Joel N. Weber II
Engineer
The regulations describing FRA class 6, 7, 8, and 9 track state that if freight is operated at the speeds used for high speed passenger service, one of the requirements is that:
I'm wondering what this really means in practice if we had any 200 MPH freight trains carrying USPS / UPS / Fedex packages and food that was all loaded into standard intermodal shipping containers. Would it need to be single stack for stability? Does using articulated car sets carrying the high speed freight to reduce the number of trucks needed work in this context? Could the shipping containers be loaded to the standard weight of a full standard shipping container as long as they're loaded evenly enough?
What defines the passenger locomotive axle loadings that are used, though? Is this limited somewhere else in the regulations?(2) The load distribution and securement in the freight vehicle will notadversely affect the dynamic performance of the vehicle. The axle
loading pattern is uniform and does not exceed the passenger
locomotive axle loadings utilized in passenger service operating at
the same maximum speed.
I'm wondering what this really means in practice if we had any 200 MPH freight trains carrying USPS / UPS / Fedex packages and food that was all loaded into standard intermodal shipping containers. Would it need to be single stack for stability? Does using articulated car sets carrying the high speed freight to reduce the number of trucks needed work in this context? Could the shipping containers be loaded to the standard weight of a full standard shipping container as long as they're loaded evenly enough?
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