Lots of beautiful first generation diesels in this film. I've never heard of the Flexi-Van service before. I'll bet the poor guy pushing with all of his might to rotate the container wishes he'd never heard of it either.
I saw lots of those Flexi-vans on NYC in the 1960's. Didn't know one guy could rotate it on the car. I reckon they were just demonstrating that one [straining] guy could rotate the container; probably not how it was routinely done!
The most important part of containerization is getting the shipping and trucking industry to standardize on your design. That's why they are international standard containers. is there any chance that the world would adopt their proprietary container system, or that they would allow it? Although I'm sure this was one of the things that directly led to that result. I don't think they just gave up on it, it wasn't long after this that standard containers were adopted, although it took a while for them to really take over. Who is to say that the international container wasn't directly result of this, an adaptation of the idea with improvement m
@@justforever96 It wasn't. Containers came about to get cargo on and off ships quickly, specifically to get military cargo from the US to Viet Nam during the war there. This was strictly a US effort, led by one man, as I recall. The current international standards were initially just a rubber stamp on what had already been designed for one shipping line. So yes, the world adopted a proprietary container shape. While the containers are specified in metric dimensions everywhere but in the US, the containers are marked as 20 foot, 40 foot, and 53 foot. The metric dimensions are just the metric representations of the English dimensions. During this era various railroads were trying piggyback, roadrailer, and about three other forms of semi-containerization. Several of them had promise, and I think one of them is still in partial use on the descendent of whichever Eastern railroad originally invented it. However, flat cars and well cars to take standard containers have vastly surpassed the cargo carrying capacity of any attempts the railroads came up with.
These vintage films are rather entertaining with their old-style narration drama. I found it interesting that the primary topic is about newly installed CTC, Centralized Traffic Control. I grew up next to the NYC mainline in upstate New York. I was just a tot when four tracks were changed to two main tracks with CTC which was claimed to handle more traffic, more epediently. A large signal bridge (originally spanning four tracks) and crossovers near our house provided considerable fascination for me as a child. I saw lots of those Flexi-van cars on the NYC back in the 1960's.
Speed of the Freight train has almost doubled because they can now use passenger tracks This was the beginning of the end for American passenger trains. Now freight has priority on passenger tracks. Who would use a transit system where being delayed is part of normal procedure.
Originally there were two reasons for separate passenger and freight tracks. The first was obviously so that passengers could run around freight easily. The second was that freight is heavier, and it tears up the track a whole lot quicker. This doesn't hurt the freight that much, since it is relatively slow, but it pretty quickly makes the track almost unusable for passenger traffic at any decent speed, since the cars bob, dip, and weave all over the place from the ruts in the track profile. The people in the back rooms knew this very well, but the people in the front office didn't give a damn, as they already saw that passenger traffic was going away.
3:14 Nowadays it would be "To avoid stopping the freight, we pulled the passenger train to the side to allow the freight train to pass despite a (never enforced) law prohibiting that making the passenger train 4 hours late since this happened several other times on its journey."
3:50: Causing the Empire State Express to switch tracks was wrong, since the train would have to slow down to 45 mph to negotiate the crossover turnouts and pass the freight. Better to have the freight do all that work, and the Empire State wouldn't have lost time.
"A 6 and 1 quarter million dollar project". In today's world, that project would be budgeted at 6.25 billion, and end up costing twice as much due to budget overruns. Progress!
it was right to embrace air travel, but we never should have done away with passenger trains, trolleys and streetcars. we can thank GM and standard oil for this.
Lots of beautiful first generation diesels in this film. I've never heard of the Flexi-Van service before. I'll bet the poor guy pushing with all of his might to rotate the container wishes he'd never heard of it either.
Thanks for your comment and for being a sub!
Just imagine doing that for eight hours, he dosent.want any over time
I saw lots of those Flexi-vans on NYC in the 1960's. Didn't know one guy could rotate it on the car. I reckon they were just demonstrating that one [straining] guy could rotate the container; probably not how it was routinely done!
It's interesting to see that NYC was *ALMOST THERE* with containerization.
