Micro-Trains Oct Releases

[dcr1793]

While not the exact car but a similar PRR boxcar was produced with the PC green replacement door.

034 52 440 - released in 5/2019 - PRR 88407

https://www.trovestar.com/catalog/item/213212

Collin

[learmoia]

I suppose the September model represents NYC.. (if you look hard enough)..

So we won't get to see this..
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Or This.
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[garethashenden]

I thought it was illegal to not have correct reporting marks. I know the old logos and stuff can stay. Like how the green Penn Central car says "CR" on it because that is the new owner.

I model pre-mergers 

For cars to be legal for interchange service.. sure..

This equipment is clearly NOT legal for interchange.. (Roof Walks, Friction Bearing Trucks, ect..) as long as it's safe to move and stays on the owner road then it's fair game.

However.. notice they ALL have ACI Car ID tags (and I now see that Micro-Trains left that detail off  )

I don't really see what's illegal about these cars. It looks to be a picture from the late '70s.

[bbussey]

I thought it was illegal to not have correct reporting marks.

What is illegal about them?  The predecessor railroad reporting marks still are registered to the successor railroad.  Open up any ORER from the 1990s and you'll still see a notable amount of Conrail revenue in-service equipment with pre-merger and pre-pre-merger reporting marks.  The latest ORER that I have is October 1988 and there still are four NH heavy-duty flatcars listed, not to mention a ton of EL, LV and PC equipment.

[learmoia]

What is illegal about them?  The predecessor railroad reporting marks still are registered to the successor railroad.  Open up any ORER from the 1990s and you'll still see a notable amount of Conrail revenue in-service equipment with pre-merger and pre-pre-merger reporting marks.  The latest ORER that I have is October 1988 and there still are four NH heavy-duty flatcars listed, not to mention a ton of EL, LV and PC equipment.

Right, Somewhere I have a photo from 1997-1998 of a PRR Gon with an "NYC" (CSXT) initial hand written on it. Never got a PC or CR initial..

I think the confusion is people are Grouping 'Revenue Service' with 'Legal for Interchange' in comparison to MOW - Non Revenue - Company Service.

But if your a big railroad, you can have revenue cars that can't be interchanged with other railroads.

As I understand it..
MOW - Non Revenue - Company Service - Moving for Dismantle/Scrap = Anything deemed 'safe to move' empty..

Revenue Service = Anything moving from Point A to Point B and making the railroad revenue... but really it's split into two areas.
- Revenue Captive Service = Anything moving from Point A to Point B on One Railroad and making the railroad revenue...
- Revenue Interline (Interchange) Service = Anything moving from Point A to Point B on Multiple Railroads.

That said..

- Revenue Captive Service is alot more relaxed as long as the car is fit for service knowing the car will NEVER leave your railroad.
---- Only you need to know what it is and what it's used for.
.....Conrail Ore Jennies are probably one of the best known examples of this...

- Revenue Interline/Interchange Service is where all the safety and standard rules come into play..
--- Every Railroad needs to know what it is and what it's used for.
--- Note, if a car is moving across multiple roads to be scrapped, it needs to be up to interchange standards.

So I'd say those 3 box cars are MOW/Captive/Scrap or Revenue Captive Service.

~Ian

[nkalanaga]

The BN ran predecessor reporting marks well into the 80s after their 1970 merger.  Many of the older cars were never repainted or relettered, running out their service lives as GN, NP, CB&Q, or SP&S.  BNSF did the same thing, with BN and ATSF cars still running years after the merger.  Here's a picture from May 2018, west of Laurel, MT, of a BN FMC covered hopper, 23 years after the BNSF merger:



The BN also kept the old logos trademarked, so they could not only be protected, but used.

[Tristan Ashcroft]

For me, I find it interesting that all three are double door box cars.

Conrail preferentially hung on to predecessor road double door 50 ft boxcars for autoparts service - for the dense things like engine blocks or such, I believe.  Presumably, the double doors made it easier for forklifts to do their thing. 

As autoparts cars in a captive service, CR could get away with not keeping the cars up to full interchange standards.

We could go digging for photos, but my recollection is that those cars lasted into the 90s - at least a little bit.  Extrapolating from what pictures I've seen, those cars did seem to get refurbished with full Conrail repaints by the end of the rainbow era.

Roofwalk and sideframe updates for those cars were not so consistent.  (I'm guess the railroad wasn't repacking friction bearings all over the place in the 1980s, and instead cars with old friction bearing sideframes had roller bearings in them?  But I really don't know)

Not exactly the same, but fun: there's this gem of a photo that Moloco labels 1988: https://www.molocotrains.com/cdn/shop/products/EL68366copright1988MAYtoledooh_-_resized_1024x1024.jpg?v=1571439752
That does appear to be a full roofwalk, among other anachronisms.

[nkalanaga]

A lot of BN 40 ft boxcars kept their roofwalks into the 80s, until they were scrapped.  Towards the end, the main use for 40 ft single-door cars was grain, which required that elevator personnel be on top of the car during loading.  One of the last places they were used was the Mansfield Branch near Wenatchee, WA.  BN finally convinced the elevator(s) that it was cheaper to truck the grain to a mainline elevator, and scrapped the branch and the cars.

I have a few pictures of a long line of old GN, NP, and CB&Q cars, never repainted, waiting east (south) of Wenatchee, in 1983.  Whether they were ever used again I have no idea.

The branch was laid with used rail - from the GN's original 1890s mainline.  It was too light for a 100-ton car, and was operated with special-built lightweight GPs.

[Westcoast_Trains]

a lot of those 40ft BN  boxcars cars were subsequently used in MOW service as well to my knowledge

[nkalanaga]

They were, and some were sold as storage sheds.

[Westcoast_Trains]

quite a few I think. Would be cool to get one for a "model shed" one day

[ntex]

I probably have enough A.R.T. reefers, but this one intrigues me (can't find any BUDX proto photos).

https://micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=235&product_id=5732


Mark

In the Signature Press book "American Refrigerator Transit", BUDX 91400-91699 Refurbished A.R.T. 1965 Class RB 40ft, 50 cars. "return empty to Manufacturers Rwy. Co. St. Louis, Mo." (Anheuser-Busch). No information on when they left the roster.

Steve