PASSING TRAINS PT3; IC48 PT1

Now that the busy holiday shipping season is over, the westbound flow of empty containers back to Asia begins...

Train IC48 is devoted to international stack traffic between Baltimore and Chicago. Today, it is lead by a pair of CEFX SD70M-2's.

A VERY faded China Shipping 45' container rides atop a 40' NYK box. A pair of single-stacked China Shipping 20-footers is in the next well. As you'll see, this train has a lot of Chinese shipper containers returning to the Far East.

A older Gunderson Maxi-Stack, with a variety of 40' boxes, including a pair of orange Hapag-Lloyd standard-height (8'6") containers. The height difference is quite noticeable. Another Chinese container is the COSCO box (Chinese Ocean Shipping COmpany).

More China Shipping containers, including another faded 45-footer, and another pair of Hapag-Lloyds.

IC48 rolls through Hillsdale Yard past a string of stored ballast hoppers and a pair of gons loaded with shredded scrap metal bound for Wilson Steel Works. Of note is the fact that the first car in the train is a drawbar-connected three-unit set of 53' well cars. Using 53' well cars to carry 40' containers is not the most efficient way to do things, but it happens more than the railroads would like.
Speaking of more, there will, of course, be more of this train next week!