US freight cars

[highpeak]

There was a good thread on weathering a former RBOX car here a few weeks ago. It was well-done, but if you're modelling the late 70s they were still quite smart. Bath, Maine.

This was a fairly fortunate find in April, 1981. The road had only six more years of corporate existence. Graffiti was starting to spoil things, but the car still looked quite presentable.

There was a time when PC meant something completely different, though perhaps no more welcome. This boxcar is trying not to be ashamed of the snakes-in-love logo at Rigby yard:

Considering that the New York Central had been gone for quite a few years, this hopper wasn't looking too shabby when I snapped it in the suburbs of Boston, probably in late 78:

[highpeak]

Atlantic and Western cars weren't exactly commonplace. It was a road of great ambitions, judging by its name, and only had 10 miles of track. The only trouble with having oddball cars on the roster is they end up appearing a bit too often. Oh look, there's that Atlantic and Western car again. I only ever saw one at Rigby.

[doctor quinn]

Thanks for publishing those Highpeak. The THB car has a logo for the 1967 Confederation Centenary, I've never seen that on a freight car!

 

Nick

[298]

Atlantic and Western cars weren't exactly commonplace. It was a road of great ambitions, judging by its name, and only had 10 miles of track. The only trouble with having oddball cars on the roster is they end up appearing a bit too often. Oh look, there's that Atlantic and Western car again. I only ever saw one at Rigby.

 

Some shortline roads have quite a roster of cars they lease out, although this is probably a more recent thing and many of the cars are re-stencilled, keeping their original liveries. Iowa Traction only handle grain and tank cars at the moment, but lease quite a few Boxcars and flat cars with IATR markings.

 

BTW, nothing wrong with collecting oddball cars, everyone has many times the number they need for realistic operation.

[dave1905]

I saw A&W cars at least once a week back in the late 1970's, they carried flour to a bakery near 52nd St in Phillie.

[Stuart-AU]

HI..

 

As I don't model in HO at the moment I still find myself buying cabooses. I now have a small fleet of 80 in boxes, I should make a display cabnet for them..

Aswell not this year, I have a layout to build.

 

Stuart in OZ

[highpeak]

Some shortline roads have quite a roster of cars they lease out, although this is probably a more recent thing and many of the cars are re-stencilled, keeping their original liveries. Iowa Traction only handle grain and tank cars at the moment, but lease quite a few Boxcars and flat cars with IATR markings.

 

BTW, nothing wrong with collecting oddball cars, everyone has many times the number they need for realistic operation.

I didn't mean to suggest there was anything wrong with having oddball cars, just that they can stand out a bit in operation. That may or may not be an accurate reflection of a time and place. One example that comes to mind during the period I was taking photographs was the Golden Loaf car.

In the late 70s it seemed that there was one of these cars around every time I went out to take pictures. They travelled on the MEC from St Johnsbury, VT over the Mountain subdivision to Portland, then up to Brunswick on the Portland-Augusta job before being delivered to a bakery in Lewiston. Must have been pretty good flour to make it worth shipping from Minnesota.

Back to the ATW car. A bit of research suggests that the car was indeed part of the scheme generally referred to as Incentive Per Diem, though that's not the type of car that usually comes to mind when IPD comes up. According to an Official Register from around the time the picture was taken, the Atlantic and Western was only operating 3.38 miles of track. They had about 150 boxcars on the roster, all but about ten of them 40 footers classed as XF for food service. By 1979 they had around 170 cars including 173 50' cars (source: RMC, 2/79).

A couple of the provisions in the IPD scheme are important to understanding why the Atlantic and Western had so many XF cars relative to the size of the railroad and with no apparent online shipper needing that kind of car (Tyson Foods is one of Sanford, NC's businesses today, whether it was back in the 70s is not clear, but I can't see that they'd ship their products out in an XF boxcar). First, a part of the IPD scheme required a road to have an investment in boxcars that exceeded the investment in the base period between 1964 to 1968. Wonder how many cars the ATW had bought or leased in those years? Second, the scheme applied to new or rebuilt cars, ATW 2002 looks like a 70s rebuild. Finally, IPD charges applied year-round to XF cars whereas they only applied part of the year during seasonal shortages to XMs.

