On Sunday, 10-23, I drove east from Garden City, KS toward Larned, KS on Hwy 156 and saw more than 500 rail cars stored on what was the former Santa Fe Larned District. They were between stations Hanston and Burdett in long blocks that were only separated for country road crossings. Two markings I was able to read were: CWEX and TNJX.
Can anyone provide info about how long they have been there and what ladings they once hauled.
diningcarOn Sunday, 10-23, I drove east from Garden City, KS toward Larned, KS on Hwy 156 and saw more than 500 rail cars stored on what was the former Santa Fe Larned District. They were between stations Hanston and Burdett in long blocks that were only separated for country road crossings. Two markings I was able to read were: CWEX and TNJX. Can anyone provide info about how long they have been there and what ladings they once hauled.
What kinds of cars were observed?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
they appeared to be cars for hauling grain, the sides were perhaps 5-6 feet high and there were no apparent covers on them.
Doing a quick search on the wiki, I can find that the CWEX reporting marks belong the Commonwealth Edison, which leads me to believe that those are bathtub gondolas for hauling coal, as for how long they've been stored...I'd hazard a guess as to sometime within the last 12 months or so, give or take depending on when CE reduced coal usage. Couldn't find anything on the TNJX marks and I no longer have access to the online UMLER, which now requires registration(as if looking up reporting marks could benefit someone in any way).
Commonwealth Edison sold off their Fossil Generating Stations many (18?) years ago (Most to Midwest Generating) and with them, the coal car fleet. Midwest has lately converted many of their coal plants to gas and so you are correct, the cars are surplus. Illinois Railway Museum stored a lot of them last winter. And even used theit 2-10-2 to move them (110 cars) this spring, when thy were delivered to the UP for storage elsewhere.
Reporting marks CWEX were transferred to Midwest Generation along with the cars and power plants. I'm not surprised that these are surplus at the moment.As for TNJX, I find nothing on these cars, historically or current, which means you have a bogus reporting mark. PNJX is a reporting mark that was once on a fleet of coal gons with royal blue rotary-coupler ends, but most of those have already been assigned elsewhere.Any chance you'll be seeing these again, DC?
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)
CShaveRR, I will not be out that way again in the foreseeable time frame. I did not count them as they were several miles long, and so far away that reporting marks could not be seen except in a few instances.
This former Santa Fe line appears to have given up rail service west from Burdett where these miles long cars are stored and the track is completely removed west from Hanston.
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