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History I thought this was interesting -- Vertical Car Shipping

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by pops29, Feb 8, 2010.

  1. Neat story. When I was a kid one of the local rich kids had his dad buy him a 71 or 72 Vega hatchback painted pearl white with a black interior with a narrowed 12 bolt, N50-15's and skinnys up front, Cragar S/S all around. With a worked LT-1 the car seemed like a rocket ship at the time (early 80's). The body finally twisted and he got rid of it. I'd never own a stock Vega but with a hot V8 they were quite a ride.
     
  2. c-10 simplex
    Joined: Aug 24, 2009
    Posts: 1,371

    c-10 simplex
    Member

    That's interesting:

    So, the time/effort/money it takes to engineer a different type of railroad car+putting in all those baffles in the car was much cheaper than simply adding more conventional railcars to the already long train to which gm was already probably deeply "in bed" with union pacific anyways?

    i mean, it's only 12 more cars to each railcar. i know it's a numbers game and that's why they did it, but still?
     
  3. paintcan54
    Joined: Oct 27, 2007
    Posts: 1,101

    paintcan54
    Member

    I worked for a Chevy Dealer in Indy when they came out, Hated them then. Then I figured out they was a money maker when GM had to fix all the bad motors in them, I could do two a day, I loved them. Ended up owening three of them good cars if you could keep them from rusting out.
     
  4. Is anybody else surprised by the paint job on this Model T? :confused:

    I just never would have guessed that these cars had that nice of a finish on them originally. Maybe if it was a Packard or a Cadillac, but not so much for a Model T. :D
     
  5. 61TBird
    Joined: Mar 16, 2008
    Posts: 2,640

    61TBird
    Member

    Subframe connectors and Anti-Hop bars are mandatory in a "worked" Vega.

    There used to be a company in SoCal (IECO) that had the hot setup for 4 cyl Vega's.
    They replaced the stock block with a steel sleeved one(I had one in my 2nd one). They also made a Single or Dual Weber intake for their "worked" head.

    Of course the Ultimate Vega would be one from Baldwin/Motion with a guaranteed 10 second 1/4 or they'd buy it back:eek:
    http://www.yenko.net/features/2000/May2000.htm
     
  6. Nope. Same amount, whether the dealer is 10 miles from the factory or 4,000 miles. That's why the one price. That averages out. That way, the shipping costs are always a set value, as well.
     
  7. A few of these mods maybe cost them a dollar per car, but a lot of them were essentially free. You weren't really adding filler necks, vent pipes, and washer bottles, etc., to vehicles that didn't have them anyway. You just needed to design them a little differently so the vital fluids didn't leak out when you stood them up on end. It would have cost much more per car to ship them "dry".
     
  8. It would be bad ass to find an old abandoned railroad yard with a bunch of those boxcars still full...
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  9. rustrustler
    Joined: Mar 18, 2005
    Posts: 281

    rustrustler
    Member

    I seem to remember 4 57 chev's vertical in a boxcar. Any retired railroaders able to vouch for this? Mike.
     
  10. Yes, I WAS surprised. I thought it was a spectacular paint job
     
  11. yardgoat
    Joined: Nov 22, 2009
    Posts: 724

    yardgoat
    Member

    Thats for sure wild in them there days.Woudnt oil run out the dip stick,power steer fluid out the vent hole in cap,and worst of all a battery on its side.Bet no fluids or battery during shipping that way ..........................YG
     
  12. Probably from the '50s up thru the '70s or later, whenever you saw new cars being hauled on a truck transporter or rail car, they almost never had any hub caps on them. I'm sure this was to prevent theft and vandalism and they would have been packed in the trunk to be installed later by the dealers.

    I say almost never because Cadillacs were regularly shipped with the wheel covers in place. I'm sure this was because Cadillac management never wanted their cars to be seen as stripped down or incomplete, even while being hauled to the dealer. Maybe Imperials and Lincolns were shipped the same way, but I only ever noticed this with the Caddys.

    I'd guess that more than a few customs in the '50s and '60s were equipped with Cadillac caps "liberated" from the lower level of a car hauler parked at a poorly lit truckstop.:rolleyes:
     
  13. "The Vega’s engine oil pan had a special baffle to keep oil from seeping into the number 1 cylinder while the cars were vertical. The battery caps, carburetor float bowls and windshield washer fluid reservoirs were also designed to prevent fluids from leaking during shipping."
     