Pickens was a road that was quite heavily involved in the IPD game after being bought by NRUC (National Railway Utilization Corp):

Norfolk and Western were disciples of Henry Ford when it came to paint:

But New York thought a spot of colour would make you love them:

Most of us loved the D&H just the way it was:

[highpeak]

The Boston and Maine did a pretty good job of rebuilding these cars, still needed some weathering though when I saw them at Brunswick. The lead car is BM 999. Summer of 1979.

[highpeak]

The Bangor and Aroostook had also been busy with the paint:

a marked improvement over earlier efforts:

Rocky was still riding the rails in 1979, but looking a bit careworn:

Finally, here's a Soo hopper for F-Unit man:

[highpeak]

Forty foot cars were still quite common in the late 70s. Here are a few I came across:

 

The Buffalo Creek was a terminal railroad in Buffalo, NY that was controlled by the Lehigh Valley and Erie roads, and became part of Conrail. It served a lot of grain elevators and connected with a lot of class 1s: Conrail, C&O, B&O, Grand Trunk, D&H and Norfolk and Western. The BCK was only 5.73 miles of road but had 1,240 boxcars, all 40', mostly general purpose but 247 classed as XF (interior epoxy coating to decrease contamination of loads like grain or flour).

 

If boxcars were like people, this Frisco car was probably wishing it was back in the warmth of its home region. Still equipped with running boards along with a nailable steel floor, according to the Official Register. These two illustrations explain how this particular piece of magic worked http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/el/frt/armco1.jpg and http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/el/frt/nailflr1.jpg

 

This Milwaukee Road car must have needed repairs to rot or accident damage because when built it was one of that road's distinctive rib-sided cars like this: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=910364 I haven't found any reference to widespread rebuilding like this, so it was perhaps a one-off.

 

Maine Central's fleet of 40' cars thinned considerably during the 70s, especially as leases ran out and 200 or so cars would be gathered together and leave the road. But 4615 is listed as still being in service in the 1977 Register, one of 14 survivors from a batch of nearly 500 cars. Paintwork well-bleached by the sun, it probably hadn't seen much use for quite a while in 1981 when this photo was taken.

The car behind it was built by Magor in 1939 to the AAR 1932 design, again one of 14 survivors in the 1977 Register from a batch of 250 cars.

 

And this Central Vermont car was definitely not in revenue service when I came across it, although there is nothing to indicate it isn't apart from a re-weigh date of 1964! Probably in use as storage at South Paris, ME.

[signalmaintainer]

Thanks for posting these! Great stuff. While I'm not a big-time GN fan (I should say, I haven't been one for many a year), I do have quite a liking for the Rocky herald, especially when he's pointing to the phrase "Cushion Load." There's something very engaging about that herald.

[highpeak]

Kaolin is used in the paper industry and quite a lot of it passed through Rigby yard. Sandersville GA bills itself as the Kaolin Capital of the World (I suppose somewhere needs to be the world's kaolin capital), and it's served by the Sandersville Railroad. Operating just over 9 miles of road, the Sandersville had 248 cars on the roster in 1977, all of them 4,000 cu ft covered hoppers. (The Sandersville RR president, one Ben Tarbutton, is supposed to have requested a pass exchange with the Pennsy. The Pennsy official who responded observed that their road operated thousands of miles while the Sandersville at that time had but three miles of road. Mr Tarbutton pointed out that while his road may have been shorter, it was just as wide.)

Anyway, Sandersville and Southern hoppers were frequent visitors to Rigby:

 

Another way of shipping kaolin, and an interesting example of trends in car types, was by modifying boxcars with roof hatches. The Southern still had quite a few of these in the late 70s, AAR mechanical designation LC, described in the Register as "Box, Roof hatch (Bulk Commodities)".

