up829 wrote:I've read that before covered hoppers, they used to install grain doors inside boxcars and presumably haul bulk grain. How did this work and how did they load and unload?
The door openings had to be covered most of the way up. This was originally done with lumber, but later done with cardboard pieces especially made to be stapled over the door openings (and reinforced to be strong enough to take the pressure of the load). The grain would be loaded, possibly by conveyor belt or chute, into the top of the car opening (which also had to be large enough for inspectors to crawl in), and the car could be filled reasonably full this way. They would be emptied by whatever means the consignees had for handling such loads. Some railroads (UP and Soo Line come to mind) had box cars with grain doors in the regular doors (near the tops) that would make all of the coopering unnecessary.
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)
I kinda like this boxcar:
CShaveRR wrote: ericsp wrote: I also saw a UELX 60' RBL(?) that appeared to be a former Conrail car. UELX? That's an ADM reporting mark, and they have only covered hoppers and tanks, that I'm aware of. I've seen some KELX 60-foot box cars (not RBLs) that are ex-PC or CR, and some HLMX 60-foot reefers that probably originated with Conrail.
ericsp wrote: I also saw a UELX 60' RBL(?) that appeared to be a former Conrail car.
I also saw a UELX 60' RBL(?) that appeared to be a former Conrail car.
UELX? That's an ADM reporting mark, and they have only covered hoppers and tanks, that I'm aware of. I've seen some KELX 60-foot box cars (not RBLs) that are ex-PC or CR, and some HLMX 60-foot reefers that probably originated with Conrail.
UELX 6200 series. I never thought about UELX being an ADM reporting mark until I was typing the original post. Then it hit me, ADM boxcars seem a bit odd. There is a ADM oil repackaging plant in the area. I suspect they are hauling in drums of oil not used in enough quantities to ship via tankcar. My source says that UELX 6200-6207 are R610s.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
CShaveRR wrote:Actually, no there isn't. When they did exist, Railbox and Railgon were subsidiaries of the TTX Company. They were eventually merged into TTX. If you look at the owners of the reporting marks, RBOX, ABOX, TBOX, FBOX, and IBOX are all reporting marks of the TTX Company, as are GONX and GNTX (and GNDX, though I haven't seen one of those yet).
There is also the puzzling practice of TTX not putting Railbox on its new boxcars but putting Railgon on its new gondolas.
Murphy Siding wrote: Are most boxcars still railroad owned?
Most are. NS is currently selling off some old PRR and SOU boxcars...
LC
Murphy Siding wrote: I just saw a Seaboard Coast Line boxcar at lunch.
I just saw a Seaboard Coast Line boxcar at lunch.
What was it eating?
Nothing with trans fats, I hope!
Sorry, I couldn't resist...
clarkbar04 wrote:I live in a heavy forest products area so there are lots of boxcars around all the time. Boxcars are my favorite too. I recently saw an old one at a paper mill that had the old UP "map" scheme on it, armor yellow with the "automated railway" slogan. Like this:Another recent notable was the Seattle & North Shore. (south shore?)
Clarkbar,
I used to have the Tyco version of that car from the 70's. Aside from the thick detail, it looked pretty accurate, without their usual neon paint job, though they painted the doors silver if memory serves. It's long gone now, but I still remember the "Automated Railway" map. This is the first time I've seen the prototype.
Nelson
Ex-Southern 385 Being Hoisted
ericsp wrote: CShaveRR wrote: ericsp wrote: I also saw a UELX 60' RBL(?) that appeared to be a former Conrail car. UELX? That's an ADM reporting mark, and they have only covered hoppers and tanks, that I'm aware of. I've seen some KELX 60-foot box cars (not RBLs) that are ex-PC or CR, and some HLMX 60-foot reefers that probably originated with Conrail. UELX 6200 series. I never thought about UELX being an ADM reporting mark until I was typing the original post. Then it hit me, ADM boxcars seem a bit odd. There is a ADM oil repackaging plant in the area. I suspect they are hauling in drums of oil not used in enough quantities to ship via tankcar. My source says that UELX 6200-6207 are R610s.
Wow! I never would have expected that. What's especially surprising is that there haven't been any "new" UELX cars in more than twenty years, until these came along earlier this year. Congratulations--you stumped the chump!
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
cr6479 wrote:Today i saw LHV,NYC,EL,NW,PRR,C&O,B&O,CSXT,NS,CN,CNW,UP,BN,BNSF and Big blue boxcars.
Do the EL boxcars still have "EL" reporting marks or are they "CR" or "PRR" or "NYC"?
Limitedclear wrote: cr6479 wrote:Today i saw LHV,NYC,EL,NW,PRR,C&O,B&O,CSXT,NS,CN,CNW,UP,BN,BNSF and Big blue boxcars. Do the EL boxcars still have "EL" reporting marks or are they "CR" or "PRR" or "NYC"? LC
Limitedclear. YES the some of the boxcars still say EL,PRR,NYC and conrail on them.
