A pocket wagon is a freight wagon that has been specially designed for the transport of truck
semi-trailer
A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. In the United States, the term is also used to refer to the combination of a truck and a semi-trailer; a tractor-trailer.
A large proportion of a semi-trailer's weight is supported by a tracto ...
s. This wagon belongs to the group of flat wagons in special design with bogies and is used in
combined transport
Combined transport is a form of Intermodal freight transport, intermodal transport, which is the movement of goods in one and the same loading unit or road vehicle, using successively two or more modes of transport without handling the goods thems ...
(CT). The name of these freight wagons comes from the fact that between the narrow longitudinal girders on the outside and also lengthways between the bogies, the so-called pockets are located, in which the wheels of the
semi-trailer
A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. In the United States, the term is also used to refer to the combination of a truck and a semi-trailer; a tractor-trailer.
A large proportion of a semi-trailer's weight is supported by a tracto ...
s are particularly low. For flexible use in CT, pocket wagons have
hinge
A hinge is a mechanical bearing that connects two solid objects, typically allowing only a limited angle of rotation between them. Two objects connected by an ideal hinge rotate relative to each other about a fixed axis of rotation: all other ...
d
latch
A latch or catch (called sneck in Northern England and Scotland) is a type of mechanical fastener that joins two (or more) objects or surfaces while allowing for their regular separation. A latch typically engages another piece of hardware on t ...
es with ISO spigots on the solebar, so that
containers
A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping.
Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...
and
swap bodies up to 45 ft can be accommodated'.
As a flat wagon, it bears the UIC generic letter S and, since it is intended for the transport of road vehicles on one level, the code letter ''d''. Since it is also possible to transport containers in a pocket wagon, it bears the UIC generic mark ''Sdgs''. In this context, the code letter g stands for "containers up to 60 feet" and the lower case s for the permitted speed of up to . The wagons have a yellow triangle with a black P on the long side. The first pocket wagons were built in Germany as early as 1972 and further developed according to requirements.
Structure
So that the
loading gauge
A loading gauge is a diagram or physical structure that defines the maximum height and width dimensions in railway vehicles and their loads. Their purpose is to ensure that rail vehicles can pass safely through tunnels and under bridges, and ke ...
of the wagon is as small as possible, it is equipped with external side members that leave deep space for the chassis of the semi-trailer. The
semi-trailer
A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. In the United States, the term is also used to refer to the combination of a truck and a semi-trailer; a tractor-trailer.
A large proportion of a semi-trailer's weight is supported by a tracto ...
is secured with its
kingpin by a
coupling plate or a saddle, which are located on a support frame; some of its wheels are still
wedgelocked. With regard to the service life of the king pin, loaded wagons are to be treated as caution items with 3 exclamation marks; a regulation that is also associated with a ban on kicking and walking. Container support pins are usually present on the sidebar so that it can be freely used in CT trains and so that it does not necessarily have to be reloaded with a semi-trailer on the way back. New wagons have a height-adjustable support frame, which can also be moved in the longitudinal direction of the wagon and can therefore be adapted to the different semi-trailers.
Requirements for the semi-trailer
Only codified semitrailers approved for rail transport can be loaded, as loading is carried out with a
crane or a mobile loading device that relies on gripping edges. The semi-trailer is lifted into the wagon, so it does not drive onto the wagon. For loading, the rear underrun protection must also be raised and, if air suspension is available, it must be vented.
Types
T1 (Sdgkms 707)
The archetype of all pocket wagons was created in 1973. Of the bogie flat wagons, which were still known by the DB as Skss-z 707, a total of 700 were purchased by the Deutsche Bundesbahn, and other identical wagons from other European railway companies. The key features of these wagons are a length over
buffers of and a load limit of . In the course of time, both of these things turned out to be too small due to ever larger semi-trailers. This freight wagon, built according to UIC leaflet 571-4, received the UIC generic sign Sdkms (s) with the type number 707 from around 1980.
The T2 was a longer eccentric, which was built in small numbers for the FS and was therefore not included in the T-type designations.
T3 (Sdgmns 743)
![Sdgmns743 sketch](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Sdgmns743_sketch.png)
As a result of the too small T1, the T3 was created in the early 1990s. At , this wagon is almost longer and has a load limit of , so that at least against the background of these values, every currently approved trailer can be transported. The length is not ideal for transporting containers, but is better suited for 24 ft / 26 ft
swap bodies due to the higher load limit.
T4.0 / T4.1 / T4.2
edit The T4.0l, developed in- house by
Hupac AG, now has a loading length of , which is also common today for one-piece 60 ft container wagons. The load limit is for containers and for trailers. The T4.1 is a successor series with minor changes. The T4.2, which was also procured by WASCOSA AG, has slightly cranked solebars on the pocket part for better accessibility of the crane contact point from lower semi-trailers.
T5
The T5 is again a Hupac further development of the T4, in which modern so-called mega - trailers with an interior height of 3 m can also be transported. These trailers require a floor that is lower above the top of the rails (TOR) and even lower longitudinal beams on the wagon frame to grip the arms on the semitrailer.
Sdggmrs 744 / Sdggmrs 739
This wagon is an articulated wagon with three two-
axle
An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearing ...
bogie
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...
s. The 270 wagons built exclusively for the DB as combination wagons are partly pure 106 ? ft container wagons with a loading length of and partly similar to the T3 pocket wagon section. The type 739 is approved for , otherwise identical. The different paintwork of the container part in blue and the bag part in orange was striking, which is why the car was nicknamed "Parrot".
