One of my Dad's friends bought 12 Manufacturer's Junction 50-foot refrigerator-box cars about 20 years ago. He removed the trucks and used them for storage. About four years ago, he then put them in his junk scrap yard where they have been rusting away. They are quite the eye sore.
I remarked to my Dad, as high as scrap has been and as big as an eye sore they are, why hasn't he scraped them? My Dad said: (1) they aren't worth that much, he only paid $1800 for each of them, and (2) they don't know how to scrap them because they are lined with insulating foam. The foam is harmless normally but, if particles of it hit the cutter's torch, it forms a toxic gas.
I just keep scratching my head thinking this can't be right.
How much do you think a 50-foot box car is worth for scrap value? If scrap can get so valuable that you have people stealing the manhole covers out of the street, I figure a box car is a lot of man hole covers.
Also, is there a standard way to scrap a refrigerator car? Surely there can't be 7,500 refrigerator cars sitting somewhere taking up space because no one knows how to scrap them.
Gabe
A few pictures of these cars would be much appreciated....I love these kinds of things...
I don't know how much steel is on a reefer...Are these cars something that a museum would be interiested in??
The National Railway Museum has gone on a scrapping rampage, and their first victim has been a old WRX (Green Bay & Western) 40' reefer. It was in beautiful condition, but the NRM employees no longer care about the history.
They torched their car, mainly because it had lead paint and this toxic insulating foam. There have been legal contacts made about this.
Phil
wgnrr wrote: A few pictures of these cars would be much appreciated....I love these kinds of things...I don't know how much steel is on a reefer...Are these cars something that a museum would be interiested in??The National Railway Museum has gone on a scrapping rampage, and their first victim has been a old WRX (Green Bay & Western) 40' reefer. It was in beautiful condition, but the NRM employees no longer care about the history.They torched their car, mainly because it had lead paint and this toxic insulating foam. There have been legal contacts made about this.Phil
I will see what I can do about the pictures. They are not much to look at . . .
They are for all practical purposes a conventional 50-foot box car. They just have foam on the inside.
I have a question about the 50 ft reefers you say were labled "Manufacturer's Junction". I worked for Western Electric (A.T.&T.) plant in Cicero Il. They owned a their own railroad named "Manufacturer Junction" (M.J. R.R.) Railroad. It had many different types of freight cars but never reefers (that I know of).
It had it own trackage from 12 st on the North to about 31st on the South, on the West side of the Beltway R.R.. It did switching with the Beltway and with the C.B.& Q. It had a large yard along the noth side of 26th street. It had a round house with a turn table. It had yard track parallel to the Beltway but ground level (Beltway was elevated) South of the 26thSt plant. Mainly coal storage.
Your time frame is close to when they closed down the entire factory and shut down the M.J.
If you have any photos of the reefers could you please post them.
spikejones52002 wrote: I have a question about the 50 ft reefers you say were labled "Manufacturer's Junction". I worked for Western Electric (A.T.&T.) plant in Cicero Il. They owned a their own railroad named "Manufacturer Junction" (M.J. R.R.) Railroad. It had many different types of freight cars but never reefers (that I know of). It had it own trackage from 12 st on the North to about 31st on the South, on the West side of the Beltway R.R.. It did switching with the Beltway and with the C.B.& Q. It had a large yard along the noth side of 26th street. It had a round house with a turn table. It had yard track parallel to the Beltway but ground level (Beltway was elevated) South of the 26thSt plant. Mainly coal storage.Your time frame is close to when they closed down the entire factory and shut down the M.J. If you have any photos of the reefers could you please post them.
It is Manufacturers Junction. It is a shortline railroad owned by Anheiser Busch (spelling?) and operated out of Saint Louis. Presumably, they used the refrigerator cars for the shipment of beer.
The cars were grey and black, with a red stripe and white lettering. However, they were all pained solid grey by my Dad's friend.
This has two pictures of a Manufacturers Ry (St. Louis, without the Junction) reefer-
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?id=74945
A few more here-http://www.railcarphotos.com/Search.php?SearchReportingMark=MRS&Search=Search&PageNumber=2
nanaimo73 wrote: This has two pictures of a Manufacturers Ry (St. Louis, without the Junction) reefer-http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?id=74945 A few more here-http://www.railcarphotos.com/Search.php?SearchReportingMark=MRS&Search=Search&PageNumber=2
The cars on the top of Dale's second post are what they looked like.
The lead paint problem would be common to scrapping just about anything - not only railroad cars or even refrigerator cars - the was painted prior to about 1977 (or whenever it was that lead paint started to be banned), so that can't be too much of a deterrent - otherwise, nothing from that time frame would get scrapped. Proper masks and ventilation for the employees, and filters to trap and recover the lead particles to preclude release into the environment (= wind) would be what is needed.
