It is good, as always, to hear your perspective on these issues, Dan. As one who has been intimately involved in the process your words are invaluable.
What we need is for someone in the trucking business to wrap up the locomotive/goose/passenger car business with a specially built trailer. Bogies all down the side like the GMC front-wheel-drive motorhome had, each independent on each side - lots of them, and four wheels to a bogie instead of two - so that there would be ample wheels to spread the weight but no axles going across the trailer. Then the trailer would have a depressed center, not in the middle, but the length of the trailer, with rails built into the bottom. The elevation of the trailer body could be controlled by hydraulics to raise the trailer for highway movement and lower it down to a gentle angle to engage the rails at the end for loading and unloading. A series of winches on either side would work on pulleys to gently move the equipment on and off the trailer, front pulling and rear retarding on loading and vice-versa on unloading, thereby walking the engine or car right on or off the trailer onto the rails. Engine and tender connected. Propulsion and braking provided by the same mechanism like a large cat's cradle.
It would have to be long enough, about 53 feet of rail on the deck, plus pilot and tender beam, say 60 feet, in order to accommodate a 346, 315, 340, 41, M-3, M-5, B-20, etc.
Expensive? You bet. But anything less is just taking too many chances with some very precious cargo, whether it is E&P 4 or RGS 41 (I love moving Knott's equipment around for them!
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"Ah to sleep. Perchance to dream."