A 20th century railroad icon, the late Mr. John W. Barriger, 3, was president and "traveling freight agent" of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad 1965-1970. During his administration the railroad underwent a significant number of positive changes, and among them was the acquisition of new and rehabbed equipment. A lot of this equipment carried BKTY reporting marks. I've seen BKTY reporting marks applied to 100-ton capcity covered hoppers and 77-ton capacity boxcars, and these were cars so stencilled in the pre-1988 Katy/MoPac merger era. Even today still floating around the Union Pacific system are some shopped, 100-ton capacity covered hoppers painted light gray, with bold, sans-serif BKTY reporting marks, and the Union Pacific herald applied to each side of the car body.
I vaguely remember reading something in Trains Magazine that the letter "B" in BKTY had something to do with Mr. Barriger, but alas that story has slipped my mind. Someone, please, enlighten me on the creation of the BKTY reporting mark.
Barriger's Katy?
I think I remember Trains saying that that wasn't the case.
These were cars that were financed for the railroad by the Bankers Leasing Company. They were operated by a company known as The Commonwealth Plan.
You'll still see a few of them floating around, but they're getting pretty old.
(Just waiting for somebody to say that MKT ran out of numbers! )
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)
Hmmm ... "Bankers Leasing Company." Weren't they affiliated with the once mighty Southern Pacific Company?
During their last years of prosperity (in the D.J. Russell / B.F. Biaggini era), I remember seeing many covered hoppers stencilled with BLCX reporting marks, but the name "Southern Pacific" was painted on the sides. The cars did not look like they were some kind of sale and lease-back-to-the-railroad arrangement.
Actually they may have been owned by Bankers Leasing, but were leased to specific customers to insure a dedicated car supply. Also, as customer-leased equipment, whenever the cars were parked on customer owned track, demurrage charges did not apply.
I remember those BLCX Center Flows, and SP had a lot of cars that were steencilled as being leased from The Commonwealth Plan, including a number of those Evergreen Freight Car reefers.
I don't know about any corporate involvement, but it is possible--those BKTY freight cars sometimes carried SP-style classifications, and were often similar to SP series.
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