Among the many extremely large, expensive and ultra-delicate industrial shipments routinely moved safely and in a timely manner by rail, all over the continent, these loads have especially steep price tags. There are potentially enormous consequential cost implications for any delivery failure that would delay a critical-path timeline and, thus, jetliner production. Yet, The Boeing Company routinely ships thousands of railcar loads of commercial and military airframe components from its suppliers across the continent, each year, including hundreds of annual 737 fuselage loads. Boeing has been successfully and continuously shipping aircraft parts by rail since 1917, the year after the company was founded.
Despite their robust size, it has been said that, "they're really like eggshells; even look cross-eyed at them, and they'd become just so much scrap." This is how all 737 fuselages are moved from their plant in Wichita, Kansas to the final assembly plant in Renton, Washington: aboard specialized flat cars (as they also were for every 727 and 757 airliner, when those models were in production)
Read more at the following link to an article from the Puget Sound Business Journal.
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2013/02/11/bnsf-railway-adding-cars-to-meet.html
Following photo is from the above article.
Many of Boeing's parts riding the rails have precision-machined tolerances of less than 1/10,000 of an inch. In addition to fuselages, suppliers also ship airplane tail fins, rudders, wings, stabilizers, cargo doors, plus keel/floor beams in Boeing's dedicated fleet of over 300 company-owned railcars, plus many more railroad-assigned cars. A single 747 can require more than two-dozen railcar shipments. Boeing rail carriers handle aircraft parts from California, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Kansas and Quebec for the 737-747-767-777 and new 787 programs, destined to both of their Seattle-area plants in Renton and Everett, WA. They also ship rail to other plants where Boeing assembles jet fighters and military transports.
Here are links to more pictures.
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bnsf800023.jpg
http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=11189
http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=37909
Here's a link to a very insightful piece describing and showing the manufacture and packaging, before rail shipment, of several major components for Boeing’s 747-8 from supplier Vought Aircraft in Grand Prairie (Marshall Street), TX and Hawthorne, CA.
"Marshall Street also assembles the 747-8 vertical stabilizer/upper rudder, the horizontal stabilizer/ elevators, and the floor beams. This totals 10 separate railcar shipments for each ship set. The floor beams are the only delivery routinely transported by truck. All other shipments are made via rail."
http://avstop.com/news_march_2010/boeings_747_8_and_vought_aircraft_marshall_street_facility.htm
With a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner running between $145 -200 million, and a 747-400 carrying a price tag of roughly a quarter-billion dollars, the consistent reliability and safety of the rail mode is paramount to this shipper. One can imagine the immense pressure to deliver quality service that this firm has placed upon their rail carriers over the past nine+ decades.
Boeing is not the only aircraft manufacturer to be a regular rail shipper of large, fragile and extreme-high-value cargo with even higher associated consequential costs.
Purpose-built railcars used to carry 250 plane sets of huge Lockheed L-1011 Tristar jetliner left and right wings, plus center wing box sections. Manufactured in Nashville, TN by American Viscose Corporation's Aerostructures Division, the wings were shipped to the final assembly plant out in Palmdale, CA.
http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=10867
One of the eight specially-built 89-foot Union Pacific 'wing gondolas' that were used for two decades of McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 (and sister KC-10) production. A total of 446 plane sets of the massive wing sections and associated parts were fabricated near Toronto, ON and shipped out west to California for final assembly of those planes at M-D's Long Beach facility.
http://southern.railfan.net/flat/cars/loads/wing/omi/omi30056.jpg
