An article in the Standard-Examiner (Ogden UT) 14-Nov-2007 starts, "A backhoe started chewing away at parts of Union Station's train collection last week..." The article describes the scrapping of 7 former Air Force railroad cars from the Strategic Air Command's Cold War operations.
One set of 4 cars included training simulators for B-52s and KC-135s. The other set of 3 cars was used as an electronic bombing target. All cars had been stripped and heavily vandalized.
Union Station had tried for years to find someone to help restore them or do something with them. "Even efforts to sell them as paintball shooting galleries failed." Now, what is left is either headed for Nucor Steel or the national metals market. The money will be used to restore other parts of the Union Station railroad equipment collection.
Some times a collection needs to be pruned so that available resources can be focused on the most important parts. I think every museum has a few candidates. I am glad that the cars scrapping will support other preservation efforts and that the cars did not wind up has paintball targets.
Are you aware of other railroad relics from the Cold War?
dd
There are still a few ALCo and EMD MRS-1 locomotives in existence, some preserved, some even operating. They were built for the military in the early 50's on multi-gauge trucks and with a narrow loading gauge so they could be used anywhere in the world if war broke out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALCO_MRS-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_MRS-1
There's even an ALCo one for sale at this website:
http://www.ozarkmountainrailcar.com/alcomrs1244.htm
As well as an ex-Army RDX4, which I've never heard of but looks similar to the MRS-1:
http://www.ozarkmountainrailcar.com/alcorsx4.htm
Thanks, Jonathan, for reminding me of the MRS-1's. I have seen Heber's many times. It runs well and they are keeping in great condition. Of course it helps that when they acquired the locomotive - they also got a lot of spare parts. The trucks look just a little different - but I suspect that most people don't notice.
joseph2 wrote:A Cold War car that comes to mind is the missle car at the Dayton Air Force Museum.It was built in the 1980's,on the assumption a moving missle launcher would be hard for the Soviets to target. Thanks for posting the Alco for sale link.Only 200 miles on a 1952 roadswitcher, $65,000. Joe
Wondered where the rail garrison stuff wandered off to. Santa Fe's old Colorado Division was the test guinea pig for a lot of that stuff. (Division Engineer called the missle cars "portable switch heaters")....Surveying community in Colorado benefited from the calibration network left behind after the tests.
MRS-1s fairly common sight in Colorado, mostly from NWS-Crane (southern Indiana)...Also there are a couple of Korean War Baldwin/Davenport RS4TC's floating around, now industrial switches..
espeefoamer wrote:Will the boxcars with shackles be next to go to scrap?
I kept hearing about the boxcars with shackles and wondered what sparked that. I finally saw a picture on line of somebody with a picture of "hard evidence". They were standing inside an autorack. I am assuming that there are tie down chains for the vehicles that were interpreted as being shackles.
csmith9474 wrote: espeefoamer wrote:Will the boxcars with shackles be next to go to scrap?I kept hearing about the boxcars with shackles and wondered what sparked that. I finally saw a picture on line of somebody with a picture of "hard evidence". They were standing inside an autorack. I am assuming that there are tie down chains for the vehicles that were interpreted as being shackles.
Interesting, I keep getting on my Google Alerts that 400 more of these cars are being built.
Being Crazy,keeps you from going "INSANE" !! "The light at the end of the tunnel,has been turned off due to budget cuts" NOT AFRAID A Vet., and PROUD OF IT!!
locomutt wrote: csmith9474 wrote: espeefoamer wrote:Will the boxcars with shackles be next to go to scrap?I kept hearing about the boxcars with shackles and wondered what sparked that. I finally saw a picture on line of somebody with a picture of "hard evidence". They were standing inside an autorack. I am assuming that there are tie down chains for the vehicles that were interpreted as being shackles. Interesting, I keep getting on my Google Alerts that 400 more of these cars are being built.
This was one of those websites that showed a video Beech Grove as some sort of "processing facility", and listed Scott Air Force base as having holding areas. I was stationed at Scott AFB for four years, and in the capacity of my work knew the base inside and out. There was no such thing as was described on the website. These people are really out there. Sorry to take this OT.
The reference in this forum probably refers to a product that (I believe) Walthers (in their whimsical period) marketed. About the time that Railbox came to the rails and of course to the model rails, Walthers also made a "Jailbox" car. They looked very similar to the Railbox car, but had the slight difference in spelling (same lettering font) and small windows with bars on them.
TomDiehl wrote: csmith9474 wrote: espeefoamer wrote:Will the boxcars with shackles be next to go to scrap?I kept hearing about the boxcars with shackles and wondered what sparked that. I finally saw a picture on line of somebody with a picture of "hard evidence". They were standing inside an autorack. I am assuming that there are tie down chains for the vehicles that were interpreted as being shackles.The reference in this forum probably refers to a product that (I believe) Walthers (in their whimsical period) marketed. About the time that Railbox came to the rails and of course to the model rails, Walthers also made a "Jailbox" car. They looked very similar to the Railbox car, but had the slight difference in spelling (same lettering font) and small windows with bars on them.
Naw, this stuff came from the "stock up on MREs and guns, the government is coming to get us" crowd.
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