US Army, Technical Manual, TM 55-2200-002-12, TRANSPORTABILITY GUIDANCE: GENERAL RULES AND SUGGESTED PROCEDURES FOR LOADING AND SECURING MILITARY CARGO IN CLOSED RA, 1974 (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

US Army, Technical Manual, TM 55-2200-002-12, TRANSPORTABILITY GUIDANCE: GENERAL RULES AND SUGGESTED PROCEDURES FOR LOADING AND SECURING MILITARY CARGO IN CLOSED RA, 1974 General. a. General Information. (1) Boxcars are primarily employed to transport valuable commodities and products requiring protection from the weather or against breakage. Besides the plain type of box car intended for ordinary freight traffic there are boxcars made to accommodate the products peculiar to certain industries such as automobile parts, lumber, grocery products-, appliances, and some bulk materials. Nearly a third (512,000) of the 1,710,659 railcars in service in 1973 were classed as boxcars. Of these approximately 25 percent were so equipped that they were assigned to specific services. (2) Boxcars of 40and 50-foot lengths in either 40or 50-ton capacities constituted practically all the models built in the 40 years ending about 1960. The AAR Mechanical Division, in cooperation with the American Railway Car Institute, even prepared highly standardized designs that were the basis for hundreds of thousands of single and doublesheathed cars built over the four decades. Starting in the early 1960's, the increases in length, cubic capacity, and weight carrying ability, which were sought for all types of freight cars, produced a series of spectacular jumps in boxcar size and capacity. The 60and 86%-foot cars in 70and 100-ton designs were introduced generally for automobile parts service. Other high-cube designs have also been developed for household appliances. (3) Because of the fragile nature of many commodities transported in boxcars, a higher percentage of these cars are fitted with slidingsill and end-of-car cushioning than has been the case for any other type of car. Loadstowing and load-retaining devices are more generally applied in boxcars for the same reason. (4) As the use of lift trucks and other materials handling equipment has grown, there has been increasing emphasis on door openings through which these machines can maneuver readily. Shippers have been seeking wider door openings. There are now several types of cars on which the entire side opens to facilitate materials handling operations. Another popular arrangement has been a combination of a single sliding door and a single plug door on each side of the car to give the opening normally produced by the double sliding door arrangement. The plug door single and double arrangements have been used exclusively on a growing number of cars. (5) The insulated boxcar has been increasingly popular. This type of car now handles many of the shipments that formerly moved in heated refrigerator cars. Many shippers also specify them for shipments that could be damaged by condensation. (6) Express boxcars equipped for passenger train operation are built essentially the same as those in freight service but are fitted with air, signal, and steam-heat pipes and have passenger-car brakes and high-speed trucks.