Until the early
1960s, automobiles moved by rail were carried in boxcars. These were 50
feet long with double-wide doors. Inside was room for four full-sized
sedans on a two-tier rack - two raised up off the floor on a steel rack
and two others tucked in underneath them. This protected the cars during
transport but wasn't very efficient, as the weight of four vehicles was
far less than the maximum weight a boxcar that size could carry.
When 85-foot and 89-foot flatcars came into service, it was possible to
pack a total of fifteen automobiles in one car on tri-level auto racks.
But it still didn't approach the maximum allowable weight for each
flatcar.
When Chevrolet
started designing Vega during the late 1960s, one of the main objectives
was to keep the cost of the car down around $2,000 in circa-1970
dollars. At the time, the
freight charge for moving a loaded railroad car from the Lordstown, OH
assembly plant to the Pacific coast - the longest distance cars produced
at Lordstown would need to travel - was around $4,800. Since the Vega was a subcompact, it
was possible to squeeze three more cars on a railroad car for a total of
eighteen, instead of the usual fifteen. But that still worked out to around
$300 per car - a substantial surcharge for a $2000 car. If only Chevrolet could get more
Vegas on a railroad car, the cost per unit of hauling them would go
down.
The engineers
at GM and Southern Pacific Railroad came up with a clever solution.
Instead of loading the cars
horizontally, the Vegas were to be placed vertically on a specially
designed auto-rack called the Vert-A-Pac. Within the same volume of an 89-foot
flatcar, the Vert-A-Pac system could hold as many as 30 automobiles
instead of 18.
Chevrolet's
goal was to deliver Vegas topped with fluids and ready to drive to the
dealership. In order to be
able to travel nose-down without leaking fluids all over the railroad,
Vega engineers had to design a special engine oil baffle to prevent oil
from entering the No. 1 cylinder. Batteries had filler caps
located high up on the rear edge of the case to prevent acid spilling,
the carburetor float bowl had a special tube that drained gasoline into
the vapor canister during shipment, and the windshield washer bottle
stood at a 45 degree angle. Plastic spacers were wedged in
beside the powertrain to prevent damage to engine and transmission
mounts. The wedges were
removed when cars were unloaded.
;
The Vega was hugely popular when
it was introduced in 1970, however it quickly earned a reputation for unreliability, rust and
terrible enginedurability. When the Vega was
discontinued in 1977, the Vert-A-Pac cars had to be retired as they were
too specialized to be used with anything else. The Vert-A-Pac
racks were scrapped, and the underlying flatcars went on to other
uses.
( Note: Oh, I know from personal
experience! Sandy)
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