Still more Thursday morning rail news:
Age of Steam acquires Camelback 0-4-0
The Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum in Sugar Creek, Ohio, has acquired a rare Camelback steam locomotive in a sealed-bid auction held Wednesday at the Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania. Former Philadelphia & Reading 0-4-0 No. 1187 was built in 1903 to burn the smokless anthracite coal found in eastern Pennsylvania. It was the last Camelback in Interstate Commerce Commission-regulated service and is one of just three surviving locomotives of the design that placed an engineer’s cab atop the boiler instead of in the usual location at the back, creating a humpback appearance that led to the Camelback name. It joins a collection of more than 20 steam locomotives at the museum, which offers summertime tours, occasionally fires up some locomotives, and holds other special events. Visit the museum website for more information.
BNSF testing automated container carriers in Kansas City
BNSF Railway is testing two automated straddle carriers to move containers at its Logistics Park Kansas City Intermodal Facility. The carriers, or autostrads, pick up a container from an arriving truck and, based on container information entered by the truck’s driver, takes it to an overhead crane for loading on to a train. It can also take a container from the stack where it has been unloaded from a train and place it onto a truck. BNSF says it is the first railroad to use autostrads for containers larger than 40 feet and the first to use the technology at an inland intermodal facility. More information on the test is available here.
TTX signs lease for new facility in Joliet, Ill.
TTX Corp. has signed a lease to open a new distribution facility in Joliet, Ill. REjournals.com reports the build-to-suit lease agreement with CenterPoint Properties is for a 90,480-square foot facility on more than 7 acres of land at the 6,400-acre CenterPoint Intermodal Center — Joliet. It will be a central location for material storage to be distributed to field maintenance locations for its fleet of railcars.
