The Iron Highway is a rail-based
intermodal freight concept developed at
New York Air Brake
The New York Air Brake Corporation, located in Watertown, New York, is a manufacturer of air brake and train control systems for the railroad industry worldwide.
History
Establishment 1876-1900
New York Air Brake was established on July 1, 18 ...
in the mid-1980s and tested by CSL Intermodal in the early 1990s. The Iron Highway system employs specially designed
locomotive
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...
s located at each end of a string of 60-meter articulated platforms that divide in the middle to form
ramps for the
loading and unloading
A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes.
After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the numbe ...
of regular
truck trailers. An objective of the concept is to serve standard trailers and containers that are not reinforced for lift-on/lift-off operations. The principal benefit is to extend the economy of
intermodal traffic to distances as short as 200 km. One unpowered prototype was built, and was presumably tested on
CSX
CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...
, and it was moved to Australia afterwards. The fate of this prototype is unknown.
References
External links
*
* {{cite web , title=Iron Highway , url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/48593922@N04/sets/72157628088005502/
Rail transportation in the United States