I know 40' trailers were very

I know 40' trailers were very common in the 70's. I am not sure about pups,

Jeff

Piggybacks

If you go on the prototype photo websites (railcarphotos, rrpicturearchive, fallenflags, etc.) and use the search tools to set the dates to match your frame, and look at flatcars (and also trailers [reporting marks start with "Z"]) you will find many images of the 'piggyback' loads of the era.

If memory serves me, in your timeframe, railroad owned trailers were still a thing, and the most common length seen on flats were 40'.. with a sprinkling of shorter (28'?) trailers as well. But a little time browsing the archives would buttress that..

RE: Piggybacks

Thanks for the suggestion. I have done a fair amount of browsing on those sites, but it's often tough to tell exactly what size trailer is on a flatcar, especially if the photo is taken at an angle. It does seem that at that time piggyback trailers were mostly 40' with some 45', but I was wondering about lengths for normal road trailers as well.

Most pups at the time were

Most pups at the time were 27' or 28' long and 96" wide. 102" wide pups came a little later (the Athearn Pines pups).

As far as the longer trailers are concerned, I would go with 40' primarily. I wouldn't expect to see the 45' trailers frequently in New England until 1983+. Athearn has made some nice Fruehauf trailers, including an outside braced version that will fit in fine. Trainworx offers drop frame and reefer vans that fit perfectly in your era. 

RE: Most pups at the time were

Thanks for the info!

I was wondering about the Athearn pup trailers but I didn't realize they were 102" so I guess that would in fact put them out of my era. Do you know of anyone that makes a 28' 96 wide pup trailer in HO scale?

I do have a few of the Athearn 40' trailers and Trainworx drop frames for piggybacks.

40

40 foot trailers would be pretty common.  Also, in the 1970s you could still spot trailers from earlier eras on the road.

Joe

Athearn has three pup

Athearn has three pup trailers I can think of and all are Rail Power legacy models. The first two - a smooth side and a rib side - are 96" wide *I think* but I don't have them in front of me at the moment. The Pines trailers might be A-line legacy tooling. They have the distinctive Pines landing gear. When I get back home I can measure all of them and take photos.

RE: Athearn has three pup

That would be great, thank you so much!

You may spot

a few older 35’ trailers still around. Smaller low buck operations used them. I Remember  in upstate New York, a paper recycler used older trailers to pick up scrap boxes of waste paper from printers. Some of those were barely legal. I remember a few single axle 30/35’ trailers also.

I assume we're talking about piggyback service

There were a few 45-foot piggyback trailers before mid 1981, but 40-footers were the overwhelming standard in the '70s.  

45-footers were legalized nationwide in mid 1981, and 102-inch wide trailers were likewise legalized nationwide in July 1983.  48-footers came a year or so later.  January 1985 sticks in my mind, which is a few months after I left Southern Railway's piggyback department, bit it might have been July 1984.  53-footers came another couple years later.

48- and 53-foot trailers were a real problem for the railroads and the biggest (by far) owner of pig flats, Trailer Train.  Existing 89-foot flats could have their hitches respaced to allow two 45-foot trailers to fit, but there was no way to get two longer trailers on an 89-footer.  And running single trailers on long flats wasted money and fuel.  Consider this, at Southern we generally limited our pig trains to 100-110 89-foot cars.  (We tried longer trains, with comically bad results.)  If each car carries two trailers, that's 200 trailers.  If only one per car, well, you can see how bad the economics were.  And the train with all single loads, called a picket fence, actually used more fuel on a trip than a fully loaded train, because the aerodynamics of a picket fence train __sucked__.

The railroads were always playing catch-up with truckers because pig trailers had to stay in service for 10 to 12 years to pay for themselves while truckers typically turned over their fleets every 7 years.  And piggyback flats were expected to last 40 years.  So when bigger trailers were legalized it took that much longer for the railroads to get their fleet up to snuff.

Since 40-footers had been standard since 1959, even the railroads' trailer fleets were all 40s by the mid 70s.  However, and this is especially true in the Northeast and New England, there were still a number of 12'6"-high trailers in service because many lines up there had clearance issues.  Even the Southern kept a small fleet of 12''6" trailers around in the '80s for service through the Baltimore and Washington tunnels.  There were also special "low deck" pig flats to carry regular 13'6" trailers but there were never enough around when we needed them.

As for pups, I don't recall any rr-owned pups in revenue service in the late '70s or early '80s.  Any survivors would've been in company service, not revenue service.  On the other hand, pups owned by trucking companies were seen on some railroads' pig trains in the '70s.