T2000 (Sdggmrss 736)
Another articulated wagon is the T2000, which does not have a combined container and pocket wagon half, but has two T3-like pocket wagon parts as in the "Parrot".
T3000 (Sdggmrss 738) / T3000 e (Sdggmrs 738.1)
The T3000 is a further developed articulated wagon that is also suitable for mega trailers. The wagon has rising frames at the ends of the bogie and support beams with hinged latches for containers or swap bodies that can be moved at right angles over the longitudinal girder on rollers.
The T3000 e has two T5-like parts with hinged bolts in fixed central positions on the solebar, which therefore cannot accommodate a 30 ft container.
Gallery
File:Fort Schoenenbourg FRA 002.jpg, WW I trench railways
Trench railways represented military adaptation of early 20th-century railway technology to the problem of keeping soldiers supplied during the static trench warfare phase of World War I. The large concentrations of soldiers and artillery at the ...
pocket wagons at Fort Schoenenbourg Schoenenbourg, France
File:83854933052-3.jpg, Part of the Hupac
Hupac is a railway company in Switzerland. Hupac's Shuttle Net has 110 intermodal trains per day across Europe. Hupac also offers a rolling highway from Basel to Lugano. In 2009, volumes carried fell by 13.5%, to 607,284 road shipments; but pro ...
jumbo wagon that is set up to transport a semi-trailer
File:Sattelaufliegergehoben.jpg, A semi-trailer lifted for loading
File:Banbury box car 2001 1st.png, A ''tiphook
Tiphook PLC was a United Kingdom headquartered transport services company, registered on the London and New York stock markets, which became the world's second largest marine container leasing business in the 1990s. The Company was once a consti ...
wagon'' loaded with one intermodal container
An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different Mode of transport, modes of trans ...
( double stack is not possible in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
)
Incident
In the
Great Belt Bridge rail accident, the kingpin of a semi-trailer had come loose due to wind pressure from the side and the trailer had been pushed into the
clearance profile of the oncoming passenger train. Pocket wagons were temporarily banned in Denmark.
Temporary ban
/ref>
Models
T1 pocket wagons for model railway
Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale.
The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, t ...
s have been used in H0 gauge
HO or H0 is a rail transport modelling scale using a 1:87 scale (3.5 mm to 1 foot). It is the most popular scale of model railway in the world. The rails are spaced apart for modelling standard gauge tracks and trains in HO. NMRA"Mo ...
for a long time, from Roco
Roco, based in Salzburg, Austria, is a manufacturer of model railway equipment.
History
The company was founded in 1960 by Ing. Heinz Rössler and started with a plastic Minitanks series of military vehicles. After export to the USA became succ ...
and Märklin
Gebr. Märklin & Cie. GmbH or Märklin (MÄRKLIN or MAERKLIN in capital letters) is a German toy company. The company was founded in 1859 and is based at Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg. Although it originally specialised in doll house accesso ...
, TT gauge
TT scale is a model railroading scale, whose name stands for ''table top''.
Its 1:120 scale (from a common engineering scale where one inch equals ten feet) and gauge are roughly halfway between HO scale (1:87) and N scale (1:160). Its original ...
from Tillig and N gauge from Roco and Trix. More modern and contemporary models in H0 are the T3 from Roco, the "Parrot" from Tillig
Tillig (''TILLIG Modellbahnen GmbH & Co. KG'') is a German model railroad manufacturing company based in Sebnitz, Saxony. Tillig is the largest manufacturer of TT scale model railroad products in the world. Previously known as Zeuke (founded i ...
, the T2000 from Roco, the T3000 from Rocky-Rail and the T3000 e from Roco and Piko. From two smaller H0 manufacturers there was the T3 (Ade / ) and T4.0 / T4.1 (combination model). The latter also announced other types such as T5, T2000 etc., but never delivered.
See also
* Class U special wagon
The International Union of Railways groups all special classes of railway goods wagon (less those in classes F, H, L, S or Z) into Class U in its goods wagon classification system.
These are:
* Bulk goods wagons for transporting powders, etc.
* ...
* Modalohr
The Lohr Railway System or Modalohr System (french: Système Modalohr) uses special railway wagons of a type known as piggyback wagons, to carry standard road semi-trailers on the European rail network.[Tiphook
Tiphook PLC was a United Kingdom headquartered transport services company, registered on the London and New York stock markets, which became the world's second largest marine container leasing business in the 1990s. The Company was once a consti ...]
* Well car
A well car, also known as a double-stack car (or also intermodal car/container car), is a type of railroad car specially designed to carry intermodal containers (shipping containers) used in intermodal freight transport. The "well" is a depresse ...
References
Bibliography and sources
* Helmut Behrends, Wolfgang Hensel, Gerhard Wiedau: Goods wagon archive. Volume 2. Transpress-Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-344-00330-5
* Website o / u Prospecte combination model.
* Dybas (https://www.dybas.de/)
* The word pocket wagon occurs 7 time
on this page
Definition of pocket wagon
External links
Website
von dybas – Die Bahnseiten.
{{Freight cars
Pages translated from German Wikipedia
Rail transport
Vehicle technology