A railcar with a flat deck and no sides or roof, used for oversized or heavy loads such as machinery, lumber, steel beams, and military equipment. Flatcars include standard, bulkhead, center-beam, and well-car variants. They are also the base platform for trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC) intermodal service.
An intermodal flatcar with a depressed center section (the well) that allows stacking two 20- or 40-foot containers vertically, known as double-stack operation. Double-stacking roughly doubles the payload per train and reduces cost per container. Well cars are typically articulated in sets of five or more to reduce weight and the number of inter-car connections.
A flatcar with a vertical center partition running the length of the car, used to transport building materials such as lumber, wallboard, and fence posts loaded on both sides of the beam. The center beam provides structural rigidity and keeps loads from shifting. Centerbeam cars are a dominant equipment type in the forest products market.
A flatcar with solid vertical walls (bulkheads) at each end to contain shifting loads such as lumber, pulpwood, and pipe. Bulkheads prevent end-shifting during transit and allow loads to be stacked higher than on a standard flat. They are widely used in the forest products and building materials industries.
An intermodal service in which an over-the-road highway trailer is loaded directly onto a flatcar for the rail portion of a move, sometimes called piggyback. TOFC allows door-to-door service with standard trailers and is used where containers are not available or practical. It has largely been supplanted by COFC double-stack service on high-density lanes.
An intermodal service in which ISO or domestic containers are loaded onto well cars or flatcars, often double-stacked, for the rail portion of a move. COFC is the dominant form of intermodal rail service in North America and enables double-stack efficiency. Containers are transferred between trucks and trains at intermodal terminals.