Freight-transportation system with road/rail transshipment

摘要

A rail network serving a given territory has a multiplicity of transfer stations for the transshipment of freight containers between local truck routes and scheduled freight trains, as well as between trains traveling to different destinations, each train comprising a number of flatcars with transverse roller conveyors which are aligned with similar conveyors on adjoining platforms when the train halts at a station. The platforms are separated by one or more railroad tracks and by several longitudinal conveyors in the form of articulated chains whose links are also provided with transverse roller conveyors alignable with those of the platforms and the flatcars. Transversely shiftable platform sections, each of a length equaling that of the flatcars, can be advanced into contact with a standing train to complete a driving circuit for the flatcar-mounted conveyors whereby containers resting on the rollers of a platform section can be moved onto the flatcar or vice versa. The platform sections can also be shifted completely across the well of a track, in the absence of a train, to enable the movement of a container to the opposite side. The conveyors and platform shifters are all controlled by a local computer, communicating with computers of nearby stations, on the basis of available-space information from preceding computers and of destination data fed in by local shippers or by the computers of originating stations.