Scott Chatfield 

Specific Trailers for late 70' - early 80's

 The late 70's thru early 80's is my focus of interest too.  As for trailers, most of the Athearn (former A-line) RTR 40' Fruehauf trailers are correct for the 70's and a few  years beyond.  They used to come in 2-packs for prices ranging from about $19.98 and eventually up to $26.  The started selling in singles about 6 years ago for about the same price as the old 2-packs.  You can still find trailers from the last recent run on Ebay.

Some other trailers of interest would be the Trainworx 40' straight frame and drop frame trailers.  Not all are accurate but some I believe are.  Same goes with the recent Walther Trailmobile 40' trailers.  A few are correct, the rest are stand-in's.  

I've read the 45' trailers did start to appear around 1982 and increased in numbers after that while the 40' trailers were either stretched to 45' or eventually phased out by the mid-late 80's.  Athearn made some 45' Z vans with the 5' extensions in 2-packs until around 2013 or so.  The molds wore out and they are re-introducing them next year (already announced) but the prices will be much higher.  If you can treasure hunt any or watch eBay, occasionally you can score some for "decent" prices but mostly they are way over priced.

A lot has been said about 40' & 45', but

42' trailers came out a few years before 45's.  As long as the states on both sides of the Mississippi limited trucks to 55' overall length, the max trailer length was 42' I think.  I worked for a produce hauler that had both cab over tractors and long nosed conventionals. 

We had a dispatcher who knew the brokers on the East coast enough to know which ones called him all of the time and which ones only called him as a last resort.  When the latter called, he knew he could charge more for a shipment.  When that happened he tried to load everything in the yard.  

We had to be careful, since all of the trucks had sleeper cabs, we could not put a 42' trailer behind a conventional.  When the money was good, we had to watch the dispatcher carefully because he wouldn't always realize the length of the trailer he was trying to load.  One time, he came out to the shop and told me to pre-trip the last refrigerated trailer we had in the yard so he could have it loaded.  I asked him what he was going to do with the load that was already in it?  He had forgotten that it was still loaded with carpet that had been brought in as a "back haul", and the warehouse was not ready to receive the load, yet!  

How many 42' model trucks are there on the market?

I haven't seen any but I may have missed them.  The OP is New England and probably saw the most common traiilers.  The models I mentioned earlier are probably going to be his best bet,

TOFC

I spent a good deal of time researching the topic as I wanted to include TOFC operations on my layout as well as incorporate trucking. (I model 1976-1980)

From most of the information I was able to pull from the internet I made a easy cut off of 1980 for 45' and up on trailers. 

Trailers over 40' were being introduced before 1980, but this was heavily regulated state to state. Most 40+ trailers would be found in western states, and also of note TOFC cars pre 1980 were only 89'...  a little too small for 45' equipment. 

So for a simple easy to remember time line I go with 1980.. Yes longer trailers were starting to make it onto the roads before then, but not in significant numbers. 

TOFC of the 70's and 80's is of interest to me.

For anyone interested in 1970's TOFC, there are some very good HO models out there.

- Walthers Trainline G45 General American 85' flatcar (still in use throughout the 1970's) it has been offered in TTX brown and TTX yellow, however, TTX brown probably remained the dominant scheme.  Other road names existed including SP, ATSF but of particular interest to New England, PC and NH.

- Athearn has offered the F85B 85' flatcar in blue box version and more recently an upgraded RTR version.  Those would have been common through out 40' trailer era throughout the 1970's, as well as the F85A (not available so far in HO).

- Accurail offered an 89' flush deck, an upgraded version if the old Custom Rail kit - it's 1 scale foot too wide but has been offered in a variety of paint schemes.  The brown TTX, CTTX and TTAX and yellow TTX good for the 1970's.

- Atlas has produced flush deck TTAX 89' flat cars and the latter TTWX variant.. 

- Walthers has offered the flush deck 89' flatcar in TTX, WTTX, TTX, and the mid 80's + KTTX and RTTX.

- Walthers has also offered the channel side TTX. 

- Athearn Genesis has offered the channel side F89F in TTX brown, TTX yellow and XTTX brown and XTTX yellow as well as later KTTX and RTTX.  KTTX are back to back 45' style and RTTX is back to back 45' trailers or 3 x 28' trailers (3 hitches set up that way).

The KTTX and RTTX would be too late for early 80's TOFC, but if you are modeling up to 1982 or 1983, you could add in some TTWX or WTTX for the twin 45' being mixed in by then.

