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u/Darkmurphy-X 9h ago edited 7h ago
I did this as a job in high school, late '80s. There are metal plates that bridge th gap between the rail cars. Stopped work early one day because someone (not me) missed the plate and high cenered a car. I don't know how they lifted the front of the car back up on the plate.
These train cars have three levels and there is a mobile adjustable ramp that they position at the head of one of the rail lines. The idea is that you drive up the ramp and into the rail car and just drive all the way down the line. The train cars are separated by steel plates for you to drive over. The third level was the neatest because you had to get a running start up the steep ramp. But then you had to go slow enough not to hit the roof of the car on the train.
Edit: looks like this one is only two levels. Very likely because they are hauling trucks in it. The one that I did was three levels and had a lot less headroom.
Second edit for spelling
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u/LonelyAustralia 8h ago
Ok so maybe you can answer the question everyone is asking, how would you get out when you got to the end?
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u/Darkmurphy-X 7h ago
The car or the driver? I assume you're referring to the driver. There's just enough room for the driver to squeeze out of the door walk to the end of a train car and there are ladders on the outside of the train car for you to climb back down. At the time I was doing this it was called "rail shagging". This was at a port where longshoreman would unload the vehicles from the ship and then drive them to it drop off location. We would then take the car and drive it to another part of the lot. A van would pick us up and take us back to where the longshoreman were dropping off cars and we would repeat the process.
Occasionally they would pick individuals they thought they could trust with a vehicle and have them do rail shagging for an afternoon. (naturally they found out that the guy who dropped the car was not trustworthy enough).
To be honest, this was the highlight of the job.
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u/AdmiralArchArch 7h ago
Are they strapping the vehicles down at all?
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u/Darkmurphy-X 7h ago
I don't remember (almost 40 years ago). Pretty sure we put the emergency brake on. It would not surprise me if someone came along later and put straps on a wheel or something like that.
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u/No-Type7964 10h ago
How do they get out of the car afterwards? Legit question.
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u/RandomCandor 10h ago
You know how sometimes you're looking at a new car in a showroom and a man with a hardhat comes out of it?
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u/spiceypisces 3h ago
No, but there was a time when, unbeknownst to me, a man in a hard hat came in the car I was to buy. 12 months later&i wake up to 7 little tike & Tonka trucks in the garage.
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u/misterbaname 4h ago
I'm a train conductor and there's a section of these in the yard Im working in right now. I move some of these cars daily for the past 5 years and not once did I even question how do they get out.... Wow. Now I'm gonna keep an eye.
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u/Agile-Vehicle-2756 9h ago
They all just stay in the cars until the destination, then they all drive off together.
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u/tristand1ck 10h ago
Lol I used to do this ama
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u/moving0target 9h ago
For several people here: how do you get back out?
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u/tristand1ck 9h ago
Oh shit sorry I didn't read any other comments haha it's a tight squeeze. Like real tight. We wore gloves to block the doors from bumping, but you drive them with the seat as far back as possible to give yourself allllll the wiggle room. We never wore helmest though, circa 15 years ago
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u/blondebuilder 9h ago
How often does someone mess up and scrape/bang one side while loading/unloading?
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u/tristand1ck 9h ago
I can't say on average, but it wasn't super uncommon. It was a fucked situation, the guy we worked for paid us decent for the time, but always gave us the incentive of you can go home when work is done, and there were only so.many cars in the am and maybeee 2-4 more might show up mid shift somedays? So the pay was as cheap as he could get it while insurance was at a normal premium, so the faster we worked, the more mistakes we made, but insurance would always cover them, and he didn't have to pay so much in taxes for more hours on us.
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u/suprPHREAK 2h ago
When the train reaches its destination, are the vehicles reversed out, or is the train parked such thst they all drive forward?
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u/mattysauro 9h ago
Took the auto train last year. It was an interesting experience that everyone should try at least once.
FWIW, as soon as we exited our vehicle a gentleman took a 360 video of our car so they’d have a record of any potential damage.
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u/Loud_Background_4062 10h ago
How do they get out? Or are the drivers a part of the package?
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u/MostBoringStan 10h ago
Driver is so skinny so he can get out
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u/rayhaque 9h ago
If you can't get out, they toss a handful of GLP-1 pens through the sun roof and ship you out.
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u/SimilarTranslator264 9h ago
I guarantee you there’s some fat ass somewhere that claims discrimination because they can’t get that job. And there is a douche bag lawyer that will take that case.
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u/techman710 9h ago
It's the new version of Full Self Driving. It comes with a human driver, some maintenance required.
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u/Traditional-Emu-7919 9h ago
When I hauled cars years ago I remember watching the loaders haul ass into & through the car trailers. I’ve heard they were I little “off” in the head. I’d memory serves, they get paid by the car, so they wanted to finish as fast as possible.
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u/Renbarre 9h ago
The Euro tunnel does it differently. You drive your car inside the train car and you stay inside for the 35 mn trip.
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u/SimilarTranslator264 9h ago
This isn’t to transport cars with people this is how they deliver new cars.
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u/mattumbo 4h ago
No it’s sorta similar, auto train is a unique Amtrak offering that allows you to take your car from Virginia down to Florida (there may be other routes but this is the only one I’m familiar with). Because it’s a like 16 hour ride they can’t keep you in your car like the Euro tunnel so they load them then you ride in passenger wagons on the same train as your car. Generally more expensive than flying and renting a car while taking way longer than flying and slightly longer than if you drove straight down (~12 hour drive), but it works economically because Florida is popular with “snowbirds” (upper middle class retired folks who live partially in the northeast and then spend the winter in Florida) who need the convenience of the service for moving their car long distance without driving it but are staying long enough they couldn’t just rent a car.
Also some weirdness with Virginia personal property tax that helps as by having the car in Florida 6+ months of the year they can register it there and dodge VA taxes.
It’s a very unique service made possible by some very weird quirks of US culture and laws.
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u/jesuswithwings 26m ago
....alright yea but this is still not what you think it is, these are brand new cars being loaded onto autoracks to be distributed across american dealerships..
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u/itsnotbroke 9h ago
One of these days I’m buying a Volvo and picking it up in Sweden and traveling Europe for a few weeks with it, doing this is on the list!
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u/Responsible-Elk4223 9h ago
This is awesome, thanks for sharing. Now do you get out in between train cars after you park and load?
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u/gadget850 6h ago
Did this with military vehicles at Ft. Hood.
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u/Gr8rSherman8r 5h ago
I’ve sent tens of thousands of tons of mil vehicles from our yard on to Ft Hood but they’ve all been on flat cars. What vehicles were you loading in auto racks at Ft Hood if you don’t mind?
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u/gadget850 4h ago
HMMWV and other light wheeled vehicles in double decker cars. I also loaded Bradley and Abrams on DODX cars.
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u/Thisbymaster 2h ago
If they offered this when traveling cross country with a regular train ticket, I would take the train more.
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u/nickel45 10h ago
They clearly do this a ton, but does anybody else feel like they’re going a little fucking fast? lol.