I kinda like boxcars myself. These days large receivers are requesting boxcar commodities move on other equipment, effectively demarketing a railroad mainstay. Most Class Is are significantly downsizing their boxcar fleets to better fit the market as well as to standardize their fleets. As a result of serial merging, many large carriers found themselves with literally hundreds of different boxcar versions. There's been a major effort since 2001 to move towards more uniform types. TTX has been the engine of change acquiring the 50' high cube FBOXs, originally only to be equipped with 12' single plug doors. There are a few hundred with 10' single plugs as a bow to their eastern owners but now hunting loads. The TBOXs are the 60' high cubes with double 8' plug doors, 16' opening. These are the new Cadillacs of the boxcar universe. There is a prototype floating around you'd be lucky to catch, the IBOX which is an insulated TBOX.
Start taking pictures of WP [Western Pacific] boxcars. There were never many and they're now being scrapped for components.
iowavette wrote: serial merging
serial merging
Serial merging! I like that phrase.
There were still READING Plug-Door Boxcars in the totally original scheme in 2004 and 2005. The paint has held up very well over the past 30 years, so that must be why it was never repainted.
I did see a Burlington Route CB&Q Boxcar just 2 years ago, but it was so rusty that I could barely make out the reporting marks and logo.
The former Penn Central KELX Boxcars have paint over the name and logo which is fading away.
Andrew
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
sbd2702 wrote:Can you tell us where you saw the EL and PRR cars? That sounds like an extraordinarily rare find!
The train was on the Buffalo to Syracuse chicago main line heading west from Selkirk New York to Elkharrt Indiana
clarkbar04 wrote:Another recent notable was the Seattle & North Shore. (south shore?)
Seattle & North Coast. They've been gone for a long time, but some of the box cars they obtained in 1980 are still around, operating under their fourth or fifth reporting mark.
Kevin C. Smith wrote:How long (barring damage/repairs) can one reasonably expect a freight car (box car, specifically) paint job to last?
Probably too many variables to say for sure--the paint used (don't know whether it was specified by manufacturer or purchaser) has a lot to do with it. Some cars look pretty good yet after 25 or 30 years; some other cars less than ten years old have some pretty disgusting-looking paint jobs.
It's probably safe to say that most original paint jobs are going to stand up better than the paint applied by the railroads themselves during a rebuilding or relettering. In most cases, that's the result of the care lavished (or not) on the car's old surfaces before the new paint is applied. I know a certain railroad (that liked blue) that did next to no preparation of surfaces before repainting its cars. Mookie would not want to be related to some of the mangy-looking year-old kittens that resulted from that! And somebody else who owns a lot of box cars is using--and specifying--a kind of paint the seems to just crack up like a dry riverbed. I've seen some of their covered hoppers that have had to be repainted after only about five years.
enough talk-lets see some PICTURES!
can you top this?
railfanespee4449 wrote: enough talk-lets see some PICTURES!
railfanespee,
Where were the photos taken? The first one looks like she doesn't have long to go before she's dust. Any effort to preserve them?
I've recently seen a Northern Alberta Railway boxcar in the consist of a UP train in Midvale, Utah. There's also a string of U.S. Army 40'(?) boxcars sitting on a stretch of track on Hill AFB's property in Clearfield, UT. that can be viewed when heading north on I-15. The Army boxcars have all their reporting marks painted out, with the initials "DRMO" spray-painted onto their sides. I wonder if that means that they'll be scrapped?
iowavette wrote: I kinda like boxcars myself. These days large receivers are requesting boxcar commodities move on other equipment, effectively demarketing a railroad mainstay.
I kinda like boxcars myself. These days large receivers are requesting boxcar commodities move on other equipment, effectively demarketing a railroad mainstay.
What commodities would these be, and what kind of cars are they moving on now?
Murphy Siding wrote: iowavette wrote: I kinda like boxcars myself. These days large receivers are requesting boxcar commodities move on other equipment, effectively demarketing a railroad mainstay. What commodities would these be, and what kind of cars are they moving on now?
They are probably primarily container cars. Although there may be lumber shifting towards center-beam (I guess you would know more about that).
Fortunately, I still see plenty of boxcars out here. They bring in lumber and cottonseed and haul out tomato products and composite roofing shingles
CShaveRR wrote: clarkbar04 wrote:Another recent notable was the Seattle & North Shore. (south shore?) Seattle & North Coast. They've been gone for a long time, but some of the box cars they obtained in 1980 are still around, operating under their fourth or fifth reporting mark.
Can anybody give a rough idea of the % of what kind of merchandise is currently in boxcars? Thanks
Wish I was a photographer......I saw a boxcar last night that was so covered with graffiti, that it looked like someone had tried to paint it a different color! You could actually see what looked like marks from a paint roller.
440cuin wrote:Boxcars used to haul coal too, they just filled the cars with coal from the door when short of hopper or gons in some regions anyways.
Wow. Coal in boxcars! Who-da-thunk-it? I wouldn't have wanted to have been inside one of those cars, shoveling out product and scaring up a lot of coal dust. Whadda fire hazard - or maybe even explosive hazard - that would have been!
Some old heads on the Missouri-Illinois told me that the railroad used to ship lead ore in 40-ft boxcars between the mines located in the Rivermines / Desloge / Bonne Terre area up to the St. Joseph Lead Company smelter in Herculaneum, MO. These shipments went the direct route on the old Mississippi River and Bonne Terre Railway. Sometime during the mid-1960s the ore ran out and the line was severed between the north end of Bonne Terre and a point a little ways south of Crystal City, MO.
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