-  

Those same 89' TOFC flatcars were converted to 2x45' trailers in the early 80's, see the ttx.com link below.  Basically you have 85' flat cars which could carry 2 x 40' trailers - I don't recall if they could be set up to carry 1 40 and 1 45'.  The 89' TOFC flat cars were originally setup to carry 2x40' trailers or 1 40' and 1 45'.  

https://www.ttx.com/about/our-history/

https://dev.model160.com/n-scale-news-blog/intermodal-flat-cars-the-85-pioneers/

Here is some reporting marks info and ORER data that might be of interest to TOFC modelers (below).

The interesting thing is to see how the flat cars changed from 1978 to 1985.  The TTX and TTAX, which could carry 2x40' trailers were converted to WTTX and TTWX for 2x45'.  The TTAX (trailers and containers) were converted the fastest between 1982 and 1985 going from 11,416 in 1982 to only 903 by 1985.  That's probably because they were the most useful being TOFC and COFC.  The TTX 89' flatcars were trailer only, 

The TTX went from 18,831 in 1982 to 9,367 in 1988 (which includes some 85' and 50' as well) so not as clear but the 89' TTX went to WTTX (WTTX: 2,180 (all types, including channel side), so apparently 2,180 were converted to 2x45' by 1988.

The primary take away is the transition of the fleet to adapt to 45' trailer dominating TOFC service from the early 1980's and onward.  Of course 48' trailers were approved later but two of those could not fit on a single 89' TOFC flat car so eventually the TTEX draw barred flatcars were introduced - TTEX 181'9" two unit TOFC car for hauling four 45' trailers or three 57' trailers (over head loading only).

------

Trailer Train reporting marks from RMC magazine article (August 1990):

(I noted that the 89' flat car PTTX markings are not included but keep in mind the date of the article)

ATTX - 75' all purpose flatcar (center and side tiedowns)
BTTX - 89' flatcar equipped with bi-level auto rack)
CTTX - 89' low level flatcar equipped with partially enclosed autorack
DTTX - 265' Five platform, articulated well-type COFC car capable of carrying double stack containers
ETTX 89'4" low level flatcar equipped with totally enclosed tri-level autorack
FTTX 89'4" flatcar equipped with tie down devices for loading automobile or truck frames
GTTX 85' and 89' General American built flat car equipped with collapsible hitches and bridge plates for transportation of trailers
HTTX 60' Flatcar equipped with 38 heavy duty chains, snubbers and turnbuckles for carrying earthmoving equipment
ITTX 89'4" flatcar equipped with special fold away pedestals and 62 tie down winches with chains and bridge plates for carrying trailer tractors saddle back style.
JTTX 50 - 89'4" flatcar with misc devices applied for lessor special service
KTTX 89'4" "Twin-45" standard level flat car with fixed hitches at both ends for handling two 45' trailers back to back (over head loading only)
LTTX 89' Low level flatcar equipped with collapsible hitches and bridge plates.
MTTX 60-85' 60 foot flatcar with stake pockets for gen service or 85' flatcar with 16 stake pockets, 8 per side for tansporting long pipe.
NTTX 249' 5-unit articulated COFC car for transporting containers (spine car)
OTTX 60' Flat car equipped with 36 chains, with snubbers each secured to movable and retractable tie down winches in for longitudinal channels for transporting agricultural equipment
PTTX 60' flat car equipped with bulkheads space 48'6" apart for transporting plywood and wallboard etc.
RTTX 89'4" "Twin-45/Tripple 28" standard level flatcar with fixed hitches on ends of car and retractable hitch at center of car. For handling two 45' or three 28' trailers (overhead loading)
STTX 89'4" "Twin-45" standard level flat car for handling two 45' trailers, equipped with sliding bridge plates for circus style loading
TTAX 89'4" Standard level flat car equipped with foldaway container pedestals and hitches for TOFC and/or COFC service.
TTBX 89'4" flat car equipped with bi-level auto rack, rack can be either open or shielded on the sides but does not have roof or doors.
TTCX 60' and 89' flat car equipped with container pedestals for COFC service.
TTDX 89'4" flatcar equipped with 16 tie down winches with chains and bridge plates for transporting military vehicles
TTEX 181'9" two unit TOFC car for hauling four 45' trailers or three 57' trailers (over head loading only)
TTFX 187'6" four platform TOFC car capable of carrying four 45-trailers
TTGX 89'4" flatcar equipped with totally enclosed bi-level auto racks
TTHX 60' 60-foot flat car equipped with 18 heavy duty chains anchored to stake picket castings
TTJX 68' 68-foot 100-ton flatcar equipped with 22 screw type tie-down devices and stake pockets.
TTKX 89' flatcar equipped with hinged "B" deck tri-level auto rack. Rack can be either open or shielded on the sides but doesn not have roof or end doors
TTLX 89' "Twin-45" low level flatcar specially equipped by participant railroads with container pedestals or fixed hitches for assigned corridor.
TTMX 68' 68-foot 100-ton flatcar equipped with stake pockets and lading strap anchors for general service
TTNX 89'4" flat car equipped with bi-level auto rack without end doors but with sides and roof panels.
TTPX 68' 68-foot flat car equipped with bulkheads spaced 62 feet apart and 34 transverse tied down anchors with chains used for transporting plywood etc.
TTRX 89'4" flatcar equipped with fixed tri-level rack without a hinged "B" deck. Rack can be either open or shielded on the sides but does not have roof or door.
TTSX 89'4" flat car equipped with coverless enclosed bi-level autorack.
TTUX 50'6" Single platform TOFC car with single axle trucks capable of carrying one trailer 40-48 foot and up to 102-inches wide w/ nose mounted revering unit over head loading only.
TTVX 89'4" Low level flatcar equipped with tri-level auto rack with shielded sides without end doors and without or without roofs
TTWX 89'4" Twin-45 standard level flat car equipped with fold away container pedestals and hitches for TOFC and/or COFC service.
TTX 50'-89' flatcar equipped with one or two hitches for TOFC service.
TTZX 64' to 76' 100-ton bulkhead car equipped with center partition and winch type tie down system for carrying lumber products.
UTTX 256' Five platform articulated TOFC car capable of carrying one trailer per plat forum 40-48 feet and up to 102 inches wide w/ front mounted refridge unit, over head loading only
VTTX 60' and 85' flatcar equipped with fixed container pedestals for COFC service only
WTTX 89'4" "Twin-45" standard level flat car with two hitches for TOFC service
XTTX 89'4" flat car equipped with 4 hitches for TOFC service
ZTTX 85' flat car equipped with 30 stake pockets for transporting long poles or pipes



Of the 40,260 cars in service in 1978, the number of cars per reporting mark were as follows:
GTTX 2260 (6%) General American design
LTTX 1840 (5%) Low Flats
TTAX 5750 (14%) All purpose flats
TTCX 700 (2%) container flats
TTX 29000 (72%) trailer only flats
XTTX 710 (2%) four-hitch Triple-28s


July 1982 ORER:

TTX - 18,831 (AAR Type F877)
WTTX - 66 (Type F877)
TTAX - 11,416 (Type F077)
TTWX - 0
RTTX - 44 (Type V681 & V682) < < Autoracks
KTTX - 44 (Type V681) < < Autoracks
STTX - 359 (Type F877)
TTCX - 686 (Type F977)
TTEX - 0


April 1985 totals:

TTX - 17,492 (AAR Type P712 & P812)
WTTX - 943 (Type P824)
TTAX - 903 (Type P818)
TTWX - 13,496 (Type P829)
RTTX - 0
KTTX - 1,364 (Type P833)
STTX - 738 (Type P814)
TTCX - 674 (Type P736)
TTEX - 0
 

October 1988 ORER (corrected date)

TTX: 9,367 (includes some 85' and 50' as well)
TTWX: 14,500
RTTX: 5,400 (all types, including channel side)
KTTX: 2,750 (all types, including channel side)
TTAX: 0
WTTX: 2,180 (all types, including channel side)
STTX: 649
TTCX: 944 (only 445 are 89' cars)
TTEX: 129 (all types, including channel side)

October 1991 ORER

TTX: 2,112 (includes a few 85' and prototype cars)
TTWX: 14,035
RTTX: 5,099 (all types, including channel side)
KTTX: 2,352 (all types, including channel side)
TTAX: 2,201 (5 unit articulated all-purpose spine car)
WTTX: 1,283 (all types, including channel side)
STTX: 166
TTCX: 665 (only 171 are 89' cars)
TTEX: 197 (all types, including channel side)

Cheers,

Jim

Besides trailers, the

Besides trailers, the tractors and straight trucks you might consider are the Ford C, Freightliner COE and Kenworth W900 from Athearn. All are appropriate for the era and are excellent models that don't require any work unless you want to add or replace details.

If you don't mind building kits look on ebay for Lindberg tractor-trailer combos. The GMC Astro and Ford CL-9000 models are good starting points and build up into nice models. 

