I have a couple of photos of 50-foot Plate C, cushion-underframe, single-door boxcars, marked "NEW 9-79" numbered CVSR 8002 and 8003, taken at Stevens Point, Wisconsin, in 1981. They are marked as being owned by Brae Corporation.
I have equipment registers from 1979 and 1986, and neither one shows any freight equipment with the CVSR reporting mark.
I know that CVSR stands for Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway. Did they ever have a reason to have freight cars operating in interchange service? Could there have been another railroad with this identification?
Tom Murray I have a couple of photos of 50-foot Plate C, cushion-underframe, single-door boxcars, marked "NEW 9-79" numbered CVSR 8002 and 8003, taken at Stevens Point, Wisconsin, in 1981. They are marked as being owned by Brae Corporation. I have equipment registers from 1979 and 1986, and neither one shows any freight equipment with the CVSR reporting mark. I know that CVSR stands for Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway. Did they ever have a reason to have freight cars operating in interchange service? Could there have been another railroad with this identification?
Cuyahoga is the one that came to my mind right away. Its likely that they do have some freight cars for mow or hauling in maintenance supplies.
Interchange in Wisconsin? That's a ways out there.
You might check to see if the scenic has a roster on their website or look at what Brea corporation was.
Modeling the Cleveland and Pittsburgh during the PennCentral era starting on the Cleveland lakefront and ending in Mingo junction
ruderunnerYou might check to see if the scenic has a roster on their website or look at what Brea corporation was.
BRAE Corporation was one of the early 'railcar leasing as an investment' companies, post-Staggers, as here:
https://www.inc.com/magazine/19830501/5188.html
You might be interested to follow the legal course of "Interstate Commerce Cpmmission v. Brae Corporation" which culminated in the Supreme Court refusing to grant cert at the end of April 1985. Just be prepared to have the Excedrin handy as you read.
The railcar-leasing business was spun off to GE in 1989, just before BRAE was merged into holding company Leucadia National.
It would not surprise me to find a leasing company negotiating with the holder of a 'legitimate' reporting mark for the "right" to run a leasable car on the general system of transportation. It would seem logical that a company like CVSR might engage in such a 'flag of convenience' arrangement, although of course I have no direct knowledge of such an arrangement, or what its terms would have been.
Vermont Railway and Green Mountain Railway (VTR and GMRC) had lots of boxcars that rarely if ever saw home rails in the 1970s and 1980s. Trains even did an article about it titled something like "The Smart Money Rides on Boxcars".
GMRC's tiny yard at North Walpole NH was jammed with cars that came off lease in the early 1990s. Changes in interchange and tax rules, along with a slowdown in boxcar use, made the lease arrangements a lot less attractive.
Overmod ruderunner You might check to see if the scenic has a roster on their website or look at what Brea corporation was. BRAE Corporation was one of the early 'railcar leasing as an investment' companies, post-Staggers, as here: https://www.inc.com/magazine/19830501/5188.html You might be interested to follow the legal course of "Interstate Commerce Cpmmission v. Brae Corporation" which culminated in the Supreme Court refusing to grant cert at the end of April 1985. Just be prepared to have the Excedrin handy as you read. The railcar-leasing business was spun off to GE in 1989, just before BRAE was merged into holding company Leucadia National. It would not surprise me to find a leasing company negotiating with the holder of a 'legitimate' reporting mark for the "right" to run a leasable car on the general system of transportation. It would seem logical that a company like CVSR might engage in such a 'flag of convenience' arrangement, although of course I have no direct knowledge of such an arrangement, or what its terms would have been.
ruderunner You might check to see if the scenic has a roster on their website or look at what Brea corporation was.
The early 80's, just after Staggers, was when a device known as 'Incentive Per Diem' was implemented in a effort to increase car supply across the railroads. Prior to Staggers, with the tenuous financial position of the carriers they were not investing in their car supply.
With Incentive Per Diem leasing companies got into the act and purchased, under the flag of numerous short lines, a high number of cars that high per diem values. For the leasers to 'win their bets' the cars did not have to be loaded, they just had to be on a property that was not their 'flag of convience'. Per Diem gets paid by the party that holds the car at the end of the reporting period for which the per diem charges apply. After several years, Incentive Per Diem was ended.
Per diem was once a daily charge, hence the name; however, in the late 60's or early 70's the AAR was changed to a hourly figure. This was done to more accurately reflect and charge those actually in possession of the cars for the period of time the cars were in the possession of the various parties. Under the daily rules, roads such as the RF&P paid little if any per diem as the predicated their operations upon receiving cars just after midnight and then interchanging them to connecting carriers prior to midnight.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Incentive per diem lead to railroads like the Pickens (and several subsidiaries, including the St Lawrence) building very large fleets of boxcars. Picken's were blue, with "PICKens Railroad" running the length of the car.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of those fleets were larger than the owning road had room for on their own rails.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68 Incentive per diem lead to railroads like the Pickens (and several subsidiaries, including the St Lawrence) building very large fleets of boxcars. Picken's were blue, with "PICKens Railroad" running the length of the car. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those fleets were larger than the owning road had room for on their own rails.
"Better by a dam site" was the slogan of Chattahoochee Industrial.
samfp1943... not to mention their boxes seemed to have a green center on their name [Southern]...
I think that was just for one slogan, and it was a good one: the logo "Southern" (with the O filled in in green, like a signal) with the slogan "gives a green light to innovation" underneath. I still see those in local traffic and I smile every time I do.