 

[sunshine coast]

Thanks again Highpeak ,,,,this information is all helping towards building up a representative roster of freight cars for my Maine line ,something which I hope will set the "scene" as much as the loco roster ....

 

Regards Trevor ..

[JWB]

I don't know exactly when this started, but kaolin also ships in slurry form in tank cars. Atlas and Walthers have both done kaolin tanks. And not only kaolin slurry goes to paper mills, but also marble and limestone slurry. These are all used to make glossy paper. Traffic on more recent Guilford-style layouts would reflect this. When you think about it, nearly all B&M blue boxcars were carrying outbound paper from Maine and northern New Hampshire (also MEC yellow, also D&H). The traffic in recent times to northern New England is pretty simple: inbound paper components, inbound feed grain, inbound flour and corn syrup, inbound cement; inbound lpg; inbound coal in steadily decreasing amounts; outbound paper, some outbound lumber via Canada, outbound construction debris. Your posts reflect this pretty nicely, except for the more recent stuff.

[highpeak]

My small photo collection only covers the late 70s/very early 80s. I lost interest in it for various reasons after that, chief among them the disappearance of branchline trains once Guilford took over.

You're right about traffic flows, it was possible to identify trains quite easily from the cars involved, that followed very logical traffic flows.

 

In the 70s the cement plant in Thomaston was an important customer for Maine Central. Cement traffic in the train meant you were probably looking at either the Rockland branch job or the Rigby-Augusta turn. Traffic levels varied seasonally, winter saw construction slow down a lot, summer time the trains could be quite heavy and need two engines.

 

The cars were starting to change. MEC's hoppers were getting a bit weary and the cement plant leased some newer hoppers which looked quite radical when all you were expecting was the usual American Car and Foundry or Pullman Standard cars. A couple of PS-2 hoppers and an ACF in the background with the triangular cut out.

 

 

 

As far as I know the bulk of Thomaston's production now goes a couple of miles by rail into Rockland and thence by barge. Lousy service on Guilford isn't conducive to serving your customers. It was a bit of a chicken and egg situation in the early 80s, a downturn in traffic saw the frequency of trains dwindle from 6 days a week to once a week if you were lucky. That pretty much drove the remaining traffic away.

[sunshine coast]

This is a good shot of older hopper in loco sand service....

photo link

 

Regards Trevor..

[F-UnitMad]

 

Finally, here's a Soo hopper for F-Unit man:

Who, me?!? :lol: Good chap!!!

[highpeak]

I think SOO and NW employees must have been short-sighted or something.

[Nile]

I think SOO and NW employees must have been short-sighted or something.

 

Perhaps they were trying to help model railroaders with poor eyesight ?

 

Thanks for the great pics,do keep them coming.

[CraigZ]

I don't know exactly when this started, but kaolin also ships in slurry form in tank cars. Atlas and Walthers have both done kaolin tanks. And not only kaolin slurry goes to paper mills, but also marble and limestone slurry. These are all used to make glossy paper. Traffic on more recent Guilford-style layouts would reflect this. When you think about it, nearly all B&M blue boxcars were carrying outbound paper from Maine and northern New Hampshire (also MEC yellow, also D&H). The traffic in recent times to northern New England is pretty simple: inbound paper components, inbound feed grain, inbound flour and corn syrup, inbound cement; inbound lpg; inbound coal in steadily decreasing amounts; outbound paper, some outbound lumber via Canada, outbound construction debris. Your posts reflect this pretty nicely, except for the more recent stuff.

 

 

I am really enjoying these freight car pix as I'm modeling c. 1975

 

Kaolin also ships in paper sacks and in 'super sacks' in boxcars. The area around Sandersville GA has one of the great kaolin deposits in the world; the other great one is in Brazil.