The most important part of containerization is getting the shipping and trucking industry to standardize on your design. That's why they are international standard containers. is there any chance that the world would adopt their proprietary container system, or that they would allow it? Although I'm sure this was one of the things that directly led to that result. I don't think they just gave up on it, it wasn't long after this that standard containers were adopted, although it took a while for them to really take over. Who is to say that the international container wasn't directly result of this, an adaptation of the idea with improvement m
@@justforever96 It wasn't. Containers came about to get cargo on and off ships quickly, specifically to get military cargo from the US to Viet Nam during the war there. This was strictly a US effort, led by one man, as I recall. The current international standards were initially just a rubber stamp on what had already been designed for one shipping line. So yes, the world adopted a proprietary container shape. While the containers are specified in metric dimensions everywhere but in the US, the containers are marked as 20 foot, 40 foot, and 53 foot. The metric dimensions are just the metric representations of the English dimensions.
During this era various railroads were trying piggyback, roadrailer, and about three other forms of semi-containerization. Several of them had promise, and I think one of them is still in partial use on the descendent of whichever Eastern railroad originally invented it. However, flat cars and well cars to take standard containers have vastly surpassed the cargo carrying capacity of any attempts the railroads came up with.
These vintage films are rather entertaining with their old-style narration drama. I found it interesting that the primary topic is about newly installed CTC, Centralized Traffic Control. I grew up next to the NYC mainline in upstate New York. I was just a tot when four tracks were changed to two main tracks with CTC which was claimed to handle more traffic, more epediently. A large signal bridge (originally spanning four tracks) and crossovers near our house provided considerable fascination for me as a child. I saw lots of those Flexi-van cars on the NYC back in the 1960's.
A lot of good information, thanks.
Flexi van was so close...
And that hump at Buffalo's frontier yard is now just a memory
It's important to remain on the right side of the tracks.
Yessir!
CTC allows trains to utilize either track, traffic depending. That's the beauty of it. Still in use!
I dunno about that Flexi-Van as it appeared to put a whole lot of stress on the front and rear of the trailer.
Speed of the Freight train has almost doubled because they can now use passenger tracks
This was the beginning of the end for American passenger trains. Now freight has priority on passenger tracks. Who would use a transit system where being delayed is part of normal procedure.
Originally there were two reasons for separate passenger and freight tracks. The first was obviously so that passengers could run around freight easily. The second was that freight is heavier, and it tears up the track a whole lot quicker. This doesn't hurt the freight that much, since it is relatively slow, but it pretty quickly makes the track almost unusable for passenger traffic at any decent speed, since the cars bob, dip, and weave all over the place from the ruts in the track profile. The people in the back rooms knew this very well, but the people in the front office didn't give a damn, as they already saw that passenger traffic was going away.
Hmmm maybe I should buy stock in New York Central
Too late.
Just go back to 1950.
3:14 Nowadays it would be "To avoid stopping the freight, we pulled the passenger train to the side to allow the freight train to pass despite a (never enforced) law prohibiting that making the passenger train 4 hours late since this happened several other times on its journey."
3:50: Causing the Empire State Express to switch tracks was wrong, since the train would have to slow down to 45 mph to negotiate the crossover turnouts and pass the freight. Better to have the freight do all that work, and the Empire State wouldn't have lost time.
Agreed.
It seems that "flexi-van" is more efficient than today's container yards? No? Enlighten me please.
@00:47 Engine, power unit, power unit, engine
Or in the terms of the time, and ABBA consist.
This is now called the MTA Metro North Railroad (at least in the New York City Area) and Amtrak.
The Vanderbilt's would be proud of this.
"A 6 and 1 quarter million dollar project". In today's world, that project would be budgeted at 6.25 billion, and end up costing twice as much due to budget overruns. Progress!
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'42,000 lbs', What's the point in having 'tons'?
It's more precise, 21T could be 42,000lb or, 41,900 or 42,173.
Highway/truck regulations are noted in pounds, not tons.
thumb 👍
coltrane reference
it was right to embrace air travel, but we never should have done away with passenger trains, trolleys and streetcars.
we can thank GM and standard oil for this.
1957 automation, then total bankruptcy within the next 5 years or so for the NYC System.
nice lie The NYC did not do broke until forced to Merged with the Prr
11years later they took over Pennsylvania rail road
Edit…..11 years later they merged with PRR to avoid bankruptcy which resulted in a financial catastrophe
@@stopsign997 it was the Other Way Around, the Prr was Broke since the end of WW2, how young are you