Reply #158: Actually, no. Those "trailer cars" are known as "piggy back" rail cars. [View All]

[A HERETIC I AM]

and the operation or use of them is known as "TOFC" of "COFC" for "Trailer On Flat Car" or Container On Flat Car".

Truck trailers are moved using rail cars like the one pictured.

Containers are more often hauled in deep well, "double stack" rail cars like these


The trailers and containers are the intermodal shipment, NOT the rail car.

The Locomotive is the large, noisy thing at the front of the train (and sometimes at the end and occasionally in the middle), doing all the pulling.


And by the way, there is no single railroad company in this country - not one - that offers coast to coast services. If you have a trailer, or a hundred trailers or anything you want shipped by rail and you need it moved from LA to New York, you must contract with at least 2 different rail road companies to get it there.