Which railroads bought the Rock Island equipment. Like the Auto Racks.

[Anonymous]

The Rock Island Equipment went to many railroads after the 1980 bankruptcy.

Mo-Pac and Grand Trunk Western got the GP38-2 Units.

Bessemer & Lake Erie got Three-Bay. Open-Top Hoppers.

Grand Trunk Western got Box Cars.

Chicago & North Western got Gondolas, Cabooses, Waffle-SIde Box Cars, Pullman-Standard Covered Hoppers, AIRSLIDE Hoppers, Ballast Hoppers.

Union Pacific got Pullman-Standard Covered Hoppers.

RUSX got ACF Center-Flow 3-Bay Covered Hoppers. 4600 Cu. Ft. Capy.

What Railroads got the rest of the Rock Island Equipment?

Specifically which railroads bought the Rock Island Auto Racks?

[ericsp]

I have seen PS hoppers and FMC single door, outside braced XM boxcars that went to CNW. It seems like I have heard about 5344 cubic foot PS XM boxcars that went to CNW.

[Anonymous]

More of the Former Rock Island equipment was sold to CNW and GTW.

Grand Trunk Western also got Rock Island Gondolas.

Chicago & North Western did buy some 50' Plug-Door Box Cars.

Did the Rock Island Auto Racks go to Trailer Train where they were rebuilt and painted for numerous railroads?

Andrew F.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Auto racks are an interesting situation. Normally, the flatcar is owned by TTX while the rack is owned by the railroad. I'm not sure of how this came to be, it may be related to financing or something similar.

It's quite possible that the racks were removed and TTX put the flatcars into other service, such as specialized loads or containers.

[amtrakjackson]

Grand Trunk Western also got many of the autoracks. Many had ROCK bottoms; the reporting marks and numbers were painted out along with the logos on the top. GTW also got covered hoppers.

Ian

[CShaveRR]

Ian is correct--the ROCK auto racks were relettered and renumbered to GTW series. GTW also got some coil steel cars, covered hoppers, gondolas, and the Mexican-built box cars.

UP got a lot more than covered hoppers--it got a number of box cars, reefers, open hoppers, and cabooses--probably everything it helped to finance in the days when it was expected that they would be allowed to merge the RI.

C&O got a small series of hi-cube box cars--but this could have occurred before the big division of equipment.

Arch of Kentucky's also got some of the hoppers from the same series as the ones that went to the B&LE. I guess the coal company and the railroad were both subsidiaries of U.S. Steel at the time.

Some of the newer ROCK Center Flow covered hoppers were leased to SSW for a time. They're now in a FURX/NDYX/NOKL series (815000s, I believe).

A lot of the older, unwanted RI equipment went to the North American Car Corporation for disposition. Many of those cars were relettered for its Mexican operations (ENDX back then, I think). EJ&E also got a bunch of Pullman Standard covered hoppers (older cars lettered RI originally, not the newer "ROCK" cars), but those subsequently went elsewhere.

Boston & Maine got a series of 200 ROCK box cars built by Evans Products.

CNW got several different groups of box cars, gondolas, covered hoppers, flat cars (the 60-foot farm-equipment cars), ballast cars, some side dump cars, and some cabooses.

Carl

[fuzzybroken]

CNW got TONS of Rock GP7s and GP9s, and picked up a pending order of GP38-2s. GTW also got a batch of GP38-2s. Rock's SD40-2s went to ICG, then EMD, and some ended up on WSOR. [:D]

Here's one of my favorite ex-Rock covered hopper photos:
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=4081832&a=31293073&p=71122980&f=0
Very cool! You can still see the old "Rock Island" speed lettering!

[Anonymous]

4 of Rock's GP38-2's went to Pittsburgh & Lake Erie.

[Anonymous]

Several U25B went to maine Central

[joegreen]

Interesting this topic has come up. With in the last couple weeks I have seen 3 Rock Island hoppers, 1 on BNSF and 2 on the IC&E. The hopper I saw on a BNSF grain train was lettered for RUSX and the 2 on IC&E were lettered for IMRL. I would expect those 2 IMRL hoppers to be lettered for ICE within the next year or 2.

[Anonymous]

Interasting with how all the Rock Equipment was Dispersed of, also I remember SP/SSW getting some ex-RI Grain Hoppers. is that the case?

[Anonymous]

Chicago,South Shore & South Bend got some of the RI 52'6" Thrall covered gondolas.SSW did get some 3 bay center flow covered hoppers.I think they went to RUSX sometime in the late 80's early 90's.Most of the freight equipment seemed to go to UP or CNW.

Have a good one.

Bill
Iowa

[Anonymous]

Thank You everyone, especially Carl, for all of your information and sightings.

I definitely have seen most of the Former Rock cars on the GTW, but I was uncertain if they were actually from the Rock Island.

There were some hastily painted ACF Center Flow 2-Bay Covered Hoppers in GTW Blue that had to be from the Rock Island roster.

Andrew Falconer

[amtrakjackson]

Lest I forget- Conrail received some Rock Island coil cars as well.

Ian

[Anonymous]

Cargill Flour Milling acquired about a dozen small airslide hoppers for bulk flour which were assigned to KS mills in Topeka & Newton. I recall one car in this batch painted in the blue & white. Do not have fond memories of climbing into those cars to scrape them out & then load w/bakery flour. They were in poor shape to begin with and if I recall correctly, were off the property by 1987-1988 when CSX cars were then leased as replacements.

