail and express contracts were lost to conventional trucks, the Roadrailers faded away as well.

The Roadrailer concept was revived in the early 1980s and saw limited use on a handful of railroads until 1986, when Norfolk Southern established their Triple Crown subsidiary to provide service using the unique trailers on multiple routes. Conrail later purchased a stake in Triple Crown, expanding the service map until CR was split between NS and CSX in 1999 and Triple Crown was once again wholly owned by NS.

Volume 1 of 'A Roadrailer Retrospective' features footage of Roadrailers in service from 1994 to 2011. While the majority of scenes are of the Triple Crown trains that operated under Conrail and Norfolk Southern on the Pittsburgh Line, the collection also includes several scenes from the short-lived era when Amtrak carried mail, express, and perishables using their own fleet of Roadrailers, boxcars, and reefers.

0:00 - Intro/Horseshoe Curve August 4, 1994
Our first look at a Roadrailer train in person, westbound behind a single C40-8W. The consist included all 3 types of trailers in use at the time. The Mark IV design used an integrated retractable rail wheelset, which added extra weight and negatively affected handling over the road. Mark V addressed these issues by using 2-axle detachable rail wheelsets. The Mark IV trailers were later updated to Mark V by removing the original rail wheelset, leaving a distinctive gap between the road axles. Also included are trailers purchased from Union Pacific when the UP ceased operating Roadrailers; they retained their original side striping and UP's 'We Can Handle It' slogan.

4:16 - Altoona PA, August 5, 1994
A westbound Triple Crown train passes CP Rose in downtown Altoona, PA in less than ideal weather.

5:27 - C&O Mark II Roadrailer, August 9, 1994
Triple Crown's granddaddy - while visiting the B&O Museum in Baltimore, MD on our way back home from Pennsylvania, we got a look at one of the original production C&O Mark II Roadrailers (Mark I being the prototype).

5:59 - Cresson PA, March 25, 1997
MO Tower stands vigil in the background as Roadrailers roll west behind a pair of GP40-2s, with an SD40-2 helper set coupled ahead. Later that same evening, a C40-8W/GP40-2 pair brought Roadrailers east in a meet with a westbound stack train.

9:53 - Cresson PA, May 31, 1999
Amtrak's westbound Three Rivers had more express cars than passenger in the consist as it rushed west through Cresson on the evening of Conrail's last day before the NS/CSX split.

10:36 - Horseshoe Curve, August 3, 2002
On our first visit to the Pittsburgh Line after the CR split, we saw Amtrak Roadrailers in action on both the eastbound Three Rivers and the westbound Pennsylvanian.

12:20 - Cresson PA, August 3, 2002
Westbound hotshot 21M met the longest non-Auto Train Amtrak consist I have ever seen: 2 P42s with two coaches, a cafe car, 22 express cars and reefers, and 4 Roadrailers.

14:58 - Horseshoe Curve, April 25, 2003
A westbound stack train met an eastbound Amtrak that included an F40PH on the head end and a healthy cut of Roadrailers on the rear.

22:21 - Cresson PA, April 26, 2003
A westbound intermodal was dropping its helpers at MO as an SD60I/SD60 pair brought Roadrailers east.

28:14 - Cresson PA, June 27-29, 2009
A C40-8W/C40-9W pair rolled up to MO slowly with eastbound Roadrailers on June 27th before the camera's battery charge ran out. My second chance to record a similar scene two days later turned out much better.

34:08 - Cresson PA, October 9, 2010
Two C40-9Ws led Roadrailers east in the fading light of an October evening.

38:15 - Lilly PA, November 19, 2010
A C40-9W/C40-9 pair had a good roll on westbound Roadrailers through Carneys Crossing. We caught a glimpse of its eastbound counterpart from the porch of the Station Inn in Cresson later that night.

42:48 - Lilly PA, March 27, 2011
A C40-9W/SD70 combo brought Roadrailers east through Lilly on a cloudless spring morning.

47:10 - Cresson PA, July 28, 2011
On a muggy July morning, an eastbound stack train met westbound Roadrailers which met an eastbound manifest.

57:21 - Cresson PA, July 30, 2011
A pair of C40-9Ws rolled slowly through Cresson with eastbound Roadrailers at sunset - a fitting end to my summer 2011 trip to the Pittsburgh Line, and also a fitting end to Volume 1.