Can Someone Explain the Tall Blue Freight Containers I saw on Flatcars?

Question

They had to have been around 16' tall. There were a huge number of them, and it might have been a unit train. They were loaded two to a flat car.

I'm familiar with the standard freight containers that can be anywhere from 20' to 48' long and are 8' tall. These were twice the normal height, and there was no company name visible.

Answer 1

Many large cities are now shipping garbage to a central dumping point that is approved for general waste, hazardous material and just about everything except for radioactive materials.

The ones I have handled are indeed large blue, unmarked containers on flat cars or well cars, and are unit trains, many of which are headed for Hanford, Washington, from the large cities in the western regions of the US.

This would be my guess as to what you saw, since you stated they were not the average containers usually seen in day to day operations.

Answer 2

Sometimes a customer may have special containers for their needs, that will be shipped as a block of cars. I have heard that the army ships munitions this way, and the containers go right into a C-5 and out to wherever they need. Did you see a lot of Marines hanging around, guarding it? Otherwise, who can say... lots of wacky things get shipped by rail if they're too big for a truck. I saw a flatcar consist that had a dozen things on them that looked like UFOs, each about the size of a U-Haul - they were the generators used on a windmill, and the windmill blades followed them east on flatcars a few weeks later, stacked like lumber.

Answer 3

What you saw was probably a protective tarp or other covering over an oversized load of some kind. If it was an entire train of similar loads, it could have been a movement of military equipment. I think I have also seen pictures of loads similar to what you describe that were aircraft components en route to Boeing in Everett, WA.

As already mentioned, without a picture or at least the location and direction of the train in question it's really difficult to be any more precise.

Answer 4

It is a relatively new container nicknamed "Super Cans" They are the same length and width as regular containers but twice as tall -- about 16 feet. They are designed to be filled modularly with subcontainers of special equipment etc.

Answer 5

I'd be hard pressed to explain them without seeing an example, but I suspect they are used to carry outsized freight of some sort that wouldn't fit into a normal container.

Container technology has grown in recent decades to include pressurized tank containers, containers of all different sizes, and greater intermodal capability.

Answer 6

They were single cans of Labatts Blue Beer heading to Mexico, the newest resort of the Underbelly of Canada.

Answer 7

These are called shipping containers and have been around since 1956. They travel from boat to train to truck. Neat eh?

Answer 8

this is called piggyback freight hauling , long time trucker ok they steal jobs from us truckers everyday, to meet the hieght requirments the freight cars are beveled down so they can stack two blue freight containers on top of each other , that is the way of the world my friend always looking for a way to screw us american truckers ok.

Answer 9

Called "intermodeal" transport. Can be stacked on ships, trucks, basicly the name, inter-mode-al. Pretty Cool, huh!

Answer 10

THER FULL OF STUFF FROM CHINA,CAMBODIA,AND EACH ONE COST AMERICAN JOBS. WHAT DO WE PRODUCE IN THE USA TODAY THAT WE DIDNT MAKE 20 YEARS AGO?? BESIDES INFERIOR AUTOMOBILES????????????