[Bob-Fryml]

Look closely at a Union Pacific 24,000-series bay window caboose and you'll probably see the letters "CRI&P" cast into the truck side frames. After The Rock went belly-up, U.P. acquired many, re-habbed a few, and sold the rest (mostly for scrap).

The re-habbed ex-Rock Island cabooses were wonderful - smooth riding and quiet too. They were noticably better than the "cadillac crummies" (original Union Pacific), specifically the CA-5s CA-9s, and CA-10s.

[Anonymous]

Just thought I'd add a related picture.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=367963

(Sorry,I know some of you don't like links but I am not sure how to post the picture)

[Anonymous]

There are photos of several former Rock Island cabooses in the UP 24000 series on the website www.rr-fallenflags.org

These cabooses can be found in the UP Freight Equipment listings. Some of the photos show the cabooses in a patch-over schemes.

Andrew Falconer

[Andrew Falconer]

During 2009 many former blue & white ROCK Gondolas with EAMX reporting marks have been in CN trains in Michigan. EAMX stands for Everest Railcar Services.

Andrew

[desertdog]

The original owner of the Wisconsin and Southern picked up a large number of Thrall and Evan 52' gondolas that had been ordered by the Rock Island. They bore WSOR and UMP reporting marks. John Timm

[RRKen]

Covered Hoppers.   4750 Cuft:   RUSX got a number of the ACF types, CNW (UP) still has a number of both the PS and ACF types in the system. Some were returned to lessor earlier this year, I would say several hundred.   The CNW 190xxx series (ex-RI) were also returned to least earlier this year.   IMRL/ICE also had quite a few of them, and they are still in service.

 Some of the 4750's were returned to NAHX, and now have NAHX marks, I see them from time to time, very few of them left.

 3000 Cuft:  UP got a number of them all being repainted by now, a few still in cement service, in the 218xxx series.  

[MP173]

Between Joliet and Bloomington, Il on the east side of I55 there is an old Rock Island flat car which is used as a bridge over a ditch.

ed

[CShaveRR]

Ken, those 190000-series CNW covered hoppers were not ex-RI cars--you'll find that they carry build dates from 1981 and 1982, IIRC, well after the ROCK's demise. They were strange creatures when it came to being relettered. Some had been returned to their NAHX series almost as soon as they were built, and quite a few lingered on CNW for years. Some even made it back to different CNW series.

The ex-CNW cars from Rock Island that were recently returned were the Evans-built clones of Pullman Standard 4750-cubic-foot cars. I think they're in the NAHX 65000 series now. Their NAHX numbers are in order from the surviving CNW numbers, but CNW's renumbering of the ex-RI cars was totally at random, within four or five different groups. I might be able to provide more details later.

[cv_acr]

http://freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/search.pl?marks=RI&display=full

http://freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/search.pl?marks=ROCK&display=full

[cbq9911a]

falconer

The Rock Island Equipment went to many railroads after the 1980 bankruptcy.

Mo-Pac and Grand Trunk Western got the GP38-2 Units.

Bessemer & Lake Erie got Three-Bay. Open-Top Hoppers.

Grand Trunk Western got Box Cars.

Chicago & North Western got Gondolas, Cabooses, Waffle-SIde Box Cars, Pullman-Standard Covered Hoppers, AIRSLIDE Hoppers, Ballast Hoppers.

Union Pacific got Pullman-Standard Covered Hoppers.

RUSX got ACF Center-Flow 3-Bay Covered Hoppers. 4600 Cu. Ft. Capy.

What Railroads got the rest of the Rock Island Equipment?

Specifically which railroads bought the Rock Island Auto Racks?

 

One Rock Island ballast car is at IRM, via C&NW.  Also C&NW GP7 4160, ex Rock Island.

[Andrew Falconer]

I have not seen the Thrall Car Ex-ROCK Covered Hoppers, only the ACF and Pullman-Standard Ex-ROCK Covered Hoppers.

Thanks for the link.

[CShaveRR]

Andrew, it wouldn't be hard to mistake the Thrall covered hoppers for Pullman Standard. The Thralls have narrower ribs, and a peaked roof without the curving top profile of the PS cars.

[desertdog]

fuzzybroken

CNW got TONS of Rock GP7s and GP9s, and picked up a pending order of GP38-2s. GTW also got a batch of GP38-2s. Rock's SD40-2s went to ICG, then EMD, and some ended up on WSOR.

Here's one of my favorite ex-Rock covered hopper photos:
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=4081832&a=31293073&p=71122980&f=0
Very cool! You can still see the old "Rock Island" speed lettering!

In his book UNION PACIFIC 1977-1980, George Cockle devotes several pages of photos (pp. 75-81) to Rock Island U28B's and GP40's that were returned to the UP from the Rock. John Timm

[nordique72]

I suppose it's about four years passed on since this is really pertinent information to the person who originally asked it- but the CNW did pick up a very small number of ex-Rock Island Paragon built tri-levels. These were of the older type with open sides that were paneled over- I think it was about 15 or so. The one car I have a photo of is on a TTX flat (TTRX 960385) the rack is painted "Bankruptcy Blue" and the CNW herald is a simple white stencil on the nameplate.

The majority of all the types of cars the CNW picked up are chronicled in the CNWHS publications and their "Final Freight Car Roster" book.

 

[Andrew Falconer]

Thank you for the information on the Rock 3-Level Auto Rack on the Trailer Train Flat car. That is very helpful.

Andrew Falconer