I keep seeing stranger and stranger rail cars being used to haul logs around me. I have a pulp yard down the road that I pass daily, and then I go by another on the way to work. In both cases I continue to see old beat up rail cars. I saw one that was missing two of the uprights, but they continued to load the usable end of it. I have also noticed some of the Norfolk Southern cars have MW marking stenciled on them. In the past couple of months I've also seen a bunch of gondolas and even hopper cars being used to haul logs. I've even noticed that one of the pulp yards is loading MW tie car gondolas with logs.
Broken Uprights
MoW markings Hoppers and a "Tie Loading Only" gondola with logs So is there some sort of shortage of good log cars right now? These are a mix of leased cars and Class I equipment, but it is surprising to see what they are loading.
MoW markings
Hoppers and a "Tie Loading Only" gondola with logs So is there some sort of shortage of good log cars right now? These are a mix of leased cars and Class I equipment, but it is surprising to see what they are loading.
Hoppers and a "Tie Loading Only" gondola with logs
So is there some sort of shortage of good log cars right now? These are a mix of leased cars and Class I equipment, but it is surprising to see what they are loading.
Where is, "Here?" Your photos indicate that it's a lot flatter and greener than my end of the cactus.
Then, have there been any unusual forest-damaging events - floods, landslides... - in the area?
Logs, especially those destined to become pulp, can be (and have been) loaded onto virtually anything that won't collapse under them. They don't need (and seldom get) the latest and greatest. If there's a temporary surplus of logs they will be loaded into anything and everything to get them moved before the wood starts to rot.
"Good log car," is almost an oxymoron. Logs are hard on the cars that carry them, so they are moved on serviceable but war-weary rolling stock. Back when, many a log rolled from the mountainside to the mill on a skeleton car - the steel frame of what had once been a wood-bodied box car.
Chuck
There is a car shortage right now, but it is less acute than the locomotive shortage.
Wood typically cubes out before it loads out, and so pretty much anything can be used. Flatcars are much easier to unload than hoppers, so that is why they are the normal car type.
MOW is usually just an internal designation, so there is no reason why they cannot enter revenue service, as long as they meet interchange standards.
If, as is more likely, they are on an intra-line movement, company service cars in revenue service don't have to meet interchange standards. They just have to meet whatever standards the home road sets.