PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR Modeling municipal waste trains


Part III: ULTRA spine cars We wrap up our series by modeling the car and containers/M.R. Snell


W er and


hen rail transportation of mu- nicipal waste was in its infan- cy almost any type of contain- flat


car was adapted for


municipal waste service. As the indus- try developed, a need arose to maxi- mize the efficiency of the task and spe- cialty equipment was developed, one of those pieces being the ULTRA (Univer- sal Load, Twin Railcar, Articulated) spine car. The ULTRA spine car was developed in 1990 by Berwick Freight Car Co. for the Environmental Protection and Im- provement Corp. (EPIC), for use in hauling containerized dried sludge from the Passaic Valley Sewage Au- thority in northern New Jersey for landfill disposal out of state. The UL- TRA cars enabled EPIC to replace two 70-ton, 89-foot intermodal flat cars, each capable of carrying three contain- ers, with a single 86-foot piece of equip- ment capable of carrying six contain- ers. This of course, increased capacity


62


The ULTRA spine cars were built by Berwick Freight Car in response to the Environmen- tal Protection Improvement Corp.’s need to haul containerized dried sludge efficiently.


while reducing train length. Produced under the Maxon label in Tell City, Indiana, the two-unit articu-


lated ULTRA cars are 86 feet long with a light weight of 68,000 pounds and a capacity of 144 tons. Equipped with


JULY 2012


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