My favorite commodity at the moment would have to be beer.
No, I don't drink (at all!). But the beer we get at our yard arrives in some of the most exotic box cars you'll see on the railroads any more. Many are still lettered in the paint schemes of the railroads for which they were built in the middle and late 1970s. These cars have, for the most part, been relettered and renumbered to the HS 30000 and 75000 series, and most of them had previously been lettered for the Chiapas-Mayab Railroad (FCCM). My challenge is to get former and original numbers off these cars whenever possible. Considering that the cars are outside and I'm inside when I see them, it is indeed a challenge!
Some of the beer arrives in Ferromex (FXE) box cars that were built for NdeM. I can usually obtain a former NdeM number by visually scanning one of the old ACI labels (many of these have been painted over, or have faded so one has to really think about the possible colors on the label). Sometimes, once you know that the cars were renumbered in order, it's possible to derive some of the intervening numbers between sightings.
So now you know why the job never gets boring...
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)
CNW 6000 wrote:I have to go for big, heavy, long coal drags. I love the thunder of the cars and the roar of the engines working them.
....x2!!!
One of my favorites is a train of steel coils. The cars that carry this product are usually beat up and weary-looking. They evoke images of industrial America; the gritty, heavy industry of big mills that require vast amounts of everything and efficient, powerful ways of moving it. They aren't about the glossy finished product that the general public sees; they're the "behind the scenes", rough-edged, unpainted mover of steel. A commodity truly made to be moved by railroads.
It makes a dramatic point of how well railroads move heavy products when you see a truck with one, or may two, coils loaded and a train gliding by with fifty or more coil cars each loaded with two or three coils of steel.
Gregory
Livestock.
You looked between the slats to judge what type. Close up, sounds and smell could tell. If the train was stopped, the cargo often was not. Livestock milled around in their rolling cage. Slack action on start up encouraged an audible reaction.
Unlike the Zephyrs, passengers were rarely seen westbound from Chicago.
TG3 LOOK ! LISTEN ! LIVE ! Remember the 3.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
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