Don't forget the Union Pacific slogans on locomotives, the one that sticks being "We Can Handle It" (which we parodied in high school into "We Pan-Handle It")
The UP We Can Handle It was their shortest lived in their History according to my husband. They debuted that one right before they swallowed both the CNW and SP according to him. Then proceeded to meltdown in a very beautiful fashion for all to see by gumming up their entire system in the mid 90's. He remembers driving past miles of the Sunset Route that was packed full of parked trains with locomotives with We Can Handle That sitting all over the place on that line plus all over their lines in Nebraska and Wyoming.
I have the impression that the UP people thought they did not have to learn why the SP did this or that in the way it was done--and simply thought, "That is the wrong way and we will make it right"--and proceeded to make matters worse. At least, they did eventaully make the operation betwr.
One situation that was improved, though it took quite some time to take care of, was essentially re-building the SP Overland track--Amtrak #6 was habitually late for well over a year because of trackwork.
Johnny
Shadow the Cats ownerThe UP We Can Handle It was their shortest lived in their History according to my husband. They debuted that one right before they swallowed both the CNW and SP according to him. Then proceeded to meltdown in a very beautiful fashion for all to see by gumming up their entire system in the mid 90's. He remembers driving past miles of the Sunset Route that was packed full of parked trains with locomotives with We Can Handle That sitting all over the place on that line plus all over their lines in Nebraska and Wyoming.
The railroad melt downs that have happened in the 21st Century have all been caused by defective opeating plans that did not take into account the conditions that caused the pre-existing operating plans to be what they were.
The New operating Chief ALWAYS thinks he knows better than those that preceeded him, especially when it is one company taking over the operation of another company (UP absorbing CNW and later SP; CSX and its CR acquisition, NS and its CR acquisition).
From personal experience in the CSX-CR deal - operational control was given to a former CR executive - that tried to implement CR's fewer bigger trains mantra on CSX's plant that had many smaller yards that got choked to a standstill by dispatching and receiving trains that used most all of the yards facilities - a train could not be arrived until the terminal dispatched a train to make yard space for the arriving train. Gridlock. multiplied terminal by terminal.
Shadow the Cats owner The UP We Can Handle It was their shortest lived in their History according to my husband. They debuted that one right before they swallowed both the CNW and SP according to him. Then proceeded to meltdown in a very beautiful fashion for all to see by gumming up their entire system in the mid 90's. He remembers driving past miles of the Sunset Route that was packed full of parked trains with locomotives with We Can Handle That sitting all over the place on that line plus all over their lines in Nebraska and Wyoming.
We Can Handle It goes back to the 1970s. I think We Will Deliver came out sometime in the mid 1990s. It didn't seem to last too long.
See the end of this vintage comercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRLCUjCVBGI
Jeff
That's some big hair.
Made me winch, but it's so corny it's kinda fun.
Miningman That's some big hair. Made me wince, but it's so corny it's kinda fun.
Made me wince, but it's so corny it's kinda fun.
Vocal ability certainly wasn't a high priority.... Really homey, though.
As to hair, I wonder how long it took the ladies to get the hair looking right in the morning.
And, I ttrust that they were good in theor work, even if they were not opera singers.
My wife takes about 1.5 hours every morning applying make-up and curling hair to perfection. Tree and Carl have seen the results.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
A possible alternative to CVSR
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that CVSR might be for leased equipment on Central of Vermont with various routing and service restrictions, not unlike the cars with DWC reporting marks on DW&P restricted to international service. Other specialized reporting marks for leased equipment include BKTY, DHNY, etc.
MiningmanA possible alternative to CVSR - http://www.nakina.net/other/report/reportc.html
This makes particularly good sense when you see the note that this mark was only active July 1980 to July 1981 ... indicating to me there was a period that the equipment-leasing 'play' engaged in some gaming of flag-of-convenience car codes for rentals-as-investments, and some of the ploys didn't work out.
blhanel My wife takes about 1.5 hours every morning applying make-up and curling hair to perfection. Tree and Carl have seen the results.
I went to school in the Aqua Net hair era aka the bangs to the ceiling my hubby's yearbooks some of the girls in it their hair literally the bangs are taller than the rest of their hair on their head.
CSSHEGEWISCH I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that CVSR might be for leased equipment on Central of Vermont with various routing and service restrictions, not unlike the cars with DWC reporting marks on DW&P restricted to international service. Other specialized reporting marks for leased equipment include BKTY, DHNY, etc.
Central Vermont did, in fact, have several hundred Canadian-built boxcars with "CVC" markings that were intended for newsprint service from Canada to the U.S. My first thought at seeing these CVSR cars was that they, too, were a series of Central Vermont cars with special restrictions. But then I thought, no, Central Vermont, as a CN subsidiary, didn't need to go to Brae Corporation to augment its car supply.
Miningman A possible alternative to CVSR http://www.nakina.net/other/report/reportc.html CVSR could be derived from Chippewa Valley & Superior Railway https://books.google.com/books/content?id=cx0qAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA176&img=1&pgis=1&dq=cvsr&sig=ACfU3U2DX3g3a6o9Ts07H-aKB_t0w8pPfw&edge=0 https://chippewa.com/dunnconnect/news/local/history/author-shares-stories-of-local-railroad-line/article_f430bf91-1582-5552-ae52-a928f1460681.html
Tom MurrayBut then I thought, no, Central Vermont, as a CN subsidiary, didn't need to go to Brae Corporation to augment its car supply.
Moreover, that wasn't the way the BRAE Corporation was involved with rail leasing. They were providing service as a lucrative (at that era of stagflation) source of individual revenue, by providing a fleet that would earn substantial per diem wherever they were, loaded or not, and only peripherally concerned (if at all!) with whether particular railroads needed more cars or had increased captive-traffic requirements. (In fact, if I were involved with this at the time I'd prefer the cars neither make extensive miles nor be loaded as much of their lifetime as possible!)
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