 

Atlantic & Western - I live about 35 miles from it. In its heyday it ran from Sanford, NC to Lillington NC, roughly 25 miles or so. Over the years, starting in the 1930s, it began to be cut back and got to the point where it was Sanford to Jonesboro, less than 4 miles. Jonesboro has a scrap yard. It interchanged with the Southern (now NS), the Seaboard (Air Line then Coast Line then System now CSX) and the Atlantic Coast Line ( then SCL then that line was abandoned) at Sanford. Several years ago the NS offered the ATW its line from Sanford to Gulf, NC which had the net effect of turning the ATW into a 12 mile line... Along that stretch there's a nice gravel quarry. At Gulf the ATW interchanges with the NS and the Aberdeen, Carolina & Western (running an ex Southern / original Norfolk Southern Rwy line). It's been said that in the peak of the per diem car time that the ATW had more cars than track to store them.

 

Motive power - for years it was a pair of 70 ton GEs and one 80 ton center cab Porter acquired from the nearby Durham & Southern. These have given way to a GP10 (ex Meridian & Bigbee) and a pair of EMD end cab switchers. I think one of the EMD switchers has left though...

[pH]

Perhaps they were trying to help model railroaders with poor eyesight ?

 

How about this then? or - even better - this? The second type of car carried ammunition. It's said that the colour scheme was developed specifically to be obvious at a distance!

[highpeak]

Hard to miss those letters!

 

Here's a lettering job that might have worked out better if the letters had been a bit bigger. Next time your decals don't go on straight, just relax, they didn't always work out too well in 12" to the foot scale either.

 

[highpeak]

The late 70s saw a lot of new boxcars enter service, in part as a result of car hire rules changes known as Incentive Per Diem payments (see earlier in the thread). A fair number of these cars came through Rigby yard, although perhaps not as many as elsewhere because MEC tried very hard to use their own cars for the paper traffic and in fact ended up with a batch of new cars to help keep the mills supplied with good, clean cars:

These were MEC's first 100 ton cars and the lease of 150 of them helped generate useful additional revenue.

Boston and Maine also got in on the act:

Another way to get fairly new boxcars for some roads was to get a piece of the Rock. MEC was busy buying and tinkering with U25s, one of which is in the background of this shot, but C&NW helped themselves to some Rock Island cars and just put new reporting marks on them:

The IPD phenomenon involved a lot of smaller roads who hadn't spent money on boxcars and so could benefit from the rules, usually in conjunction with a leasing company. The Pearl River Valley Railroad from Picayune, Missouri operated 4.69 miles of road and had one locomotive. The only rolling stock listed in the 1977 ORER were 50 boxcars like this one:

The Minnesota Dakota and Western was owned by a subsidiary of Boise Cascade. Boise must have had some interest in the paper mill in Rumford, ME because this car was stencilled for return to Rumford when empty (small lettering under the Plate C mark).

The stretch of railroad between Swanton and St. Johnsbury in Vermont had a very complicated corporate history in the 70s. The Lamoille Valley Railroad Corporation managed to get into the IPD business and stayed afloat long enough to change their mind about paint, quite an achievement as the different outfits that operated the road sometimes didn't stick around long enough for the paint to dry. Nowadays, it's a snowmobile trail.

These pictures all date from the late 70s. The cars were still fairly new, even shiny in some cases. Weathering should be subtle, the graffiti and deterioration was still in the future. The cars made quite a contrast with the smaller cars that generally wore more subdued and weathered paint jobs.

[F-UnitMad]

... the different outfits that operated the road sometimes didn't stick around long enough for the paint to dry.

A great quote, that!! :D

These pictures all date from the late 70s. The cars were still fairly new,...

And yet look at how rippled the sides are!! Heat distortion from the welding, I presume? I don't think I've ever seen any model boxcars copy that sort of feature- would they look "wrong" if they did- i.e. just look like shoddy modelling..??

[JWB]

At least as of 10 years ago, still well after the demise of the Lamoille Valley (as I recall, pronounced la-molly), GE was still running ex-IPD cars in the spartan boxcar red scheme with LVRC reporting marks.