RailEnquiry

Employees at Kasgro in New Castle have been making heavy duty rail cars since 1993.But currently, they are finishing up their largest project ever."Normally the biggest car would be a 20-axle or 22-axle Schnabel car," said Kasgro President and CEO Joe Crawford. "This is a 36-axle Schnabel car. It's the biggest car ever built in North America."The car is 231 feet long and sits 18 feet off the ground. It's bigger than its sister car that was built in Germany back in 1980."So we had to replicate all the drawings," said Crawford. "Redo all the drawings to U.S. standards. We've been building this car for a year."Kasgro hired 15 additional employees to get the job done.Once it's moving, the car will require a special train and a special six-person crew to operate it. When the rail car is loaded, it can only travel up to 15 mph."It can shift laterally 40 inches and and it can shift up 44 inches," said Crawford. "So it can take a huge container and move it around bridges, around tunnels to clear the railroad."The two ends separate in the middle to accommodate the load, which can weigh up to 880 tons. The 36-axle Schnabel Car is headed to the Port of Charleston to move equipment to expand and build plants for Westinghouse Nuclear.It's set to make the trip down South in July.