WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE RAIL ROADS

[Anonymous]

MOST RR'S To Day Are Running Brown Boxcars What Happened To All
The Old Ones Like Orange I.C.G. Now There Grey
UP'S Yellow & White That Showed The Automated Rail System Map
There Gone And Most Of The Tankers You See Are Black WithNames
Like AFPX GATX UTLX Wheres The Old UP KCS CSX NS IC & ECT
Tankers It Seems There All Going Away When I Was Younger
I Seen At Least 25 RR'S In Chicago 10-15 In St Louis 12-15 In K.C.
And More Trains Ran Back Then You Didnt Hear The Word Merger
Back Then It Was All RR'S For Themselves. (WHAT THU HELL)

[AltonFan]

I believe there is a law requiring cars of a certain age (twenty years?) to be retired or removed from interchange service to simplify standard maintenance and such. So a lot of interesting old cars (wearing interesting old paint schemes) either went to the scrapyards or to work train service (displacing even older cars).

Back around 1980, the Soo Line was doing some work on its track through my home town, and on a siding they parked a couple of 1920s-era wooden boxcars, still riding on Andrews trucks. (There were stencils declaring "NOT FOR INTERCHANGE" on the car.) Now CN and/or Metra is working on that line, and you don't see any of those "survivors."

[JoeKoh]

some people think bigger is better.but thats not always the case
stay safe
Joe

[Kathi Kube]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SLIC

MOST RR'S To Day Are Running Brown Boxcars What Happened To All
The Old Ones Like Orange I.C.G. Now There Grey
UP'S Yellow & White That Showed The Automated Rail System Map
There Gone And Most Of The Tankers You See Are Black WithNames
Like AFPX GATX UTLX Wheres The Old UP KCS CSX NS IC & ECT

Carl,

Yeah, mergers have a lot to do with the cookie-cutter status of railcars these days, but the rise of leasing companies has more to do with it. There's a very nice article by Tom Murray in our January issue that sheds a lot of light on this subject, as well as on the rail car building industry overall. Copies are scheduled to be mailed to subscribers by Nov. 22, and should be on newsstands by Dec. 9. Check it out; it's pretty interesting and very informative.

Kathi