31 January 2014

A clever way to transport automobiles by rail

Known as Vert-A-Pac, the railcar was designed to maximize the amount of vehicles being transported, and GM made at least one vehicle that was specifically made for this kind of duty: the Chevy Vega.

In order to keep the price at a rock bottom level, these Chevys were designed to fit on railcars that could carry twice as many Vegas than usual, for a total of 30. In order to fit all 30 cars, each rail car had 30 doors, 15 on each side, that folded down so that a Vega could be secured inside in a vertical, nose-down fashion. Then a forklift would come along and lift the door (and car) into place.
Via the new shelton wet/dry.

5 comments:

  1. Studebaker, and perhaps others, used a similar system in the late '50s.

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  2. Maximise the amount? Shame on you :0)

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  3. Surely it should be "Maximise the number"?

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    Replies
    1. Perhaps, but in terms of the formatting of this blog, when I center-indent paragraphs, as in the example above, that indicates the text is quoted verbatim from the source (unless I use ellipses (...) to indicate my deletions. I suppose I could make an effort to insert more [sic]s, but that takes too much time.

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