An efficient way to transport bulk bags is by using rail box cars. Many different products can be transported such as chemicals, food commodities, grain, fertilizer, and many more. The one big advantage is these cars can hold much more weight and volume than your typical tractor trailer.
Proper way to load Bulk Bags on a rail box car
Typically, when loading a box car, you want to maximize your space while also ensuring the load is safe to transport. When choosing a bulk bag specification, you need to understand that there are many different types of bulk bags. There are circular bags, U-panel, 4 Panel, and baffle bags and each type is used for different products or shipping methods.
For shipping on a rail, we advise using a baffle bag, as it provides a nice square shape for stacking. This ability to stack up nice and square also helps to maximize your loading per box car. BNSF Railway provides a nice sheet to show the proper way to load with bulk bags to safely transport the bags without any damage or risk to the box car.
What type of product can be shipped in Baffle Bags?
Baffle bags have baffles sewn into the corners of the bags to allow free flowing material to load in the corners of the bags. This creates pockets when loading and forces the bag to remain square and not bulge out in the middle.
Whereas other types of bulk bags will allow the bag to grow outward to about 25% which does not allow you to load the bags tightly and requires more volume to ship the bags. However, if your product is not free flowing, it will not fill the baffles on the bag properly and the bag will not load correctly.
Figure 1 below shows how an agricultural product has been loaded into a baffle bag. Looking at these bags, you will see how square they are and that they stack nicely on top of each other. Therefore, they are great to ship on a box car for both stacking and to utilize the space much better.