If resin kits don't trip you up, check out Sylvan Scale Models and Ralph Ratcliffe Models. And if you can deal with kitbashing and scratchbuilding there are some cab parts on Shapeways that look really nice. I bought an International Cargostar cab awhile back and put it on an Athearn Ford C chassis. It turned out great.

A-line offers many parts to detail trucks and trailers, including reefer units, upgraded wheels and tires, landing gear, doors, entire trailer floor/suspension/wheel parts and semi tractor chassis, along with trailer and tractor kits. Their prices can be a little wild so I shop around for certain items, but they are a great jumping off point. 

One thing that has been helpful for me and might also work for you is to go back and watch movies from your era not for the plot or characters but for the background cars, trucks, buildings, signs, trains, etc. To Live and Die in L.A. is pretty much the gold standard for my late 80s era. Lots of outdoor scenes with highways, industries and railroads. You might enjoy The French Connection or the Dirty Harry series. Steven Spielberg's Duel is a little before my era but you better believe I have the truck from the movie! The TV show CHiPs was always a big influence on my vehicle modeling, and it was filmed during your period of interest so you might check out reruns of that show. 

One last thing, be sure to browse the photo galleries at the  1/87 Vehicle Modelers Club. There are hundreds of photo galleries of HO scale vehicle models. Click on any photo and you'll get a description of the model, which sometimes includes information on how the modeler kitbashed or painted and decaled the model. I'm sure you'll find some models in the gallery you'll like and probably get a lead on what to look for if you're interested in an out-of-production item.

Pig trailer reporting marks _end_ in Z

Correction to tp's post: piggyback trailer reporting marks _end_ in Z, not start.  This standard started in the mid '60s.  Likewise, container reporting marks end in U.

The biggest fleets of piggyback trailers well into the late '80s were the "pool" fleets of Realco (REAZ) and Xtra (XTRZ), and both companies also leased trailers to railroads with some blend of the initials to makke the reporting mark.  For instance,  Realco trailers leased to the L&N wore RLNZ marks.

However, by 1980 at least, all railroad and pool trailers were operated as one homogeneous fleet, but some railroads were better at keeping their trailers on-line than other roads.  UP, for example, seemed to keep most of their trailers closer to home.  On the other hand, roads like the Vermont made money by keeping their trailers on other railroads.  Yes, you pay per diem on trailers too.

Scott Chatfield 

OK, I've measured the Athearn

OK, I've measured the Athearn pups and all of them are 102" wide. I believe there are four versions of pup trailers Athearn offers, but I only have three of the four. 

Originally Athearn acquired the Rail Power Products line of locomotive shells, frames, rolling stock and trailers. Included in this acquisition were a smooth side pup and a rib side pup trailer. These were originally sold as undecorated kits, but RPP began offering them assembled and decorated just before they sold to Athearn. Athearn upgraded the kits with rubber tires and plastic wheels but otherwise kept the trailers the same. Athearn has only offered the trailers assembled and decorated as far as I know.

Later on Athearn acquired the tooling from A-line for the Fruehauf Z-van trailers originally offered by Milepost 501 as well as fairly new tooling for Pines pup trailers, one smooth side and one rib side. Again these were sold by A-line as undecorated kits but Athearn sold them assembled and decorated. A-line still offers the smooth side pup and Fruehauf trailers as undecorated kits.

Here are some of the Athearn pups I have to illustrate the differences. First, the legacy Rail Power pups, rib side and smooth side:

Next, the A-line legacy Pines trailer on the left and the RPP legacy trailer on the right:

Note the differences in the landing gear (those gusset shapes are the distinctive Pines style), trailer front and trailer rear including the bumper.

Another word about pups I forgot to mention. Walthers makes a UPS drop frame pup trailer. It is from the earliest group of drop frame pups and it measures 26' in length. The A-line (later Athearn RTR) drop frame pups are from a later order and measure 28' in length. From what I understand only the A-line/Athearn pups would be used in TOFC service.

And speaking of UPS, the former Rail Power Products 40' drop frame parcel vans belong to Athearn and have been released several times as RTR models. Just about any of those trailers would be appropriate for your modeled era.

Ryan

Ryan,

I send you a PM via the forum here.  If you don't get it, please contact me at:  tabooma at msn dot com

Thanks,

Al Carter, Mount Vernon, WA

IIRc, Athearn has retooled

IIRc, Athearn has retooled the 40' parcel vans and the new price is eye watering.  If you can find any from the previous runs at train shows, it "may" save you some money, although on Ebay the prices are jacked up 2 or 3 x the original price.

Ryan

Ryan,

I got your email and replied to you - please check your spam folder.

Thanks,

Al Carter, Mount Vernon, WA