  14. Well, the "over engineerng" was done by Southern Pacific, with only minor involvement from GM. The changes to the cars were simple and made no difference in the finished product. Which was indeed crap, but that nothing to do with the shipping. The Vert-A-Pak's were used for more than just California according to a retired SP exec. and the reason they quit using them had to do with America's reluctance to accept small cars, Ford's lack of interest in making changes to the Pinto to be suitable for this shippings and the labor intensive design that SP came up with. They also didn't originally take into account at the cars were taller and had to run on certain routes due to that height.
    Hope that makes it a little clearer for you :rolleyes:
     
  15. swi66
    Joined: Jun 8, 2009
    Posts: 18,175

    swi66
    Member

    I sent the photos to a friend of mine who is quite a GM historian.

    His reply:

    The Vega "Verti-Pack" system, another Ed Cole deal, this time concocted with the railroads to ship Vegas vertically. It was a total disaster and only a few trips were made. The cars were designed with oil pan baffles, radiators etc. that wouldn't spill if the cars sat vertically. That worked, but when the first train got to Calif. the cars were literally destroyed from the unanticipated vibration. Engine mounts broke, cars came loose and ruined the bodies, seats worked loose and jumped around the interiors...most of the cars were scrapped outright.

    Dave Newell
     
  16. american opel
    Joined: Dec 14, 2006
    Posts: 1,222

    american opel
    Member
    from ohio

    thinking out of the box{or in it}!!sometimes peoples imagination just amazes me.nowadays if something happens like this its just because somebodys friend makes {blake}and they want to make alot of money so they work together to make it happen.sorta like polititions that make $100,000 a year and they somehow can afford two or three multimillion dollar houses and spend more on a vacation than i make in a year.
     
  17. rustyhood
    Joined: Dec 2, 2009
    Posts: 722

    rustyhood
    Member


    What he said! Thanks for the history. :D
     
  18. Ramblur
    Joined: Jun 15, 2005
    Posts: 2,101

    Ramblur
    Member


    When I was very young my dad was a crane operator setting steel at
    the Lordstown plant. I still have a yardstick for a Chevrolet-Fisher Body
    open house Oct 18-21 1966. They managed to misspell Lordstown
    as "Lordtown"...
    Thank god for Grumpy Jenkins lending the little Vega some respectability...
     
  19. Whad ja expect? Flat black? Ol'Henry wasn't a rat rodder...

    I actually found a model A in a girlfriends garage, even though the roof and interior were gone, after cleaning her up the paint wasn't too different. Very shiny.
     
  20. Wow, all of those stude Bodies are damaged... I wonder if they're headed for scrap?
     
  21. Man does anybody ever READ the other responses or do they just jump to the end and post blindly like this guy ? Those issues were discussed 10 fuckin times already in the beginning of this post... :rolleyes: On the bright side I wonder how many home made ramp trucks & racecar trailers got built out of those boxcars once they were retired & scrapped..
     
  22. Thats for sure wild in them there days.Woudnt oil run out the dip stick,power steer fluid out the vent hole in cap,and worst of all a battery on its side.Bet no fluids or battery during shipping that way .:D (11). I couldn't resist
     
  23. Left Turn
    Joined: Nov 13, 2009
    Posts: 634

    Left Turn
    Member Emeritus
    from Omaha, NE

    Hey groucho, do you have any pics of lowrider vegas? I know I saw one in the retro section of lowrider a while back, but I was just wonderin' if you had anything...
     
  24. Just this:D

    [​IMG]
     
  25. 40Standard
    Joined: Jul 30, 2005
    Posts: 5,963

    40Standard
    Member
    from Indy

    back in the Penn Central Railroad days, Vegas were shipped on a 3 level flat (rack) cars. I know cause I climbed into and started a lot of Vegas. the chains would hold the car down while we burned the clutch
     
  26. hahahahahhahaahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahha!!!!!!!!!!!
     
  27. Somebody alert the authorities!!!!!!
     

    Attached Files:

  28. Thats a derailment. Hence the fire truck/cars off the tracks/damage.
     
  29. Ummm, well...I guess I kinda expected brush strokes. Maybe a few bugs in the paint, or at least a thin layer of flotsam. Or some of that there patina stuff.;)

    Was Ol' Henry still brushing laquer on these things or were they spraying them by then?:confused:
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2010
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