Railroad Initialed 'Railbox' Boxcars?

[learmoia]

Comment Removed.

[jmlaboda - RIP]

The application of RR reporting marks was simple enough... it indicated that the car was sold to that particular railroad after its initial trust had expired.  A large number (if not all) of the remaining original cars were sold off as newer, more specialized cars came into the fleet.  The quick relettering of the reporting mark and sometimes the number simply indicated the new ownership, which meant that the owning railroad and not TTX Corp. would be paid for use of the car.  Repainting depended on the road with some lasting for several years simply restenciled.

As for the cars operating with other cars still owned by Railbox there wasn't any sort of restriction, it simply depended on where the car was unloaded and whether or not the car could be reloaded on the road delivering the car to a customer... with most of the early cars likely being reloaded with shipments heading back to the owning road.  It is always better if the car could be returned to the owning road loaded since it would still be able to keep earning its keep.

[ljudice]

I think this was at it's height in the late 1980's early 1990's - however some cars ended up being transferred AGAIN from their RR owners to shortlines - in particular some of the RR's that are fronts for GE and others - especially Hartford & Slocum - HS reporting marks.  I've even seen some of these cars in relatively recent years.

- Lou

[Carolinarail]

The reason why there were Railbox boxcars with other railroads reporting marks was Trailer Train Corporation had decided to return several of the surplus  cars in the fleet to the member railroads (which helped finance the cars in the first place). This took place beginning in 1982, which by that time, the boxcar shortage that begin in the early to mid 1970s had turn into a huge glut for Trailer Train (and others like National Railway Utilization and ITEL Rail) .

IIRC Southern, Seaboard System, Richmond Fredricksburg & Potomac, Chesapeake & Ohio, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, Burlington Northern, and Missouri Pacific were some of the railroads that received them.

Robyn (yay, my first post!!!)

[Kisatchie]

Robyn (yay, my first post!!!)

Welcome, Robyn. And here is my beautiful companion:


Hmm... Welcome. I am
Ms. Dee Rayle, a Great
Ape, not some lowly
monkey...

[cv_acr]

IIRC Southern, Seaboard System, Richmond Fredricksburg & Potomac, Chesapeake & Ohio, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, Burlington Northern, and Missouri Pacific were some of the railroads that received them.

Also Canadian National, with CNA reporting marks.

Is it a safe assumption that the RR initialed cars would float around with boxcar pools of that railroad, and would not likely mingle with other ABOX/RBOX cars.

Correct - to a point. The RR re-initialed cars were owned by the railroad and no longer in the RailBox pool. So would be treated like any other general service boxcar painted and lettered for that railroad. However the remaining RBOX cars were still free-floaters and could mix with anything, anywhere. So it would be possible for a free-floating RBOX pool car to end up in service with any general service railroad boxcar. And if that railroad boxcar simply happened to be ex-RBOX, that combination is certainly possible.