Plans

Railroads offered different "plans" on who supplied the trailer to the shipper and who drayed the trailer to and from the shipper and consignee.  I remember that plan "2 1/2" seemed to be a popular one, but unfortunately I don't have very much documentation on what all the plans were.

Update:  Found a link to a discussion on the plans:

When did the defined TOFC/Intermodal plans (I, II, III, IV, V) fade away in the US? - Trains Magazine - Trains News Wire, Railroad News, Railroad Industry News, Web Cams, and Forms

Another great resource for the early years of TOFC/COFC

If you have the History of Trailer Train, volumes 1 and 2; Dick Dawson, et.al. do a great job of discussing the formative years of TOFC/COFC and the various plans that were formulated back then.

Bob

"Pool" trailers

By the '70s a large percentage of the trailers regularly used in piggyback service did not have railroad logos.  These were called "pool" trailers and were mostly owned by Realco and Xtra.  Their trailers had reporting marks REAZ and XTRZ.  Those companies also leased trailers to railroads, sometimes with full paint jobs, but most often with just a logo on the nose and maybe the doors.  The reporting mark would start with R or X and then have two letters for the railroad, then a Z.  (After about 1965 all trailers in the national piggyback pool had reporting marks ending in Z, and almost all of them had four letters total.). The resulting reporting mark did not always make sense at first glance.  For instance, RGWZ was a Realco trailer leased to the Grand Trunk Western, while XFCZ was an Xtra trailer leased to the Frisco.

By the late '70s two more players jumped into the "pool", Availco and Itel.  Availco was known for their flashy "Preferred Pool" trailers, while Itel mostly leased trailers to railroads, with marks starting with "S".  Some had nice logos, some didn't.

So aside from the majority of piggyback trailers being stealthy, the biggest customers for piggyback business were large manufacturers and Less-than-truckload trucking companies, so unless you were around their plants or terminals, or between them and the railroads' piggyback ramps, you really weren't that likely to see them.

At the Southern in Atlanta in the '80s, our biggest customers were several LTL trucking companies, Strohs brewery in Michigan, UPS and the Postal Service, Ford Motor Co. (auto parts to a local assembly plant), a couple of big printing plants, and a large commercial bakery.  And that bakery wasn't using our trailers to ship tasty finished goods, or bring in ingredients.  They shipped their food waste to a dog food manufacturer.  At least we never got a complaint about breakage from them.....

Scott Chatfield, formerly of the Southern Railway's Intermodal Department

I think your era spread is too big!

There were big changes between 1950 & 1970's, and the 1960's included big changes.  In the 1950's trailers were 20 feet long or 35 feet long with round noses, then they went to square noses, then the length of the longest trailers went from 35 feet to 40 feet. then in the early 1970's they started allowing longer trailers so that by 1980 53 feet was the standard length for a long trailer.  Also sometime in the late 1970's, maybe early 1980's, the ICC was abolished to be replaced by the DOT, and the rules for interstate trucking was federalized. 

I remember in the mid 1970's I was working for trucking companies that went crazy trying to dispatch trucks.  Every state had their own regulations for highway truck length on their highways.  All of the states on both sides of the Mississippi strictly enforced an max overall length for a combination of 55 feet from front of the tractor to the back of the trailer.  I remember having drivers call out mechanics to torch off dock bumpers from the back of a trailer because it was found to be 2 inches too long and so the company got a fine from one of the Mississippi states and was stopped at the border and not allowed to proceed until a fine was paid and the trailer shortened to get the rig below 55'!

What this had to do with tofc is that what was run on the highway was also hauled on tofc.  When rules were changed, fleets took time to replace their trailers to take advantage of longer trailers.  That meant that you might find trailers from 40 feet long to 53 feet long in tofc service in the late 1970's, but earlier in the 1970's they could be 40 feet, 42 feet, 45 feet or 48 feet long. 

Now if you are talking about S.P. between L. A. Ca, & Houston, Tx, during that same period.  Sea Land ships were too big to fit through the Panama Canal, so all freight between East or Gulf Coasts & West Coast was shipped on what Sea Land called the land bridge as cofc on the S.P.  Sea Land used 35 foot containers exclusively until about 1970-1971, at which time they bought 40 foot containers, and later 42 foot containers, but continued to use 35 foot containers well into the 1970's.  

Tofc trailers were the same length as were allowed on interstate trucks throughout the 1950's into the 1980's.  By the mid 1980's the standard trailer was 53 feet except for the 27 foot "pups" used in doubles service.  I'm not sure how many if any of the shorty "pup" trailers were shipped in tofc service.

I'm suggesting that you need to narrow your modeling to a more specific time frame, or else you are modeling the year of the newest equipment found on your railroad.

I'm not sure when the railroads stopped using railroad owned trailers and just went to charging customers freight for using the customer's trailers.  That was probably late 1960's or early 1970's, but it may have been even earlier.  I don't remember even seeing pictures of Railroad owned trailers much after the early 1960's. 

@Russ

Thanks Russ. But I am looking for information on operations of the tofc trucks/trailers not so much the type of equipment they had. 

Do appreciate the information though.

Joe

Thanks

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

Joe

some states....

did not allow 53 footers until the 90's, particularly in the northeast....NY didn't allow them until 1990, and others also until federal highway aid was made contingent to accepting 53 footers....Just remember the big deal made about in the late eighties in the local papers,  safety concerns made good headlines...

Peace Bill

Russ's dates are too early for piggybacking

The 40-foot trailer was the dominant piggyback trailer nationwide from the early '60s until 1981, when Congress allowed 45-foot trailers to travel everywhere.  The 48-foot trailer showed up in 1985, and the 53-footer in 1987 or '88.  

Some states and even groups of states did allow longer trailers a bit earlier, but since railroads pooled their trailers and focused on long-haul business, they had to stick to the least common denominator, trailer-length-wise.

His points about overall vehicle length (and weight) are spot on, and how some states were more particular than others, and the railroads used that in their favor in some cases.

The ICC was not abolished until around 1990 when it was replaced by the Surface Transportation Board.  However, some of the ICC's regulatory and enforcement functions were transferred to the Federal Railroad Administration after it was formed in 1967.

Scott Chatfield