TTOX #130059

TTOX #130059. This "Front Runner" piggyback car, designed to carry truck trailers, is unusual in a number of ways. It has only four wheels instead of the usual pair of two-axle trucks; its 28-inch diameter wheels are smaller than the 33-inch diameter wheels standard on most freight cars; and it has a rigid trailer hitch, as well as no continuous floor or decks, meaning that it could not be used for containers, and that trailers could not be towed aboard by a tractor but had to be loaded by overhead crane. This four-wheel car was built to hold single 40- to 48-foot trailers, with space for front-mounted refrigeration units. The small wheels gave it good overhead clearance, and it was light in weight, with good train-handling characteristics. Over 2,500 were built starting in 1983, with this one produced by United American in 1984. The car is 53 feet, 10 inches long, weighs 25,500 pounds empty, and has a capacity of 65,000 pounds. By 2000, these cars were being phased out, replaced by "multi-platform" articulated cars where two to 10 units were connected by solid drawbars, with couplers only at the far ends. This car was donated by the TTX Corporation in 2001.