Norfolk Southern’s Triple Crown RoadRailers ride off into history

MELVINDALE, Mich. – Norfolk Southern hotshot 255 has a 2:20 a.m. date with destiny. It’s the last departure — ever — of a Triple Crown RoadRailer train. In the Detroit terminal at Oakwood Yard, crews have 95 of the bimodal trailers staged on three tracks, ready to be assembled into tonight’s train for the 715-mile run to Kansas City.

At half past midnight on this warm Sunday, Aug. 25, however, it’s looking like destiny may have to wait.

Things started off well enough. On terminal track 18, the last trailer was mounted and pinned onto its bogie at 11:40 p.m., an occasion that prompts fist bumps and handshakes among the terminal crew. Fifteen minutes later, nearly 24-year-old NS C44-9W No. 9936 couples onto the lead cut of 33 trailers on track 15. At 12:31 a.m. the old warhorse pulls forward to double the train over to track 17.

But there’s a problem on the shove move and the 255 comes to a stop. The loud hiss coming from beneath TCSZ No. 468883 is a telltale sign of an air leak. The terminal crew swarms the trailer, inspects the line, and tightens a connection with a wrench—but to no avail. It’s still leaking. They swap out the offending section of rubber hose. Nope, that doesn’t work either.

No one wants a late departure. Not for the RoadRailer finale. And certainly not for the loads in those 95 trailers, which are scheduled to arrive at the Kansas City terminal at 2:45 a.m. today (Monday, Aug. 26). Among them: Auto parts bound for the Ford Kansas City Assembly Plant that builds F-150s and Transit Connect vans.

In nearly 39 years of building RoadRailer trains, the Road & Rail Services terminal crew has seen this before. They scramble off in their orange Kubota utility vehicle and return with the prize: A bypass hose. In the span of six minutes it’s unspooled, zip-tied to the bottom of the trailer, and snugly connected to air lines at either end of TCSZ No. 468883. The air flows again, pressure holds, and the train is deemed good to go at 1:05 a.m.

Engineer P.G. Green pulls the 255 into the clear and waits for conductor N.A. Noftsger to line the switch to track 18, where the last cut of 26 RoadRailers awaits. The hitch is made at 1:27 a.m., bringing the 255 to 5,176 feet and 2,817 tons. The brake test is a success. And the 255 inches forward at 1:49 a.m., with its official departure time recorded as 1:50 p.m. – precisely 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

Current and former terminal employees quietly watch 255 ease out of the yard, with some using their phones to record the event for posterity.

Mike Theisen, Triple Crown’s director of terminal operations in Detroit, joined the company in 1992 and says the final RoadRailer departure was a bittersweet event. But the newest piece of RoadRailer equipment dates to 2010, and he says the air hose drama is an example of why the equipment needs to be retired.

The age of the equipment — and its increasing maintenance needs — prompted NS to pull the pin on RoadRailer before service reliability became an issue. As if to prove this point, the final 255 encountered brake issues en route at Bluffs, Ill. The train arrived in Kansas City 4 hours, 19 minutes behind schedule.

This week, and just in time, Norfolk Southern debuts new Triple Crown domestic container service to handle the freight previously carried in RoadRailers. The eastern terminal shifts to Toledo, Ohio. Trains 255 and 256 will operate on the same schedules but using conventional intermodal well cars and Triple Crown boxes in double-stack service. For a few days or weeks, some Triple Crown RoadRailer trailers may ride along TOFC-style.

Retaining the RoadRailer freight is a turnabout. In 2015, NS decided not to update the RoadRailer fleet. The Triple Crown network was pruned from 13 terminals to just the two serving the Detroit-Kansas City lane. And nearly all of the RoadRailer freight in the closed lanes went back to the highway.

Now a growth-minded NS will not only hang onto the RoadRailer business — it aims to use Triple Crown to attract door-to-door auto parts business in other lanes.

“With great appreciation for the historical role that RoadRailers played in expanding our network, Norfolk Southern is planning to retire the equipment and launch a new service product with more utility that will enable growth for our railroad and our customers,” spokeswoman Katie Byrd says. “We will shift Triple Crown business into its TCZU 53 foot container fleet, unlock capacity on existing trains, and pave the way to expand Crown services across North America.”