Flatcar
A flatcar is an open railway car with a flat deck and no sides or top, used for outsized loads — machinery, lumber, military equipment, and shipping containers in intermodal service.
Variations include the bulkhead flatcar (with vertical end-walls to hold long loads in place), the centerbeam flatcar (with a vertical central beam for lumber and building materials), and the well car (with a recessed centre section to accommodate double-stack containers).
Intermodal containers ride on well cars or on specialised flatcars that secure the container with twistlocks. The container is the cargo unit; the flatcar is just the chassis that gets it from the port to inland destinations.
Standard flatcar capacity ranges from 80 to 100 tons, depending on car class. Specialised heavy-duty flatcars (Schnabel cars, for example) handle transformers and other oversized industrial loads.
Related terms
- BoxcarA boxcar is an enclosed railway freight car used for general merchandise: paper rolls, packaged goods, lumber, machinery. A modern boxcar typically holds 200,000 lb or more of payload.
- IntermodalIntermodal shipping uses a standard container moved by two or more transport modes — typically ship, rail, and truck — without unloading the cargo at the transfer points. The container is the persistent unit of movement.
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