Double-Stack Container Trains

Double stacking roughly doubled the containers a train could carry, making rail the cheapest way to move import containers from West Coast ports to the Midwest and East. Southern Pacific and Sea-Land had developed an early double-stack car in 1977, but APL's dedicated Stacktrain service in 1984 proved the model on a regular schedule. Railroads then raised tunnel and bridge clearances on main routes to fit the taller loads. Today many containers landed at Los Angeles and Long Beach reach Chicago, Dallas or Memphis on double-stack trains, and importers choose between this intermodal routing and transloading into domestic 53-foot trailers near the port.

• Intermodal FreightFreight moved by rail and truck in one box
• TransloadingMoving goods from a container to a trailer
• DrayageTrucking containers from port to warehouse

• Malcom McLean1913–2001 · Father of containerization
• James J. Hill1838–1916 · Builder of the Great Northern Railway

• ISO Shipping Container Standard1968 · ISO 668 fixes container sizes worldwide
• Conrail1976–1999 · A federal railroad rebuilds bankrupt Northeast lines
• Burlington Northern Santa Fe Merger1995 · Two western railroads combine into BNSF

• Staggers Rail Act of 19801980 · Deregulated US freight railroad rates and contracts

1. Double-stack rail transport (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
2. Double-stack container trains, Naval Postgraduate School thesis, 1986 (DTIC) apps.dtic.mil