Piggyback and Containers: A History of Rail Intermodal on America's Steel Highway

Golden West Books, hardcover with jacket, 207 pages, 8.5 x 11 x.75 in., 217 illustrations, car drawings, bibliography and index.

This is a second edition with updated information, images and tables. This book presents the complete intermodal story: The development of Gene Ryan's Rail Trailer Company; General Motors flirtation with a depressed center-car design; the establishment of Trailer Train; Southern Pacific's truck-trailer train experiment between Los Angeles and San Francisco (handling only company owned Pacific Motor Trucking Trailers); the separation of Pennsylvania Railroads influence over Trailer Train; and the combination of rail-highway units familiarly called Rail Van and RoadRailer.

Featured are the various hitch arrangements, the once popular trailer-leasing program, the expansion of United Parcel from a department store delivery service to the United States' largest freight carrier and their influence on rail-piggyback.

This book is written by an industry insider who tells the 'who' and 'why'.

Contents:

• Introduction, pp. 10–12
• The Less-Than-Carload Problem, pp. 13–20
• It's Soup-The First-Generation, pp. 21–26
• The Amazing Mr. Ryan, pp. 27–32
• Commercial Implications, pp. 33–42
• Load 'Em Up, pp. 43–50
• Technology- Never Where's, Wanna-Bee's and Sorta Where's, pp. 51–66
• The Birth of Trailer Train, pp. 67–72
• Intermodal Gains a Voice, pp. 73–76
• Trailer Leasing, pp. 77–82
• Terminal Mechanization, pp. 83–98
• United Parcel Service-The Little Brown Package Car, pp. 99–104
• Trailer Train and Gene Ryan, pp. 105–110
• Santa Fe-Super C and the Coax Train, pp. 111–118
• Federal Railroad Administration, pp. 119–128
• Road-Railer, pp. 129–134
• New Technology, pp. 135–146
• Deregulation-Free at Last, pp. 147–150
• Putting Technology to Work, pp. 151–166
• The Movement to Domestic Containers, pp. 167–174
• End of the Beginning, pp. 175–178
• Appendix, pp. 179–183
• Bibliography, pp. 184–187
• Index, pp. 188–192.