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

217 illustrations, car drawings, bibliography and index. This is a second edition with updated information, images and tables. Piggyback and Containers: A History of Rail Intermodal on America's Steel Highway 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 Railroad's influence over Trailer Train, 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 nation's largest freight carrier and their influence on rail-piggyback.