Likewise for the foam. Again, there must be a lot of stuff with similar foam in it that gets scrapped. If nothing else, "cold-cut" them apart enough with giant shears (common on demolition and scrapping equipment, like converted excavators, etc.) to be able to get the foam out manually and dispose of it, then finish the job with abrasive saws or torches, etc.
But what I really wonder is: Might that insulation really be asbestos - common enough back in the day for "hot" applications (not sure about "cold" ones like this) - which would be a whole 'nother headache. Again, neither rare nor impossible, but maybe cost-prohibitive ? Just a thought.
For what it's worth, if the empty car weighs say 40 tons (net tons = 2,000 lbs.) = 80,000 lbs., most all of that would be steel - the insulation wouldn't weight much, although the wood or lining could be a few thousand pounds. So 40 net tons would be about 36 gross tons (2,240 lbs.), so say 30 gross tons yield at $200/ ton (wild guess on my part - look it up in the Wall Street Journal's "C" section for a better figure) would yield about $6,000 per car. I suspect that the actual cost of the scrapping operation (not including environmenetal protections) would be in the range of $500 to $1,000 per car - 1 guy with a torch could do it in about a day, or with the giant shear in a couple of hours. Since there's 12 of these cars, some economies of scale should kick in, too. So your father's friend might want to look into this further.
- Paul North.
I just looked at these photos of "MRS 2048", and the stenciled data in the left-hand close-up photo confirms what I expected in my earlier post:
The "LT WT 93600" is 93,600 lbs. = 46.8 (net) tons, so figure about 40 (gross) tons (or maybe a little less) scrap yield from each car.
Also - the "NEW 2 73" indicates that this car was built in Feb. 1973, which pre-dates the lead paint ban, to the best of my knowledge, so that is likely an issue here.
Just take the doors off and put them out on the tree lawn.
Gabe -
I overlooked that the trucks had been removed - that would reduce the scrap weight and value a little bit. At about 9,000 lbs. per truck (see http://trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=210 = "Freight Car Trucks and Carbodies" by Paul D. Schneider, dated May 1, 2006, in the 1st line under "Trucks and Wheel Bearings"), that would be about 18,000 lbs. = 9.0 (net) tons or about 8.0 (gross) tons less - still around 32 tons (gross) per car.
Also, don't think that the scrap purchase price 20 years ago means that they are of little value in today's market. Scrap steel is a commodity as much as pork bellies and copper, and can fluctuate wildly, as you correctly note that the price is high now. Actually, at $1,800 per car back then, if those cars weighed about 45 or 46 tons (gross) per car - including the trucks as purchased - that would be about $40 per gross ton. For 20 years ago - mid-1980's - that was about a fair price at some times, as much as I can recall from back then.
Finally, since the car was built in the 1970's, foam was definitely used as insulation back then, so that part may be true enough.
Hope this is helpful.
OK as I stated "Manufactures Junction" "M.J. RR." Western Electric Cicero IL.
"Manufactures Railroad" "M.R" is a Beer wagon
That is why I requested clearification. Thank You Guys
Gabe ,
The best way to scrap them is with a shear, not a torch . I shear will take about 2 hours per car .
Randy Stahl wrote:Gabe , The best way to scrap them is with a shear, not a torch . I shear will take about 2 hours per car .
Here's a link to the web page of a company- Terra Firma Equipment - in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada that apparently makes and sells such a shear, called a "Vibra-Ram Shear":
http://www.terrafirmaequipment.com/shears.htm
Note that in the descriptive paragraph, it states that these shears can be "used . . . for scrapping vehicles, railway wagons . . . " [emphasis added]. From its appearance, I think Randy's estimate of 2 hours per car is about right on.
gabe wrote: nanaimo73 wrote: This has two pictures of a Manufacturers Ry (St. Louis, without the Junction) reefer-http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?id=74945 A few more here-http://www.railcarphotos.com/Search.php?SearchReportingMark=MRS&Search=Search&PageNumber=2 The cars on the top of Dale's second post are what they looked like.Gabe
The cars in the second photo, as well as the cars in the first photo are Anheuser-Busch's cars. The white car is older and is in A-B's yard at the foot of Arsenal Street. You can see the building in the background has dark green frames and red window sashes, as do all A-B's buildings.
The gray and black cars were quite handsome when they were new. The white cars got dirty quickly. But I can't tell you any dates.
Before we get too carried away on the MRS beer cars, yes, Manufacturers Junction did operate some RBLs leased from General Electric. These were old Evans Products cars, woith the double plug doors, painted in the colors of prior lessees (or, most likely, red).
I, too, would be interested in seeing photos, as I didn't see nearly enough of these when they were in service (I hadn't realized that they might all now be gone).
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
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