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Amtrak RoadRailer® Trailers
The Wabash National RoadRailer® system was tailor made to handle dock to dock high value cargo by rail and highway. Amtrak®'s earliest experience in hauling cargo was an informal package service carried in the baggage cars of long distance trains. Clients would deliver and pick up their cargo at Amtrak®'s station. This business and increasing volumes of mail led Amtrak® to add express box cars to their fleet. Wabash National® then developed a 48' RoadRailer® trailer with a side door to handle mail. The side door allowed mail to be loaded en route while keeping the train intact. When a large order for 53' Plate Wall design RoadRailer® trailers for a highway carrier was suddenly cancelled, Amtrak® agreed to lease the partially completed trailers. They were delivered in whiteh with unpainted aluminum "stiffeners" and AMTZ reporting marks. Later, when a trucking line traded in more 53' plate wall RoadRailer® trailers on a different design, Amtrak® snapped these up too. Since these pre-owned units were already assembled, they received a solid coat of white paint that even covered the aluminum stiffeners. Both fleets received the reflective conspicuity stripes along the bottom edges. Some minor variations have appeared in these paint schemes and one is presented here. A handful of trailers received Amtrak®'s original arrow logo over the tandems. The logos point forward on both sides of the trailers. This deLuxe RoadRailer® release consists of a single, a 3-pack, and a 6-pack for a total of 10 different road numbers. The single is the silver stiffener version, the 3-pack has one of each, adn the 6-pack has 3 solid white trailers, 2 with the silver stiffeners, and 1 with the blue and red logo. Please remember, a CouplerMate rail bogie is required to connect a string of RoadRailer® trailers to the rest of the train. CouplerMate rail bogies are available separately. In prototype operations, Amtrak® usually runs a CouplerMate bogie at both ends of the string to facilitate switching at terminals. They are also seen in pairs in the middle of a string so some trailers in a string can be switched out mid-trip.
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