The railroad industry employs a variety of auto-rack railroad cars for transporting newly-manufactured vehicles such as automobiles, vans, and trucks. Auto-rack railroad cars, known in the railroad industry as auto-rack cars, often travel thousands of miles through varying terrain. One typical type of auto-rack car is compartmented, having two or three floors or decks, two sidewalls, a pair of doors at each end, and a roof. Newly manufactured vehicles are loaded into and unloaded from an auto-rack car for transport by a person (sometimes called a “loader”) who drives the vehicles into or out of the auto-rack car.
One problem with auto-rack cars is the potential for damage to the newly manufactured vehicles being transported in them which can occur in the auto-rack car due to the unwanted movement of one or more of the transported vehicles which are not adequately secured in the auto-rack car. Various vehicle restraints have been developed for securing the vehicles transported in auto-rack cars to prevent movement or shifting of those vehicles during transportation. The loader typically operates these vehicle restraints.
Various problems have developed with various known commercially available vehicle restraints in relation to new types or designs of vehicles with different body and particularly different fender, molding, or trim profiles. For example, various automobiles include relatively low fenders, moldings, or trim (compared to certain trucks, vans, and SUVs) and thus include relatively small safe zones on the front and rear sides of the wheels. The safe zone on each of the front and rear sides of the wheel of the vehicle is the area in which the vehicle restraint can extend and can operate without engaging the fender, molding, or trim of the vehicle. The closer the vehicle restraint or part of the vehicle restraint is to any of the boundaries of the safe zone, the more likely that the vehicle restraint will engage and possibly damage the fender, molding, or trim of the vehicle.
Various known commercially available restraint systems for tri-level auto-rack cars include two restraints respectively placed on the front and rear sides of the wheel. One of the restraints includes a strap or harness which is draped around the tire of the wheel and attached to the other restraint. The strap is tensioned on the tire. Upon the occurrence of certain conditions, vehicles have moved or literally “walked” out of the straps of these various known commercially available tri-level vehicle restraint systems at a variety of different times (such as during movement of the auto-rack cars and during sudden stoppages of the auto-rack car or severe deceleration of the auto-rack car). Such instances include sudden stoppages for emergencies alone or in combination with slack action. Such instances also occur during switching in a railroad yard, when the auto-rack cars are coupled and decoupled with other railroad cars in different freight trains on a regular basis. During the coupling action, severe jolts of up to eight to ten miles per hour can be incurred by the auto-rack car even though regulations (and signs in the railroad yards and on the railroad cars) limit the speed to no more than four miles per hour in these yards. These jolts can cause extreme force on the vehicles relative to the auto-rack cars and, thus, cause the vehicles to literally walk out of known vehicle restraint systems. When a vehicle walks out of a vehicle restraint system, the vehicle may engage another vehicle in the auto-rack car, one of the side walls of the auto-rack car, or one or more end doors of the auto-rack car.
Vehicle manufacturers provide extremely particular instructions which warn against any contact or engagement between anything in the auto-rack cars and the new vehicles because the vehicle manufacturers desire to deliver the newly manufactured vehicles to dealers and their customers in the best condition possible. Any damage, such as scratches or dents to the fenders, moldings, or trim, or other parts of the vehicle, could prevent or inhibit a customer from purchasing or taking delivery of the vehicle, and generally need to be fixed prior to sale of the vehicle. As indicated above, such damage to the vehicles necessitates the replacement of the damaged part or parts and potentially other parts of the vehicle. This damage is extremely expensive for vehicle manufacturers which typically charge the railroads for such damage.
Another problem with various known vehicle restraints is that for certain vehicles, the manufacturers cannot install the air dams on the vehicles at the vehicle manufacturing factory because various known vehicle restraints can damage the air dams. Thus, for such vehicles, the manufacturer must ship the air dams to the dealerships for installation.
These problems are compounded for vehicle manufacturers when the vehicle damaged is a specially ordered vehicle (instead of a stock vehicle) for a specific customer. The customer can wait one, two, three or more months for a specially ordered vehicle. If the specially ordered vehicle is damaged in transit, the customer may need to wait for another specially ordered vehicle to be manufactured. This can harm the dealer's and manufacturer's businesses.
It should thus be recognized that while many of the known vehicle restraints have been commercially implemented to secure vehicles being transported in auto-rack cars, in many instances the known vehicle restraints do not adequately protect the vehicles or prevent the movement of the vehicles and thus prevent damage to the vehicles or the vehicle restraints themselves.
Accordingly, there is a continuing need for improved vehicle restraints which are easy to install and remove, which hold the vehicles more securely, which are less likely to be damaged, and which take up smaller spaces in the safe zones thereby minimizing the potential damage to the vehicles being transported.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds